This seems to be a common argument every time society gets interrupted by technology, especially when the technology advancement has moral grey areas (and they

This seems to be a common argument every time society gets interrupted by technology, especially when the technology advancement has moral grey areas (and they always do). It turns out there is an entire line of research that parallels the “technology adoption” ethos we all know called, appropriately enough, “Technology Rejection.” > A fundamental question is whether the field of technology rejection requires investigation at all, considering the wealth of research available in technology adoption. Are they distinct phenomena? Or is knowledge on technology rejection merely a by-product and subset of knowledge on technology adoption? > “Rejection of technology” may be expressed as a phenomenon wherein a society, ranging from individual users, community groups, through states (nations), capable of availing the service of a particular technology, deliberately chooses to refrain from its use, in full or part. Consequently, some technologies get increasingly used while the use of others tends to ebb. Conventionally, the debate surrounding the divide between technological “haves” and “have nots” has simply quarantined the latter as individual deficits (Selwyn, 2003), typically of a financial nature. However, a consensus is recently emerging within the arena of sociology of technology that conceptualizing nonusers of technology as purely technology “have nots” is too crude an analysis (Selwyn, 2003). As Bauer (1995) highlights, nonuse or resistance to technology has largely been treated with a negative connotation, placing the nonusers at fault. Bruland (1995) states that such resistance to technology is by no means irrational or conservative. Rejecters must thus be dealt with as deliberate rational nonusers. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244013485248?icid=int.sj-abstract.citing-articles.26 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244013485248?ic... The field of research that is technological rejection is fascinating. That paper lays out rejection at the individual, group and national level as the basis for study, with the original poster’s article being a prime example of individual technology rejection, including the reasons for doing so, and it’s posting to the Internet and hacker news actually an interesting attempt to “find the community” of people who feel similarly. We’ve seen this before with radio, television and especially the Internet. There were so many people who out-and-out rejected the need for the Internet when it was coming of age in the 90s, and many who still do even as the world has moved on. The joke about the boss who printed every email wasn’t a joke: I knew several of them and still know one who does this very thing. So what causes rejection of technology and is this a distinct field of research we should be looking at? Aside: further reading and an example worth looking at. https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_some_people_reject_new_things https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_some_people_reject_new... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/19/life-without-technology-rejecting-technology https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/19/life-w...