Brief Summary: Technology's Impact On Social Structure

1. In Boyd chapter six, the author makes the point that new technology neither creates or solves the cultural problems (2014). Yet, society has this expectation that technology will make people more civil, that it will bridge the cultural divide in that community. While, in fact technology only heightens the social division that already exists. Technology has unintentional biases when it comes to race (Boyd, 2014 p. 156). Companies only test their design with limited settings, so the broader consequences are not known till the design hits the market. Boyd uses the example of Microsoft Kinect. The kinect is an interactive gaming platform that relies of face recognition. Early users that had darker skin became frustrated due tot he fact that the device failed to recognize their face (Boyd, 2014 p. 158). This is seen quite often, according to Boyd. Many image capturing technologies have historically have had difficulties capturing dark skin individuals. This is because the device relies on light and light reflects better off of lighter objects. The next inequality that Boyd discusses is racism amongst teens. When teens go online, they are bringing their “real world” with them. This includes friends, prejudices, identity, etc. As we discussed in class, the bias that many have in person, are being broadcast on social …show more content…
In Pinsky 's article of flirting, she notes that though heterosexual flirting both in person and online are clear, for homosexuals this is not the case. “norms of same-gender online flirtation are not clearly constructed as heterosexual scripts. More difficult for LGBT youth(s) to carry-out flirtation online in the same low-risk way of heterosexual teens (Pinsky, 2015 p. 3).” Another conflict that is seen on social media is racism and prejudices from the non-digital world to the digital world. Digital dualism is becoming more and more visible than ever