Technophobes may be right after all - possible injury from information and communications technology

Nutrition Health Review, Winter, 2002

People who dispute the claim of universal benefits from new information and communications technologies are often called "technophobes," but the evidence shows that they may be right after all, says a Penn State researcher.

The prevailing view that the more technology we have, the better off we are, simply is not borne out by the evidence, says Dr. Steven Sawyer, associate professor of information science and technology. "It's like claiming that owning a personal digital assistant will automatically make you more organized."

Furthermore, the notion much favored by managers--that information science and technology are going to change your job for the better--does not stand up to scrutiny either, he adds.

Dr. Sawyer and Dr. Kristin Eschenfelder, assistant professor of library and information studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reviewed the literature on the relationship between information and communications technology (ICT) and the larger social context in which these new technologies exist. Their findings were reported in Annual Review of Information Sciences and Technology.

The researchers listed three common findings among the studies:

1. The use of ICT can lead to multiple and sometimes paradoxical effects.

2. The use of ICT shapes thought and action in ways that benefit some groups more than others, and these differential effects can have moral and ethical consequences.

3. A reciprocal relationship exists between ICT design, implementation, use, and the context in which they occur.

The investigators found that the studies typically highlighted unforeseen and unintended outcomes, often contrary to the original intention of the information and communication systems. For example, in one study, groupware that had been designed to improve communication among pharmaceutical sales representatives had the opposite effect. The participating representatives reported that the software did help to achieve one intended goal: a lessened need for face-to-face communications. However, the reduction in face-to-face time harmed overall group communications by removing opportunities for social networking and relationship building.

In another study, conducted by Drs. Eschenfelder and Sawyer and their colleagues, the results showed that a "listserv," originally designed to promote information sharing, became a social testing ground. Instead of freely sharing knowledge with other members across the listserv, members used it informally to evaluate each other by judging the astuteness and appropriateness of posted questions and answers. This activity led to the formation of cliques and a concentration of knowledge among the clique members instead of across all listserv members.

The second common finding, from the list above, illustrates the fact that ICTs are often used to reinforce, not reduce, existing differences in social status, power, and structure. For example, one study cited by the researchers challenged the assumption that search engines are unbiased deliverers of Web page links and that all relevant pages have an equal chance of appearing as the result of a search. In fact, search engine designs might be placing grass-roots, small-scale, alternative, and controversial Web pages at a disadvantage. Another study showed how the structural configuration of the Canadian provincial government telecommunications systems penalized certain rural branch libraries that were attempting to obtain and maintain Internet access services.

The third common finding was illustrated with various examples. In a study of the insurance brokerage industry, brokers rejected an online bidding system because they needed visual and voice contact with the other parties in the negotiations. The ICT system was designed to replace face-to-face negotiations between brokers and underwriters, but they reshaped it, instead, into a record-keeping system for the negotiation results.

The studies reviewed by Drs. Sawyer and Eschenfelder came from a new field of research they called "social informatics" (the body of research and study that examines the social aspects of computerization).

They wrote, "There are various means to help information science and information technology professional develop frameworks to expose the value conflicts embedded in the design of ICT and to explore different perspectives in these situations. However, these are not widely practiced, especially in the U.S.... "There is an ever growing need to develop straightforward, low-cost analytic techniques usable in budget and time constrained environments."