In class we are talking about the social construction of technology-how different groups shape a technology in different ways. One interesting example of this is the story of the high frequency ringtone as reported in the New York Times.
This technology takes advantage of the fact that young people's ears are capable of hearing frequencies that older people can't. However high frequency sounds can be painful to hear. The first step in this technology was an "ultra sonic-teen repellent" developed in the UK to drive teens away from places where they might be loitering. So if adults saw this technology as a "teen repellent," teens saw this as a "teen stealth" technology, which would allow them to communicate without adults knowing about it. They developed this high frequency tone into a ringtone, which they could then use to signal each other at school without the adults (teachers) knowing about it. Here we have two different social groups (adults and teens) interepreting a technology in different ways and finding different uses for it.
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