Blog post #2 Social Shaping of Technology

New technologies allow for new social practices. New social practices allow for new feelings towards social situations including social anxiety. In the second chapter of Nancy Baym’s ‘Personal Connections in Digital Age’, she explains the interaction between technology and society. She defines various theoretical perspectives including the concept of social shaping of technology. Baym’s defines social shaping of technology as “the consequences of technologies that arise from a mix of affordances – the capabilities of configuration of technological qualities enable – and the unexpected and emergent ways that people make use of those affordances” (p. 51). This sense of social shaping correlates with McLuhan’s idea that it is the users of technology that give meaning and purpose to the technologies that we use. Social shaping of technology takes the ways in which we shape technologies to mean something to us that their original meaning/purpose might not have been intended for and then makes these technologies and practices mundane in our lives. We as technological users appropriate these shaped meaning and integrate them into our everyday lives.

In the article “13, right now”, which focuses on a young girl named Katherine and her relationship with her iPhone and social media, it is clear to se that Katherine has taken social media applications that are intended to be used for communicative purposes and attached a larger meaning to things such as the notification box. With Katherine it is very clear that there is a sense of anxiety that stems from needing to be seen and heard on social media. Katherine, and many people of her age, define themselves today based on social media statistics. Additionally, Katherine allows her smartphone to be a part of her everyday life and ultimately a part of her body in a way. In today’s society of the digital age, especially in teens and young adults, there is a sense of anxiety that follows when we are not in constant contact with our cellular devices. Cell phones and social media have become such a large part of our everyday lives that if we do not have access to these technologies then often we are faced with a sense of missing out. Originally cellphones were designed to be a tool for communication, but now through social shaping we have allowed them to become something that people like Katherine feel they need to get ‘better at’.