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Any discussion on the role of technology in human civilization would not be complete without mentioning a key concept – technological determinism – since it offers a useful framework for understanding the interplay of technology and communication. Scholars who study technology, such as communication researchers, historians of technology, sociologists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and computer scientists, share a central concern about how far technology does or does not condition social change. The topic can be controversial as each commentator emphasizes different factors in the interaction between technology and social development. Technological determinism can be a hard sell since few can produce a widely accepted explanation of it with rigorous and verifiable evidence.

The term technological determinism was coined by the American sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) in the early twentieth century (Veblen, 1933) and was later expanded on and developed by his student Clarence Ayres (Kte’pi, 2011). British scholars Castree et al. (2013) define technological determinism as:

A reductionist, theoretical position in which technology is understood to determine, in fairly linear simple cause-and-effect ways, the social, cultural, political, and economic aspects of people’s lives. Here, technology is seen as independent, active, and determining, and society is dependent, passive, and reactive. From this perspective, technical advancements are the key drivers of social and economic change. For example, technological determinists argue that new technical developments such as rail, telegraph, cars, telecommunications, elevators, and computers are key factors determining the shape and functioning of modern societies. Moreover, they would suggest that social, economic, and environmental issues can be solved purely through technological solutions.

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Today, few scholars would accept such an extreme position. Rather, most researchers hold that social and economic institutions strongly determine the shape taken by technology, instead of the other way around (Kte’pi, 2011). Like other social activities, technology and its uses are socially constructed, their effects vary across space and time, and social problems cannot simply be solved by technology alone, but also need social and political solutions (Castree et al., 2013).

In addition to technology determinism, British scholar Chandler (1995) observes that there are various kinds of “determinism” featured in social and natural sciences. For example, there is linguistic determinism, suggesting that people’s thinking is determined by language. Then there is biological (or genetic) determinism, proposing that human behavior is controlled solely by an individual’s genes. Such a belief goes against most scientists who agree that all physical traits and behaviors are the result of complex interactions between both biology and the environment (Dubos, 1998; Ridley, 2003). Both theories can be linked to certain forms of technological determinism (Chandler, 1995). All these deterministic theories, including technological determinism, seek to explain social and historical phenomena in terms of one principal or determining factor.

Apparently, these approaches are oversimplistic and have been challenged since their introduction. A good reminder concerning technological determinism comes from Thurlow and colleagues (2004): It is always useful to remind you of the trap of being too deterministic about technology whenever you come across someone making a claim about the overwhelming effect of technology on certain aspects of social activities, no matter if the technology is a steam engine or social media.

It is worth noting that this book aims to explore the impact of social media and the latest application of media technology on people and their social activities. However, this approach may not be labeled as technological determinism because the book does not intend to ignore or overlook the dynamics of social, cultural, and psychological influences on human society. Rather, it sidesteps the complexities of the process of social influences by addressing the impact of technology on social media users and related social implications. During the process, social, political, and cultural activities have imposed an essential effect on social development, but, obviously, it is out of the scope of the current book.