Seven Criteria for Adopting New Technology - Essay Sample

Introduction

Technology has existed ever since the days immemorial. Different societies avail different technologies by the needs, customs, standards, and beliefs of members of the society. However, technology is dynamic; it keeps on changing from one to another with the progressive advancements in creativity and innovation. As people become more innovative, technological advancements arise to bring convenience and ease at which people live, work, or move on the surface of the earth. These technological advancements are, however, restricted by the societal norms and myths. Norms of a given society can either accelerate or decelerate the adoption of newly developed technologies. The Mennonite society in Manitoba, for instance, is a good example for the restrictive societies that discourage the adoption of new technology. This society discourages the use of planes, cars, modern farm equipment, and many other modern technological advancements painting these technologies as lethal to the world around us. Therefore, the members of this community are taught to care about the world around them by shunning the use of such newly invented technologies as cars and planes. Will Braun and his wife are members of the Mennonite society and are, therefore, victims of this circumstance. Since they live in the middle of a small city, Braun and his wife can comfortably use the public service cars for their transport needs. Therefore, they can manage to move about comfortably without their car. However, as they are compelled to move to a carless rural, they become indifferent whether to consider purchasing a car for their use or use the traditional bicycles and horses as is the tradition of the rural society. This paper presents an argumentative analysis of Will Braun's seven criteria for the adoption of new technology indicating how and why they are relevant.

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First, the benefits of owning a car to the family and the community. A new technology that is worth adopting should be capable of bringing members of the family and community together. The technology that breaks these relations and bonds should be discouraged and resisted by members of the community. According to Kraybill, cars destroy the unity among the members of the family and the neighborhood (Braun 240). When one buys and owns a car, they can move too far off places and connect with friends in towns and urban centers. The car makes people capable of traveling such long distances as beyond the reach of biking or horses. Hence, one may easily lose the focus of their own families. As they move around too far off places, the time required to spend with family members become greatly lowered. This can result in undesirable relational quagmires between parents and their children. In contrast, the traditional bicycling is very effective at enhancing family and community unity. People cannot cycle to places that are too far from home. Therefore, they stay together shielded from geographical separation. On the other hand, horses are even faster than bicycles and can be used as a quick means of transport within the community rather than adopting the car.

Second, the ability of the new technology to keep stronger family ties. The new technology such as the car should be capable of enhancing living in smaller and more stable circles. The car, as per the belief of the Amish people, cannot allow a person to live within his smaller and more stable circles (Braun 240). The efficiency with which one can drive as far as it pleases them makes them break up with the family members for a long time. As people drive to further places to connect with friends in far off places, they lose a lot of time which they would have constructively spent together as a family. The car, therefore, becomes the barrier and the cause for insufficient family engagements. This becomes even worse when one becomes obsessed with the car such that they lose focus for their family responsibilities including taking care of their children and spending adequate time together to catch p with each other (Braun 240).

The third criterion that can be deduced from Braun's argument is that the new technology should be cost-effective to improve its use as compared with the traditional technology. A car, for example, is very convenient to use. Driving a car is easy and faster as compared with driving horses or cycling. However, the cost of running a car is very high as compared with the traditional means of transport. The car owner must spend a lot of money on maintaining the car in such expenses as buying fuel, tires, and spare parts (Braun 241). For that reason, owning a car is relatively expensive as compared with using traditional means of transport such as walking, cycling, or driving horses. The cost-effectiveness criterion is, therefore, a significant indicator of the decision to adopt new technology.

Fourth, the efficiency of the new technology as compared with the traditional technology (Braun 242). Comparing between buying a car and using the bicycle, cars seem to bring a more luxuriant life than bicycles. Cars can take you to further places than does the bicycle. In addition to that, a car is a more comfortable mode of transport as compared to bicycle and even the horse. By using a car, one needs to sit inside, and the engine does the work of propelling the car. Therefore, one can drive along various terrains with many conveniences that bicycles may not afford to scale. As such, a car is more convenient to use than a bicycle. When one owns a car, the living standards of the person is enhanced, and the person is saved from the stressful challenges associated with bicycles. Owning a car also brings prestige to the owner by making the owner become a little stride ahead of the carless neighbors who must depend on the car for their quick transportation needs. For this reason, a car seems to be a good new transport technology that is worth adoption. However, when the state of Mennonite society is critically considered, it turns that having a car may result in a very stressful experience. The society relies on and believes in the traditional technologies including the use of bicycles, horses, or simply trekking on foot. This can mean that the paths that people use in this society are only suitable for walking, cycling, or riding horses. When Will Braun and his wife comes up with a car, it would be a challenging experience finding a path along which they will drive the car. This goes alongside the strict resistance of having a car by the surrounding members of the community who believe that it is unethical to own a car. Therefore, Braun must reconsider very well whether he will need to buy the car while moving to the rural or not.

The fifth criterion considers the persons that will benefit from the newly adopted technology. According to Braun, grandparents will immensely benefit from using the car since they will be able to move easily and meet with their grandchildren especially those who live in far places. The grandchildren will also benefit from coming closer to their grandparents using cars. Friends who live far away in cities will also benefit since the car will enable them to visit each other and reunite after a long time of staying far away beyond biking radius. The car will, therefore, enable Braun to visit friends in towns when he buys the car since the car can easily be driven to places far away beyond the reach of the bicycle. Other beneficiaries of the car will be those dealing with car accessories and services such as the local mechanic, car wash, and tire shops (Braun 242).

The sixth criterion is based on the capability of the new technology to bring satisfaction and joy to the community. The society is already self-sustaining and does not necessarily need new technologies to run. The society can be said to be sufficient of the key players that can adjust to the needs of its members. As a result, if a new technology has to be introduced, the technology should be that which brings satisfaction and joy to members of the society (Braun 242). The satisfaction can, however, exist when the technology adopted is well aligned with the norms and expectations of the society. Buying a car is important since it can bring joy to members of the community by lessening the efforts that would otherwise be needed when using traditional alternatives such as bicycles. The car makes life convenient and movement efficient and easy. Therefore, buying a new car while moving to rural can be an excellent idea for Will Bran and his wife.

The seventh criterion is based on whether buying own car will satisfy own belief. The Amish people do not believe in the advantage of owning a car (Braun 242). Even though the societal belief is against owning a car, the car would be significant for easy transportation in the rural home. This is because, at home, few people own cars, and these cars are shared with the vast number of people living in the community. Dependency in those few cars by the whole community, however, brings difficulties in transport and movement since people who do not have cars have to wait for the few cars to transport them to where they want to go. If the owners refuse to release their cars, then the carless individuals have to scale on their feet the full distance of their journeys. Trekking is not an easy task especially for Will and his wife who depends on the car for traveling.

Conclusion

In conclusion, owning a car comes up with indifferent decisions to make given the standards and norms with which the society moves. Will Braun and his wife need to determine and weigh out the suitable decision to take, whether to buy a car or not using the following criteria. First, the benefits of owning a car to the family and the community. Second, the ability of the new technology to keep stronger family ties. Third, the capacity to function cost-effectively. Fourth, the efficiency of the new technology as compared with the traditional technology. Fifth, persons that will benefit from the newly adopted technology. Sixth, the capacity of the new technology to bring joy and satisfaction to life. Finally, the seventh criterion is the ability of the new technology to satisfy personal belief.

Work Cited

Braun, Will. Seven Criteria for the Adoption of New Technology. Toronto: Pearson, 2010. Print.