For everyone who is keeping up with our read-along, we’ve finished Part I! Now on to Part II: Technology and Peace.
In her chapter “ Utilizing Technology for Peace: Seeking New Solutions,” Dr. Kate Seaman sets the tone for this section by raising many complex questions about the role that technology plays in our lives and in global peace. Technological advancements can present exciting opportunities and aid the world in previously unimagined ways. However, like most things, they require critical evaluation and analysis to help mitigate the potential negative repercussions they can bring. New technologies present new ethical and moral quandaries that deserve significant attention and discussion.
Technology has altered our perceptions of place, space, and time. We connect in ways previous generations could not imagine, with devices in our pockets that give us instantaneous access to information, experiences, and knowledge (Seaman, 2022, pg. 103).
We can look to wireless technologies to see the dichotomy between benefits and potential harms. Because of wireless capabilities, we have hugely expanded access to information and innovations. However, we have also expanded our capacity for surveillance. The people or entities that control the technology and data have more and more power and control as developments in and reliance on technology grow.
Location tracking helps people navigate much more easily than ever before. I rely on google maps frequently. Location data also allows search engines to give you more relevant results about the places around you. However, this data also tracks your movements. This data can easily be misused by bad actors within tech companies, hackers, and authoritarian governments. Your location can be attached to your political views, online comments, and identity.
In America, there is tension about how law enforcement and the government should be allowed to use social media and location tagging. The Justice Department has used social media posts to identify people of interest in the January 6th insurrection, and in 2020, the FBI used similar methods to target people who attended Black Lives Matter Protests around the country. Social media has tremendous power to bring people together and help groups organize and spread information, but it can also be extremely harmful, platforming cyberbullying and bigots, spreading misinformation, and stoking tensions.
In an age of awesome and rapid development, the question has often become “can we do something,” rather than should we do it. This dilemma is reminiscent of the book Jurassic Park and the famous movie adaptation. However, the unintended consequences of new technology are not always as dramatic as bioengineered dinosaurs killing their creators. Instead, new technologies perpetuate current inequalities or systemic injustices. They negatively impact the mental health of children. They create polarized and radicalized groups online and distribute conspiracies and disinformation.
Yet new technologies can be equally, if not more, beneficial for many individuals and communities around the world. They allow families to keep in contact over great distances and help goods from tables to fresh produce to medical machinery reach previously underserved populations. They let marginalized students find a community they would otherwise be denied. Therefore, the role technology plays in our lives, our societies, and our global world should be examined and considered rigorously. Ways in which they can help our goal of peace and the ways they can cause harm should be explored so they can work more for us than against us.
Over this next part, here are some questions to keep in mind.
- How has technology changed the ways in which you interact with the world around you?
- How can we mitigate the negative effects of technological development?
- When technology does reinforce structural inequalities, what can we do to alter the underlying system to limit any negative consequences?
- Who should be accountable for the negative impacts of technological advancement?
- What can we do to ensure that our virtual communities are as responsive and caring as our “real world” communities?
- How can we push for innovations which better support a sustainable and positive peace? (Seaman, 2022, pg. 107)
About the Author:
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She is attending the University of Maryland and pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Science.