Public attitudes toward present and future technologies : satisfactions and apprehensions

During the past thirty years, the United States has witnessed the emergence of massively complex organizations bent on technological accomplishments touching the lives of virtually everyone. The results have been mixed. Remarkable achievements have been won, the direct impacts of which have been astonishing; yet as the magnitude of technology's long-term effects is recognized, there grows an increasing uneasiness about the social, political, and environmental consequences of unbridled technical development. Some observers have sensed this paradox in technology as a social force, and have eloquently challenged the tendency to accept new