Technological Determinism

This is my first post. I began the class late and now I am catching up with all the work.

I found the readings on technological determinism to be quite fascinating. The first question that is nagging me is the following: Does technology really determine history by changing the basic structure of society ? One example is the impact of the green revolution in India. Scientists developed varieties of seeds that allowed crop yields to increase dramatically. In theory the impact of this should be overwhelmingly positive but that was not quite the case. When these seeds were imported to India and adopted there in agricultural practices, several things happened. Small farmers were forced out and large farms became the norm. Genetic diversity of crops was reduced significantly making them more susceptible to blights. So the structure of society there did change because of the introduction of a new technology.

In the context of this class, I am curious about how the spread of the internet and ubiqituous personal communication devices will change the way we live. Will the internet democratize society further? Will the freer spread of information give more power to people than before. I somehow think not for the most part in the world. However, certain parts of the world, those that were previously very deprived now have access to more information than ever before and that is having an impact on the way that people think.