An Introductory Framework for Technology

The Big Idea

The world around us is swimming in so much information and hot takes about technology. It can be hard to know. Is technology good? Bad? Neutral? What counts as technology? Is old technology better, or is new technology better? Is there even a “better” technology at all? What tools and pieces of technology should or should I not be using? How do we make sense of all of it?

Similar Notes: Artificial Mountains A Creature Among Machines A Theology of Technology The Echo Chamber Squeeze Religion of Technology Soundbite Culture The Preservation of Tail Knowledge

---

A deep treatment of this subject will no doubt fill many books. The exact nature of technological tools has been sliced many different ways. We have all heard the claims that some new technology will give us unlimited potential to reach our dreams. While academic schools can be found speaking in a more measured pace about aspects such as affordances (the things technology makes possible, impossible, etc.). However, language like this seems to either be overly simplistic, or confusing, to describe what we encounter everyday. What follows is a simple and (hopefully) usable framework. It is the best I have come up with so far and has helped me more thoughtfully engage and evaluate particular tooling.

Technology Understood as Human Tooling

Many discussions of technology paint with a very narrow scope. I believe to truly understand the implications of technological tools, we first need to become aware of the tooling that is living with in all of us. We all have tools such as memory, reason, attention, and language that are basic tools we use to navigate our lives. Much of the early years of a child’s development is dedicated to the foundations of these tools. Therefore it is appropriate to draw the connection between particular external technologies and how they are connected with the internal technologies we hold within ourselves.

Putting Things into a Basic Framework

Therefore to truly treat the full scope of this topic faithfully, we need a clear picture of what it means to use our internal technologies well. From there we can approach external technologies with a grounded perspective. A more full treatment of this concept can be found in my essay Artificial Mountains.

Without getting into the weeds, we can use the distinction between internal and external technologies to chart common characteristics between them all. These are by no means definitive categories, but are a start for observing salient aspects and offering a framework to help make decisions or inform questions. Said another ways, all tooling whether it is within our being, or an external instrument, have the following things in common:

• All technology has Requirements in order to be used.
  • For example, think of the fact that using a hammer requires a hand and arm to swing it. Without those requirements it will sit useless on the ground.
• These requirements shape the particular Rituals humans must perform to use the tool.
  • Thinking of the hammer again, swinging is a well defined action that must be performed over and over until the job is done.
• Every tool brings with it World Constrictions, or things that are harder (or impossible) to do because of the way the technology works and the rituals it promotes.
  • There are many different hammers for various purposes. That being said using a sledge hammer to hang a picture frame will most likely not go well. Likewise, enjoying a calm afternoon walk on a highway is all but impossible because of its world construction and primary use (i.e. the ritual of driving makes the ritual of walking near by more difficult).
• Every tool also brings with it unique Positive or Negative Use Potential for how it can be used well or poorly.
  • What we hear most in advertisements is the positive side of this potential. “Just wait until your life changes with a new -insert technology here-!”
  • Bringing both sides together gives a more balanced understanding. Once again to the hammer, swinging it (carelessly or maliciously) can do a lot of damage to yourself or others. Yet trying to drive a nail without one is difficult to say the least. There is potential for both benefit and harm within a hammer’s use.
  • The distribution toward positive or negative use is not always the same. For example, there are many many many ways to misuse a nuclear bomb and very few ways to use it well.

Let us go through the framework again but this time use an internal technology: Memory.

• Memory also has specific Requirements.
  • Attention is a primary requirement. It does not matter how important something is if it is not attended to it will never be remembered.
• There are many forms and types of memory Rituals.
  • But no matter how one goes about remembering, there is at least the foundational ritual of stopping to pay attention to something. Recitation and review are other common rituals. In all of these cases, you have to actually perform the ritual for the tool (memory) to be engaged and used.
• Internal technologies are less susceptible to World Constrictions compared to external tools. However there are still clear limits.
  • For memory, some of these are the speed of acquisition, the choice of what to focus on, overcommitment to something already memorized, or personal effectiveness of different memory strategies, etc. In other words, memory has a particular shape and mechanics to it that are impassible. Effective memory techniques work within (not opposed) to these constraints.
• Positive and Negative Use Potential are easy to see here.
  • Human memory is and has been used for many good and bad endeavors. Techniques for stealing or lifesaving CPR can both be stored within ones memory. No doubt this is why Psalm 1 advises us to meditate on God’s word continually.

To summarize, every technology has:

• Requirements in order to be used.
• Rituals to initiate and continue its use.
• World Constrictions by the nature of how it is build and works.
• Positive and Negative Use Potential for how it can be used.

This framework can help us walk through any technology and answer the core question:

• Is my use of this technology pulling me toward God or working to separate me from Him?

As we mull this question over we can flesh it out using the framework:

• What does this technology require from me?
• Is it worth the things required (like time, attention, money, etc.).
• Is there an alternative that requires different things of me?
• What kind of person do the rituals around this technology push or hook me into being?
• What kind of healthy rituals does it make harder to follow?
• What am I not able to do because of this technology?
• What are extra things I need to manage because of this technology?
• What positive things does this technology help me accomplish?
• Do those positive things outweigh any negatives?
• What temptations does this technology make available?
• How susceptible to these temptations am I at this moment in life?
• How easy is it to swing from using this technology well to poorly?

As we work through questions like these, we can quickly begin to see blind spots that are easy to excuse around every technology inside and out! How carelessly we tend to use our memory and attention. How much we are encouraged to inflate the upsides of every external technology but never stop to think of their consequences. Or to shun “technology” on principle without being honest about using indoor pluming, cars, pens, books and an armada of other technologies without ever blinking an eye.

My prayer is that this kind of honest engagement with the tooling we have inside and out will help us to hear the voice of God and move to a faithful form of life within our own contexts.