Analyzing Langdon Winner's 'Technambulism'

Technology shaping the world

Technology has shaped and defined human activity and it has made life easier but more dangerous. As Langdon Winner explains in his piece, Technological Somnambulism, technology is a neutral tool. It can be used in a positive or a negative way. As well, Modern technology can be dangerous in many different ways. As more technology becomes available to the public, more people rely on it. This could be a problem; for example when many people want to figure something out, they will probably just type the question into Google. Technology allows us to think less about certain things, which may be easier but it “dumbs us down”. This could be considered dangerous because we may rely on technology too much and we could become lazy with our everyday rituals. With that said, technology has also helped us improve medicine and science to help cure certain diseases. Without these improvements we wouldn’t be as strong as a community. There seems to always be positive and negative things that come with technology.
Technology reflects and reinforces cultural values as we use it every day.
A piece of technology that is very commonly known is a nuvi; this is a GPS navigator that when you put in an address, it will give you the quickest directions to your destination. People usually use it in their cars so they can travel faster to places and so they don’t have to do it the old fashioned way by using a map. The nuvi is becoming very popular. People are buying these little GPS navigators and sticking to their windshield. I got my license two years ago and my parents leased a car for me to drive. They gave me a nuvi and put it on the windshield of the car. I didn’t use it much at first because I was only driving to places that I knew that were close by. After several months of driving and practice, my parents let me drive wherever I wanted to
go. Before the summer began, I was trying to find a job. I sent in my online application to a gym called club fit and received an email back asking me to schedule an interview. I called and got an interview for the job the next day. I had never been to this gym before so I figured I would plug in the address of the gym to the nuvi and than I would get there in no more than twenty minutes. The next day, I left my house 30 minutes before the interview and plugged in the address. It was only the second or third time I used the nuvi because I really didn’t need it much before this time. As I was on my way, about 15 minutes into the drive, I saw signs for Connecticut, which was the wrong direction because I live in New York. The nuvi was taking me in the completely wrong direction. I knew something was up but I decided to just keep driving because maybe the nuvi was just taking me in a weird way. Ten minutes passed and I was in the middle of nowhere. I was late for my job interview and was completely lost. Technology had failed me big time at that moment. It was an unintended consequence of the design. When people have a nuvi they assume that they will be able to get anywhere they want without having backup plan. There isn’t a way to improve this design because nuvis’ sometimes mess up. This is because of the satellites in space not being able to connect to the nuvi. This device is a great example of our culture today. Technology has made is so we can take the easy way out of certain things in order to do something faster. Although, many times these devices can malfunction. In my case I should have written down instructions on how to get to my interview or maybe have printed out directions but I took the lazy way, the “technology way,” and plugged in the address and the nuvi didn’t work. Technology has definitely made life easier but at the same time it can make life very challenging. It reflects and reinforces cultural values as we use it every day, which could potentially be dangerous. After my experience with the nuvi, I try to always have a back up plan when I deal with technology. We will never know when technology will fail us so we have to always be prepared for it.