Unintended
Aleks Krotoski asks if we've all become techno-fundamentalists, unquestioningly accepting the latest innovation into our lives without thinking about potential downsides.
Aleks Krotoski asks if we've all become techno-fundamentalists, unquestioningly accepting the latest innovation into our lives without thinking about potential downsides.
Perhaps we could learn from a society who think much more carefully and critically about adopting new technology - the Amish. Unlike what many people believe, it's not that they reject technology outright but they make careful community based decisions about they what they permit. It's a thoughtful, democratic and yes scientific approach. They'll see how a modern innovation effects the community by allowing it to be trialled and if they donβt like what they see, they reject it,
How many of the negative unintended consequences of digital technology could have been avoided if the rest of us took a page out of their book?
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The Amish idea of a 'smart' phone
Duration: 01:46
Lindsay Ems
Lindsay Ems is Associate Professor and Faculty Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the College of Communication at Butler University. Her scholarship interrogates the roles mobile and digital media play in structuring of political and social relationships. She has written a book called Virtually Amish: Preserving Community at the Internetβs Margins, which has recently been published by MIT Press. The book explores the sophisticated strategies used in Amish communities to decide if and how to adopt new digital communication technologies and what is at stake for them when they make such decisions.
Saloma Furlong Miller
Saloma Furlong Miller left the Amish at the age of 23. She is the author three books, and her story has been featured in two PBS American Experience films, βThe Amishβ and βThe Amish: Shunned.βΒ
Andrew Russell
Christoper Ategeka
Jane Alexander
Broadcasts
- Mon 13 Jun 2022 16:30ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 FM
- Thu 15 Sep 2022 23:30ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4
Podcast
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The Digital Human
Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world