What role does technology play in how we live, and what is a technofix?

Technology enables and shapes our way of life and embodies values, often unspoken, so it is never neutral. A technofix is using technology to "solve" problems that this very way of life created, without questioning the way of life itself.

Four points describe the role of technology:

1. It enables and shapes how we live (cars shape cities, smartphones shape attention).
2. Technology and lifestyle embody values, often without saying so: speed, convenience, individual ownership.
3. It is often used as a technofix (technological fix): a technical answer to a problem that our own lifestyle produced, so the lifestyle can stay as it is. Example: car traffic causes congestion and emissions, and the answer is smarter traffic lights and electric cars, not the question of whether so much individual car traffic is needed.
4. Therefore it is never neutral (Kranzberg).

A technofix is not always wrong, but it shifts the debate from "how do we want to live?" to "which device fixes this?", the gadget-future error in another form.

Go deeper:

• Wikipedia: Technological fix — examples and criticism of solving social problems with technology.