Discerning rejection of technology

Abstract

Technology is innate to modern society and primarily embodies human intellect. It greatly influences development, societal functioning, and sociotechnical transitions. Rapid technological advancements, made possible with advancement in science, human ingenuity, and competitive markets, provide human society with affordable and unlimited choice. A society can be viewed, with an individual as the fundamental unit, or as a community, or state/nation. In one view, sustainability can be viewed through a matrix of societal, economic, and environmental configurations associated with the three societal levels. Technological advancement and complexity can either remain simple and amenable to the user or, as emerging in recent years, may daunt the user to keep away. While the phenomenon of technology adoption (acceptance) in society has been well appreciated, the increasingly characteristic phenomenon of technology rejection is yet to be understood and studied. Technology rejection is not merely a negation of its acceptance, and hence requires to be discerned carefully. Rejection also does not imply in its totality, but varies in terms of its kind and/or intensiveness. While rejection is discernable at all these three levels of society, this study remains focused at the level of the user (individual). It attempts to discern rejection of technology and discusses its distinctness from technology acceptance through an exhaustive literature study. The article initially discusses the technology-society nexus and provides a preliminary technology-user interface model leading to a detailed discussion into the determinants of technology rejection. © The Author(s) 2013.