Melvin Kranzberg proposed six Laws of Technology, the first of which read as follows: ‘Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral’ (Kranzberg 1986b cited in Kranzberg 1991). Kranzberg expands on this to explain that technologies have ‘social and human consequences that go far beyond the immediate purposes of the technical devices themselves’ and that the effects depend on context and usage.
Naughton (2008) in his article ‘Thanks, Gutenberg – but we’re too pressed for time to read’ re-iterates Kranzberg’s (1991 p237) example of the influence of Gutenberg’s printing press on education and goes on to relate this to wider long-term change on reading due to increased access to information such as societal and cultural changes.