[Last Name] 1
Kaci Watts
Dona Fletcher
Sociology 1101
14 April 2020
The Impact of Technology on the Social Institution of Health
Technology has impacted every aspect of daily life. This age or “wave” of technology
has become a huge role within the healthcare system. Technology has become essential for
hospitals to run because of what they’re used for. They’re used for surgeries, communication,
reports, etc., which makes them very important. Health and illness are the social construction that
refers a person’s physical and mental well-being, and social standing. Technology’s role in
health and illness as a social construction is that it is essential like stated before. Health and
illness have become dependent on technology and the internet. Thousands of people a day will
go online and search if they have a specific illness or not. They can even access their doctors
through technology rather than going into a doctor’s office.
Increased technology will lead to less equity in the United States because most people have
cellphones. For example, in the article “Is Digital Technology Making Health Inequality
Worse,” the author writes, “... 95% of people in the U.S. own a cellphone.” That’s a great
statistic because it shows how accessible healthcare could become for every citizen. If the
healthcare the person needs is cheaper and more accessible online, then they would be more
likely to do so and be able to live better and healthier lives. It would help more poor people,
people of different ethnicities, and genders access healthcare with no issue. Globally,
including developed and developing countries increased technology will lead to more equity.
This is because in many developing and impoverished countries, the people don’t have access
[Last Name] 2
to that technology and healthcare, and a lot of times those people who are in the developing
countries are poor and are of color.
In the textbook otherwise known as, “Understanding Health, Medicine and Society,” it reads
that, “Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of
society. Patients must perform the “sick role” in order to be perceived as legitimately ill and to
be exempt from their normal obligations. The physician-patient relationship is hierarchical: the
physician provides instructions, and the patient needs to follow them.” This refers to the
functionalist perspective, which would view the increase of technology in health is bad and
wouldn’t in effective medical care. The conflict perspective would see the increase of
technology to health as something that supports its perspective. This theory suggests that
people are at a disadvantage if they’re poor and at a disadvantage, so the increased equity
because of technology would justify it. The symbolic interactionist perspective suggests that
“health and illness are social constructions: Physical and mental conditions have little or no
objective reality but instead are considered healthy or ill conditions only if they are defined as
such by a society. Physicians “manage the situation (Understanding health..).” to display their
authority and medical knowledge.” This would mean that this theory supports the increase of
technology. That is because mental and physical illnesses arent affected by what race, social
class, or gender you are. It isn’t affected by society, it affects society. The increase of
technology and the increase of equity wouldn’t have any affect, so it doesn’t matter.
[Last Name] 3
Works Cited
Anon. n.d. “THE IMPACT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET
ON HEALTHCARE COST, QUALITY, AND ACCESS.” Wye River Group.
Retrieved April 14, 2020 (http://www.wrgh.org/impact_on_it.asp).
Anon. 2017. “Is Digital Technology Making Health Inequality Worse? -
IAPHS Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science.” IAPHS. Retrieved
April 14, 2020 (https://iaphs.org/digital-technology-making-health-inequality-worse/).
[Author removed at request of original publisher]. 2016. “18.1 Understanding Health, Medicine
and Society.” Sociology. Retrieved April 14, 2020
(https://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/chapter/18-1-understanding-health-medicine-and-
society/).
(I couldn’t get the second resource provided to work, so I didn’t include it in this.)
