Who's in charge here?

In Fred Turner's Network Technology, he examines the role of technology in our lives and if we use it to accomplish our goals or if it imposes its goals on us. He evokes an interesting question, "Does society make what the internet is or does the internet make the society what it is?"

Technology is so entangled in our everyday lives that it is hard to understand which has control, us or the technology. One popular advancement is hard to ignore when talking about technology and that is social networks. If we take Turner's question and use it to evaluate these social networks, we may understand our relation to them. Have we shaped social networking or has it shaped us? We hear about all the ways social networking has been used to make people more efficient. We use it as a professional tool, to keep in touch with friends, to send out the annual family reunion invite, and even to reconnect with long lost family, friends, and lovers. With these and many other uses we have really taken this technology and molded it around what we need it for. On the other side, we are using technology more than ever to communicate with others. Now, you don't necessarily call your best friend when you want to say hi, you just post it on their wall. It has really made for a society that expects to communicate at an even faster rate. I personally feel like we take charge and use it as an instrument in our society instead of being governed by it. However one feels about it, it is no doubt an important aspect of new technology that will continue to grow and change how we communicate with others in the future.