The Importance of Sociotechnical Systems

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Sociotechnical systems play an integral role in life today; their presence is always growing as civilization continues to create and to innovate technology. A set of values influences each sociotechnical system, whether that is through embodying or omitting those values. In either case, it is known that no system is perfect, and that injustices are bound to happen to the actors within the system. The integration of society with technology has created countless sociotechnical systems, each one influenced by its own set of values and containing its own injustices. Prior to researching outside sources, using the information presented in class, a sociotechnical system is a system that deals with both technology and society, meaning they are intertwined in some way. Upon further research “a sociotechnical system (STS) is a social system operating on a technical base” (Whitworth and Ahmad 2013). This indicates that a sociotechnical system is a way people can interact in some fashion, using technology to do so. This resembles SCOT in that a specific set of actors influences the sociotechnical system. Actors are “any person or group that can make a decision how to act and that can act on that decision” (Poel and Royakkers 25). To better understand the sociotechnical system it is important to focus on the components that represent the system, which are the following: hardware, software, physical surroundings, people, procedures, laws and regulations, and data ("Socio-Technical System"). The components can be used to describe different levels of interaction between technology and society. The most basic level would be the technological level which consists only of the hardware and has no interaction with society (Whitworth a... ... middle of paper ... ...2011. Print. "Socio-Technical System." Computingcases.org. Computingcases.org, n.d. Web. 05 Jan. 2014. . Sommer, Jeff. "The Two Sides of Bitcoin." The Hindu. The Hindu, 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 05 Jan. 2014. . Stevenson, Reed. "Explaining Bitcoin Without Buzzwords." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 04 Jan. 2014. . Whitworth, Brian with Ahmad, Adnan. "Socio-Technical System Design." The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.. Soegaard, Mads with Dam, Rikke Friis (eds.). Aarhus, Denmark: The Interaction Design Foundation, 2013. .

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