Social Change Chapter 15 Summary

Chapter 15 is all about social change and the environment, which is shown through the example of Diane and Arlen Chase who used light detection and ranging to discover more in four days than the couple had in 25 years. This just shows part of the extent that new technologies are changing everyday life. There are four primary social revolutions, which are domestication, agriculture, industrialization, and information. These contribute to the changes in history alongside of changing societies, capitalism, industrialization, and global stratification. Many social movements indicate social change and development of a new biotech society. With social changes comes different theories; these consist of social evolution, natural cycles, conflict over

Conflict theorists see it through a process of contradictions known as the dialectical process, which means that the antithesis is solved through a new synthesis, but the new synthesis contains its own contradictions. Social change is also seen to come from technology and the three stages (invention, discovery, and diffusion) that creates new technologies. Cultural lag is when cultures are lagging behind in the terms of technology. Technologies is changing society in how we interact with each other, learn, work, and fight wars. What is unknown to us is whether or not new technologies and the new information that comes with it will help reduce inequalities or only increase them further. With new technologies, however, there comes the consequences that it plays on the environment, especially in the Most Industrialized Nations. One of the biggest results of this is global warming, and factories and waste sites are contributing to the environmental injustice that affects the minorities and the poor along with the

I have been around technology ever since I was young, with cars, phones, televisions, etc. so I don’t really see too much of a drastic change between a time with little technology to a big boom in technology. I am starting to see a change in new technologies, however, as new inventions come out all of the time. I notice how in the classes that I used to take are now much different for my sisters, as they are doing much more of their learning online. My cousin’s school gives all of the kids mini ipads and they turn in assignments on it. I notice all of the things that I rely on a day-to-day basis, such as appliances, electricity, automobiles, the internet, etc. and realize how much it impacts my life. I connect through most of my friends through the games we play online, I met my boyfriend online, I buy things online, I do my homework online, and it all follows me around as it has been implemented into my school as well. By looking at how much new technologies have crept into my life and made a permanent home in it, it is easy to see how they would cause such drastic social