How Cultures Adopt Digital Technologies
Cultures see a same technology very differently. And culture determines how a technology will be accepted. In our hyper-connected world, this is more important to understand than ever before.
Muna was growing increasingly anxious, almost on the verge of tears. Her cow was missing, she didn’t know if it had been stolen or just wandered off. Finding it however, was vital. Not just for her, but for her kids, her status in the village and for money.
Muna pulled out her small flip phone and opened the app that accessed Twitter, which was popular in the surrounding communities of late. She hastily tapped out a quick message of her cows name and description. And began to pace about nervously and thinking of where to go next. The impact of the loss piling on her anxiety, a doom loop starting to spin.
Her phone sounded a soft bleep, she opened it. Her cow was near the next village, about a five minute walk away, an elder had it safely secured. Relief washed over her. Her kids, her reputation, her income, were safe.
This is a true story. It happened in Kenya in late 2010 as I was on a research project that involved civil society groups and the United Nations seeking to understand mobile internet use in various parts of Africa.
Societies around the world see technologies in a variety of ways, through their particular cultural lens. Most significant digital technologies today come out of Silicon Valley and are therefore developed within the cultural context of that region and in particular, the subculture that originates and resides there. It is very different from all other cultures in the world.
To understand what this means in terms of other cultures using digital technologies now and into the future, it helps to understand how cultures view emerging technologies, especially communications ones. Even more so today as these technologies enter cultural awareness faster than ever before in human history.
The more rapidly a technology enters a culture’s awareness, the more we may see faster or even slower adoption, including possible outright rejection. And no, this is not a challenge that can be solved by Artificial Intelligence. But we’ll get to that.
A lot of factors go into the process of a culture adopting a technology. From economic and political, to military (security), religious beliefs and practices and whether a society is individualistic or community-oriented.
Some genetic engineering technologies have been rejected by some cultures because of religious beliefs. Some agricultural cultures have rejected genetically modified crops because of their connection to colonial powers. Others have restricted us of digital technologies by younger generations due to a fear their power and authority will be lost.
The roll-out of 5G to some parts of the world was met with fierce opposition as it was believed the technology would cause serious health problems. It doesn’t. But that is irrelevant when a large portion of a society has told stories based on myths that become a social narrative. It is very hard to change a narrative.
There was an attempt to introduce solar cookers in areas where electricity is non-existent or unreliable. Also to reduce the burning of wood and environmental damage. They were met with resistance since the culture viewed it as changing their norms, behaviours and traditions.
In Toronto, Google, through a sister company, Sidewalk Labs, had proposed building a world class new smart neighbourhood on disused land on the Toronto waterfront. It was announced with great fanfare. It never came to be. Culture rejected it because it felt like an invasion of privacy, of being overly surveilled.
Many technologies that come into a culture are also accepted, but often have to be modified. Either to fit within their power systems, economic models or acceptable cultural practices.
Kenyans saw great value in using flip phones in different ways. Not only did they improve communications in a highly social society, but infrastructure costs were lower to build these networks. Kenyans innovated even further. They invented the world’s first mobile payments system, the M-Peso. They also evolved their patois, sheng, to work better with phone keypads. Quite an example of modifying a technology to ones culture.
The best ways technologies are accepted in a society is when they compliment and enhance existing cultural norms, values and behaviours. When they improve economic, social and power structures in that culture.
In the past I’ve talked about the three main phases of adopting technologies; awareness, evaluation, implementation. American sociologist, Everett Rogers has his theory called the diffusion of technologies, a landmark piece of work. Anthropologists too have researched this for over a century.
Most new digital technologies today are created in Silicon Valley and gaining economic success has meant being successful in the United States first. Which largely meant it only had to consider American culture in a broader context. This is no longer the case.
As America becomes more culturally diverse, along with the same as other Western countries, it means they’ll have to consider other cultures. In addition, as populations decline and people move around due to climate change, the process of developing, launching and getting technologies into other countries, will mean new paradigms for development and diffusion of a technology into other cultures.
This could mean we end up with better technologies, including Artificial Intelligence and technologies that aren’t just human-centric but cultural-centric.