Tool Neutrality

The students in my social aspects of information systems class are quick to stake a claim for what I've come to call tool neutrality, or the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument. When we talk about technology's impact on education, for example, the talk often turns to PowerPoint, and just as often someone will make a motion for summary judgment: "PowerPoint is just a tool, it can be used well or poorly, for good or evil, so why are we bothering with this conversation".

It's not always as simple as you'd think to convince them it's maybe not as simple as they think. The "we can do with technology as we wish and put it to the ends we choose" from these technology students is in strong contrast to the naive determinism that still abounds in the popular press, but it's no less naive, and probably no less dangerous. Technology is not entirely external to our culture and politics, but neither does it determine them. Yochai Benkler makes the issue simple: That which a particular technology makes easier to do is, all else equal, more likely to be done in the presence of that technology. When technology affords more effective regulation, we will be more constrained and when it afford liberty we will be more free. Of course, all things are never equal, nor are they static, nor are they predictable; they, and the impact of technology are emergent.

Orlikowski's Duality of Technology makes the false dichotomy clear at the level of the organization. To what extent and how we use a technology is neither entirely discretionary nor entirely beyond our control. Technology is a result of human agency but also becomes institutionalized.

So back to PowerPoint: My students tend, although by no means without exception, to be pretty stridently critical of its effect on the classroom.Why is a subject for another post, but the issue drives home what I think is a critical point: it's hard to imagine that we could unring the PowerPoint bell. Even if it were widely understood that PowerPoint is a drag on the classroom, it's hard to imagine that we could somehow systematically do something about it. PPT has become institutionalized. As innocuous a technology as it is, the US military has acknowledged a problem (PDF) with ranks of unproductive "PowerPoint Rangers" that I rather doubt they've managed to remedy.

Bottom line: The adoption patterns of a given technology are not predetermined, nor are they predictable in any straightforward way. That IT will lead to improvements is never guaranteed. The abstract potential of a system should not be confused for how it is likely to be used in practice.