The Psychology of Workplace Technology (SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781135007669
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2013-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

We are engaged in a most interesting race for survival. On the one hand, technology has served as the boon that has enabled the continuing growth of the human species. On the other hand, technology has served as the curse that has supported the continuing growth of the human species. Technology then, is our species conduit to both power and destruction. Both statistically and rationally, it is the far more prevalent probability that we shall exterminate ourselves, but this in itself is not a certainty, and if answers are to be found that permit survival they will almost certainly be technology-based in nature. Where does HF fit in this welter of growth and self-destruction? Initially, it might seem that HF is one of those minor, interdisciplinary pursuits that attaches itself, remora-like, to the more central and profound efforts in psychology, engineering, and design. However, this is to see HF as fundamentally a pragmatic and contingent pursuit. While this is indeed how some leading individuals have cast HF (Norman, 2010), I cannot agree (Buckle, 2011). While this professional aspect of HF is indeed an important pursuit, HF is at the center of a quincunx of integration between engineering, design, usability, and psychology. It is here that HF must present a fundamental philosophical lead to emphasize the central role of both theory and morality in guiding our future (Hancock, 2009a; Harris, 2010). As I noted above, I am not sanguine about the odds for the survival of the human race in general. However, if we do not learn to actively control, direct, and cogitate about the form, function, and purpose of the technology we create, we are surely lost indeed. In this fateful race for the continuance of the human species, HF is neither a small matter nor on the edge of things. Whether recognized as such or not, HF is at the very heart of our possible future and our potential for survival. It demands our best and mandates our moral and rational exegesis. I hope that the present chapter can persuade enterprising and ascendant minds toward this challenge.

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