A common thinking challenge, as we have described, is that we tend to imagine that what has happened to others won't happen to us. Consider the experience of the Luddites, and now bring that to our time. Could the implementation of a new technology erase our jobs? It is easy to see that we have trouble believing the same thing that happened to them could happen to us.

In addition, it is even more difficult to know how we would have reacted if we had been present at the time. Would we have resisted? How? Would we have broken the law? Would we have destroyed equipment? Would we have taken up arms?

Our imagination doesn't only fail us when we think about something that happened 200 years ago. For instance, few of us want to believe that we would have engaged in the kind of overt racist behavior that was prevalent in the US into the 1970s, even as the vast majority of the US population did, in fact, engage in that kind of behavior. Similarly, it is hard for us to imagine being in a situation where we would reject a technology as forcefully as the Luddites did, going as far as engaging in violence, sabotaging the factories, breaking the law, and risking being punished.

But our reactions to new technologies do not have to be as dramatic as those of the Luddites to be important. In fact, small reactions to technology adoption can alert us to challenges and opportunities.

The goal of this assignment is to develop the skill of reflection to enhance learning from experience, focusing on technology.

I am asking you to conduct a critical self-evaluation of a time when you rejected a particular technology at work. This could have been a technology that you initially rejected but then came to accept, or one that you never accepted. Five to seven-page paper is required. Please turn in your work without your name on it, using only your student ID number, in the Assignment link.

Your work is going to require that you carefully think through an example from your own life, in-depth, to reflect on what it can tell you about others' willingness to adopt new technologies.

You should:

1. Describe a situation where you rejected or refused to use a new technology in the workplace. Make sure you explain the technology and the situation in sufficient depth so that it is clear.
2. Describe the personal and contextual reasons why you refused to use the technology.
3. After describing this refusal, compare and contrast it to what the Luddites were arguing. In particular, recall a core part of their argument -- that they should have the right to decide how their work was performed. Also, if you need to, use the web to find other stories of technology refusal from reliable sources. How is your rejection of a technology the same and different from others you have found?
4. Lastly, what do you think your personal refusal of a technology can teach you about the future of work? What does it teach you about how others might react to the implementation of new technologies? Here, I ask that you avoid simple answers. Instead, take seriously that your refusal to accept a technology meant something, that there were good reasons for doing so, and that this has an impact on how the future of work will unfold.

Grading

I will be gradingon six dimensions, each worth five points. These are:

1. detailed description of the situation;
2. depth of analysis of the reasons for your behavior;
3. depth of comparison with the Luddites (or other relevant examples you find from reliable sources you document in the paper);
4. use of concepts and ideas from our course;
5. detail and depth of lessons learned; and
6. clarity of presentation.