Technology = Progress?

In the article “Does Improved Technology Mean Progress?” Marx’s argument appears to be that yes, technology can lead to progress but an important question he poses is that where will this progress lead to? . The article focuses on the evolution of technology and how it was used to propel the people in the revolution and how it’s separation from social change. For this response, I want to focus on the question Marx poses at the end. I found it to be interesting because it appears to always be the assumption that if a country or a group of people are not up to par with technology then they are not progressive. However, this article provides an opportunity to question what is advancement and to think outside the box.
I am not implying that technology is bad but the assumption that technology in general is progress and that “… the rest will take care of it self” (pg 8) is something to be looked at. I thought it was a great a opportunity to look at today and see where technology has brought us. What is progressive? I want to look into something we al use in everyday life, something that probably every single person has is a cell phone. I personally am not attached to my telephone; I leave it everywhere. However, I, like almost everyone in class, know a person or persons who are forever tied to their telephone. So something that I notice, is when my friends and I are out eating , everything’s good for a while. Everyone’s talking and joking around. Then, it only takes one person to just check their phone and pretty soon everyone’s checking their phone. And then our conversations revolves around whom texted who what, what someone posted on facebook etc. Telephones have changed the way people socialize. I am not saying cell phones are bad but to be aware how it has changed or lives is interesting to me. Cell phone are important, my parents stress to me how I need to carry my phone and have the ability to make an emergency call, if an occasion should arise. But every year there is always something new coming out. Everything made simpler and easier are the ads for these new telephones. I don’t know how many IPhones have come out.
Something else, conversations can get awkward. We can all be talking in a group and laughing and then, someone gets a text and begins a furious conversation with the person on the other line. A word was created for this, which I learned my freshman year of college, it is called cupcaking. This is an example where technology affects how we live and the new terms that arise from new occasions that have been created by technology. I used a simple example but if a small device such as a cell phone can impact society this much, a larger technological advancement can affect more. So building on the idea that “…the rest will take care of itself” is that it’s not that it will take care of itself, rather it will adjust and the adjustment is not measurable. I thought this article was great opportunity to step out of the box, the idea that technology equals progress and look in. So judging a country or a group of people by their technological progress is questionable if we cannot look at ourselves and see what technology has actually advanced and changed. I just used the cell phone as an example.