Why you shouldn't blame technology

In times of uncertainty and change, there is a need for clarity and understanding. We want to grasp the contours, avoiding gray areas if possible, to more clearly distinguish cause and effect.

It is evident in the political game around the economic crisis. It is evident in the gender equality debate. And, it is evident in the ongoing debate on how the Internet and digital technology developments in general affect and are affected by society at large and small.

Does technology set the framework for how our society develops? Or is the framework set by how we relate to technology, and how it is used? These questions were, albeit subtly, ever-present at .SE's annual Internet Days conference.

Heroes such as Larry Lessig, Mikka Hypponen and Jillian C York gave key notes on the impact of technology development on everything from the conditions for cultural creation to socially critical systems to free speech.

An undertone of their presentations was that the technology itself cannot really be stopped. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. And given the pace of both technology development and use, it is also perhaps the biggest challenge for our elected representatives. Those who are supposed to represent both citizens and societal institutions. How to capture technology-driven societal development potential without stumbling into the ditch?

I myself do not believe, as some do, that the conflict is between technology and society (in the sense of citizens). Rather, the conflict is between established social and market models and forms of governance, created under essentially different conditions, and what is emerging under new, not least technology-driven conditions.

As the playing field becomes increasingly level, between continents, states, companies and individuals (Thomas Friedman's book "The World Is Flat" is worth mentioning in this context), there is reason to consider whether it is new technology itself and how it is used that we should be skeptical about. Or whether it is that we have not yet acquired the right glasses to see the potential of technology rather than, more often than not, preconceptions of risk based on inadequate experience (read David Eberhard's "In the land of security junkies").