Professor Adam Joinson, University of the West of England
Technological
determinism and behaviour change
When Samsung launched its new
Smartphone in early 2014 – the S5 – the head of technical product management at
Samsung, Kyle Brown, told the Guardian “Everyone wants to be healthier, but
most don’t have enough time for it, so the S5 can now do it for you” [1].
While the idea that we can outsource
our wellbeing to a gadget is clearly preposterous, the general approach of technological determinism is gaining
advocates at a rapid pace. In the field of studies of technology – at least
over the last few decades - there had been a steady move away from
deterministic approaches to the impact of technology on behaviour in favour of
a socio-technical perspective. From this standpoint, the impact of a technology
on behaviour is a product of both the technology
and the human user.
From a socio-technical perspective, a
tool (or technology) can influence people’s behaviour only when it works in
conjunction with their own psychological motivations or needs. So, sleep
monitors don’t improve people’s sleep patterns without supporting an
intervention at the human level. The invention of the microwave oven only
changed our practices in the kitchen because of an assemblage of other factors, including refrigeration and changing
working patterns.
However, the draw of easy solutions to
large-scale social problems means that technological determinism remains
attractive. For instance, Susan Greenfield has warned [2] that social media –
in particular on mobile devices – is not only influencing people’s behaviour,
but also their brains. This provides an easy fix for the perceived moral
problems and lack of empathy amongst young people – simply remove or limit
their access to social media.
In the health promotion field, the
idea that a simple technological ‘fix’ can address seemingly intractable
problems such as obesity or heart disease is naturally appealing. The BBC, for
example, report that “hi-tech sensors aim to prevent obesity’ [3], while
inflatable airbags and new forms of lighting promise to save the lives of
cyclists [4]. In both cases, the technological solution is imbibed
with seemingly magical powers to not only change the users behaviour (in the
case of obesity), but also that of others who pose the most severe threat to
the user (i.e. drivers of motorized vehicles, in the case of cyclist
safety).
That isn’t to say that technology can (and does) have wide-ranging
effects on people’s behaviour. Rather, it is rare for a technology to have predictable effects on people. While
historically we can identify the role of the stirrup on medieval warfare (and
the rise of feudalism, potentially [5]), or the importance of the writing on
the nature of knowledge acquisition [6]), in neither case is it likely that the
nature of these transformations was predictable without the benefit of hindsight.
Indeed, the words of Lao Tzu, a Chinese Poet writing in the 6th
Century BC, "Those who have knowledge,
don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge” reflect the view of
Neil Postman [7] that while the effects of technology are not inevitable, they
are always unpredictable:
'The
Frankenstein Syndrome: One creates a machine
for a particular and
limited purpose. But once the machine is built, we discover, always to our
surprise - that it has ideas of its own; that it is quite capable
not only of changing our habits but... of changing our habits of mind'
(Postman 1983, p. 23)
So, while technology may be useful in changing people’s
behaviour, don’t expect it to do so in ways that were predicted, or indeed
desirable.
[5] White, L. T. (1964). Medieval
technology and social change. No. 79. Oxford University Press, USA, 1964.
[6] Ong, W. J. (1986). Writing is a
technology that restructures thought. In Baumann, G. (Ed.), The Written
Word: Literacy in Transition (pp. 23-50). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[7] Postman, Neil (1983): The Disappearance of Childhood. London:
W H. Allen
Dr Laura Haynes, Capita
A practitioner’s view of the future: Using
behavioural science to redesign public services
Four years ago I gave several talks on the theme,
“Behaviour Change & Policy: Boom or Bust”. In policy circles, our
discipline was at risk of becoming just another faded fad - we needed less
rhapsodising about the promise of nudge & behaviour change, and more
demonstrations of their practical value to real world policy. Since then, the
Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team and others have gone some way to
achieving this, creating an appetite among local authorities, government
departments, and companies for “behavioural insights”. Even the White House has
set up their own “Nudge Unit” equivalent.
We are now at another crossroads. We need to push the
boundaries again, or risk being side-lined as practitioners who “tinker around
the edges” (changing a signature location here, rewriting a letter there), and
researchers who call for forever more research activity to understand
mechanisms of change.
We need to create opportunities for our research to inspire
lower cost public services that deliver better outcomes for citizens because we
only fund activity that “works”. Spending
on adult social care is one of local government’s biggest burning platforms.
How would you redesign adult social care provision around prevention and early
intervention to deliver better outcomes at lower cost?
We need to seize opportunities to tackle the big social
problems with the practical rigour which few other disciplines offer. Within the criminal justice system, how
would you redesign the probation service to reduce reoffending rates?
I’m working to embed behaviour change at the heart of how
Capita delivers services. Capita is a major provider of customer –facing
services to government and the private sector. We are contracted to transform
and run services from end-to-end, thus we can transform the way they are
delivered. My talk will explore how this creates the potential for “behaviour
change” to crack some of the big social challenges of the 21st
century.
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