Sociology of Technology in One Term Paper

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As a result they demand more convenient means of addressing communications needs like text messaging and are more prone to use Blackberry-like devices for their SMS needs. The development of the Blackberry came far after Hong Kong users had mastered the art of SMS on standard cellphones. The product "mapping," as Norman (1996) describes, is more intuitive on the Blackberry but the technology arrived too late to compete with the Hong Kong market. This supports what (author of "Do Artifacts Have Politics") describes as the "social determination of technology."

Sociological theories of technology suggest that artifacts may reflect political and cultural realities. Differential cellular phone usage between North America and Canada reflects a political and cultural reality: telecommunications infrastructure in the United States and Canada continues to emphasize land lines, and cellular phone services are less entrenched as a result. In Hong Kong the reverse is true: land lines were far less embedded in the culture. Consumers embraced the new technology readily in Hong Kong because unlike in North America there was no need to transfer land line services over to cellular phones. Cellular phone service is more widespread and reliable in Hong Kong and consumers there expect to use their cellular phone as a primary means of communication regardless of the rate plans. North American consumers do not use their cell phones as widely because land lines remain common and less expensive minute per minute.

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Although cost does seem to deter some Canadian consumers from using their cellular phones for advanced communication features like e-mail or SMS, the differential usage cannot be explained by a Marxist theory of technology as the one Heilbroner (1967) suggests. Canadian-born respondents claimed their rate plan was chosen for price, but it must be noted that most Canadian-born respondents are more used to relying on land lines than their Hong Kong-born counterparts. Hong Kong-born consumers do not take price into consideration as often as their Canadian-born counterparts because they view cellular phones as being essential features of daily life. Canadian-born consumers are more likely to delegate e-mailing and Web surfing tasks to their computers. SMS is not as popular with Canadian-born consumers, so it makes sense that fewer of the respondents would use SMS regardless of financial coniderations.

Conclusion

Because cellular phone infrastructure expanded in Hong Kong earlier and more effectively than it did in North America them a five to ten-year lead on savvy cellphone customs. Later entrenchment of cellular phone technologies in North America accounts for the cultural differences in the usage and saturation of cellular phones and of SMS and other advanced services. The differences in cellphone use between Hong Kong and North American users can be traced to infrastructure and are not easily explained by Marxist theories of differential use......

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