Young describes changing relationship between work and technology

July 11, 2021 WDIV Local 4

The pandemic has left many anxious about what the future of work looks like. Alford Young, courtesy faculty at the Ford School, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Sociology and a professor of African and African American studies, explained how technology increases that anxiety even more.

"We are at a critical point today, because technology is promoting change at a faster rate. Technology has also created less of an opportunity for certain people to see themselves as relating to work. So even in an earlier moment in the industry, technological change involved people thinking ‘Here's where I sit in. Here’s where I'll drive that machine or where I'll work in that plant,'" he said. "Today so much technology is such that people are removed from work, don’t often see a space for themselves around technology and that exacerbates that anxiety."