Waves of
Technology
Primary References:
• Toffler, Alvin. 1980. The Third Wave.
New York: Bantam Books.
Available in bookstores.
“Waves? “
• “Waves front analysis”:
history as a succession of
waves of change. Where will
the “leading edge” take us?
• Waves as characterized by
technology
• Technology as a driving
force for social change
The First Wave: Agricultural Revolution
Before Agriculture…
The First Wave: Agricultural Revolution
• Domestication – process of taming,
cultivating or controlling plants or
animals that were originally wid,
e.g., by selective breeding
• Farming and irrigation – more
productive than hunting!
The First Wave: Agricultural Revolution
• Use of “living batteries” (people and animals) and renewable sources.
The First Wave: Agricultural Revolution
• What was the significance of the invention and improvement of farming
implements?
• Who are the producers and consumers?
• How did these changes affect the structure of society?
• What are the impacts of agriculture on the environment?
Domestication Food security
Formation of
Population growth settlements
Waste, disease, issues of
resource distribution
Land = basis of economy, culture, politics
(power)
Decentralized Economy (with exceptions)
-Artisans, guilds
-Stratification
Work = labor, animal (horsepower)
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
• 18 th
and 19th centuries
• What caused it? Confluence of factors…
• Discovery of “new words”
• Population growth, movement into towns
• Pressure on timber forests
• Prompted more use of the coal
• Invention of the engine
Aha!
“First wave societies lived off widely dispersed sources of energy. Second
Wave societies became almost totally dependent on highly concentrated
deposits of fossil fuel.
(Toffler 1980)
The factor = model of efficiency
Mass Production
Mass Media
(standardization)
Mass Consumption Mass Education
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
• How did the industrial
Revolution change the
environment?
• Scale of resource use and
pollution generation
• Concentration of people
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
• How did the Industrial
Revolution change production
and consumption?
• Differentiate (jobs, producers
vs. consumers)
• Mass Production
Gap between owners of technology and laborers:
COTTON INDUSTRY IN UK AND US
• Cotton was labor intensive: in picking and in
removing seeds
• In US: African slaves
• In UK: Child Labor
• Cotton Gin mechanized the seed removal – transformed industry, other tech
mechanized spinning
• Change: In the U.S., civil war which killed 620,00
• In the UK, social reform brought about by social legislation
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
• How did the Industrial Revolution change education?
• In the West, raised the needs for basic education: literacy and
numeracy
• “Over Curriculum” (basic reading, writing, arithmetic, history
and others) vs. “covert curriculum” (punctuality, obedience,
rote, repetitive work)
The Assembly Line
A culture of discipline needed to be
Measurements required precision
cultivated.
The Second Wave: The Industrial Revolution
• How did the Industrial Revolution change families?
• Factories needed workers, especially those willing to move place to
place as needed.
• Thus, key functions of the family were delegated to Institutions:
• Education – Schools
• Care of the elderly – Nursing homes
Hence: the “streamlined” nuclear family!
Beliefs of the Second Wave:
1. Nature as a resource to be exploited; man in opposition with nature and
dominating it.
2. Humans as pinnacle of evolution; industrialized societies as superior.
3. The Progress Principle: history flows irreversibly towards a better life.
• Biosphere cannot assimilate all wastes
• End of cheap energy
• End of cheap materials
• Disintegrative pressures within the system
The Third Wave: The Information/ Knowledge Age
How has technology evolved?
How has this affected our relationships with
each other and with the environment?
Transitions in the Third Wave
• Integration of more functions into fewer parts.
Transitions in the Third Wave
• Massification, standardization (2 nd
wave) vs.
differentiation, customization (3rd wave)
• For products as well as means of work (e.g. flexibility in
terms of work arrangements)
• Value placed on multiple intelligences and
competencies (and higher educational attainment)
Transitions in the Third Wave
• “Prosumers” (producers are consumers and vice-versa), “Do-It-
Yourselfers”
How far have we come?
“There is no reason for any individual to
have a computer in his home.”
-Ken Olsen, President, DEC, 1977
“640KB ought to be enough for anybody.”
-Bill Gates, 1981
We have extended our capabilities and
minimized our limitations!
“The Third Wave brings with it a genuinely new way of life, based on
diversified, renewable energy sources; on methods of production that make
most factory assembly lines obsolete; on non-nuclear families… on radically
changed schools and corporations of the future.
The emergent civilization write a new code of behavior for us and carries
beyond standardization, synchronization and centralization, beyond the
concentration of energy, money and power…”
“This new civilization… will topple bureaucracies, reduce the role of the
notion-state and give rise to semiautonomous economies in a post-imperialist
world. It requires governments that are simpler, more effective, yet more
democratic… It is a civilization with its own distinctive world outlook, its own
ways of dealing with time, space, logic and causality.”
But is this what is happening today?
Summing up…
Technology
Major force of social change
• Change in personal attitudes and beliefs
• Change in relationships
• A change in social structures
Society
Technology as an Indicator of Development
Technology autonomy is the capacity to decide which technology to import and
develop.
What determines technological autonomy?
Technological Autonomy =
Well-established tech infrastructure
Trained manpower
(universities, R & D laboratories
What about less developed countries?
Primary technology importers
and consumers
Lack skilled manpower
Lack technological
infrastructure
Points for Further Discussion:
• How do the Waves of Technology relate to the concept of “paradigm shifts”
discussed earlier?
• The “wavefront analysis” has shown how technology can be a driving force
for social change – but is that change always for the better?
• The “wavefront analysis” has shown how technology can be driving force for
social change – but can the reverse happen as well? Can social changes
influence technological development? How?
• At what stage is the Philippines in terms of waves of technology?
References:
• Garcia, Jerrold. “Technology, Society and National Development” in Stellar
Origins, Human Ways: Readings in Science, Technology, and Society.
Cuyegkeng, Ma. Assunta C., editor. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila
University Press, 2011.
