“techno-solutionism,” the simplification of complex societal problems into apps and algorithms.
Ed-Tech’s Inequalities
“Technological solutionism” is the related tendency to identify simple answers — in all domains, not just the tech sector — “before the questions have been fully asked” or the problems fully articulated.
Take, for example: “the Internet has changed everything about how we teach and learn.” Thus, “education is broken.” And from there, “technology will fix it.”
Click Here to Save Education: Evgeny Morozov and Ed-Tech Solutionism
Technology is at its best when serving toolbelt theory, workflow thinking, and niche construction and at its worst when serving behaviorism, “efficiency“, and techno-solutionism.
To assume that technology is going to de facto change school is a form of techno-solutionism. Often, it is techno-solutionism in the form of changing things like perceived “inefficiencies.” And that is not a subversive feature of the computer. That’s a dominant desire of the managerial class.
The Subversiveness of Ed-Tech
How do we distinguish between ed-tech as solutionist marketing (what you hear in (ed-)tech blogs that gush uncritically about every new app and every new investment) and ed-tech as contingency-in-practice (the ways in which students and teachers have always MacGyver-ed together the tools that they need — hacks for inquiry and pleasure, despite a regime that might demand otherwise)? Because do so — distinguish, dismiss, agitate — we must.
Click Here to Save Education: Evgeny Morozov and Ed-Tech Solutionism
Yet evidence is growing that the harms that accompany the deployment of new technologies in context are not simply the result of bias, but betray a fundamental mismatch between complex social issues and tech solutionism. Our fractured and deeply unequal society is facing compound, unprecedented challenges presented by climate change, rising authoritarianism, and ever-widening inequality. What if new technologies sold to solve social problems are simply ill-suited to the complexity of the environments where they are introduced? What if, sometimes, the answer isn’t technology?
Disrupting the Gospel of Tech Solutionism to Build Tech Justice
The first step in countering the gospel of tech solutionism is simply to question the presumption that new or revised technologies are the solution to any given social problem. Communities impacted by technology must be able to resist and refuse its incursions if and as they experience harm. If refusal is not an option, then we are still trapped in a vision of the future created by a small sliver of humanity: powerful investors, industry leaders, elite technologists, and special interests.
Disrupting the Gospel of Tech Solutionism to Build Tech Justice
According to Agarwal and others, MOOCs – and more broadly, education technology, online education, the World Wide Web, and the Internet – serve to magically erase systemic inequalities. This is what technology critic Evgeny Morozov has described as “techno-solutionism,” the simplification of complex societal problems into apps and algorithms. That is to say, we have exchanged political activism, collectivity, debate, democracy, social change for (education) technology consumption and usage. The world is broken – schools are broken – the techno-solutionists say, but the ubiquity of mobile computing devices will somehow save us.
Ed-Tech’s Inequalities
But the Google marketing is also highly technosolutionist. It proposes that datafied forms of surveillance and automation are ideally suited to solving the problems of schooling.
Google magic | code acts in education
Too often, ed-tech acts as though you “move the needle” by throwing technology at things. The industry suffers from what Evgeny Morozov calls “techno-solutionism” – this idea that tech magically fixes complex social problems. We see “techno-solutionism” in the MOOC craze (which was once all about democratizing education. Now it’s mostly about corporate training.) We see “techno-solutionism” in the “learn-to-code” craze, as though programming classes are going to address unemployment and job insecurity.
Top Ed-Tech Trends of 2014
Morozov (2013) defines technological solutionism as the belief that technology can serve as a primary vehicle for social improvement. This perspective often manifests as technologically “utopian” ideas, reflecting an optimistic belief that technology’s negative externalities can be addressed through further innovation (Markus 1994; Nye 1997). Solutionism is characterized by several key assumptions: that social-political issues can be treated as solvable puzzles (Paquet 2005), that technical solutions should be pursued even before problems are fully articulated (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), and that social issues can be made more efficient and rationalized through technical means. However, as Morozov (2013, 14) warns, this approach becomes dangerous when technology is viewed as something that can “fix the bugs of humanity.”
Nerd Harder: A Typology of Techno‐Legal Solutionist Logics in Child Online Safety Laws – Reid – 2025 – Policy & Internet – Wiley Online Library
Going forward, our work will advance strategies for changing how data-centric technologies are understood and governed in society. Our researchers are exploring urgent and timely topics like:
Data & Society 20
- What constitutes citizenship and democratic practice when nation states govern via algorithm?
- How do we define and demand meaningful participation of affected communities in the governance of data-centric and automated technologies?
- How do we put people and the public interest, rather than nationalist technosolutionism, at the center of debates about technology’s role in society?
What would a professional ethics statement for ed-tech look like?
Drawing from the Hippocratic Oath, perhaps it would insist that students be recognized as humans, not as data points. It would demand a respect for student privacy. It would recognize that “the tools” are less important than compassion. It would privilege humility over techno-solutionism. It could call for more professional transparency perhaps – open doors in classrooms, open collaboration with peers, and open disclosure about relationships with industry.
A Hippocratic Oath for Ed-Tech
Technology offers itself as the solution. Wait. Let me fix that sentence. Technology companies offer their products as the solution, and technology advocates promote the narrative of techno-solutionism.
Robot Teachers, Racist Algorithms, and Disaster Pedagogy
Little by little the subversive features of the computer were eroded away: Instead of cutting across and so challenging the very idea of subject boundaries, the computer now defined a new subject; instead of changing the emphasis from impersonal curriculum to excited live exploration by students, the computer was now used to reinforce School’s ways. What had started as a subversive instrument of change was neutralized by the system and converted into an instrument of consolidation.
Seymour Papert, The Children’s Machine
In most contemporary educational situations where children come into contact with computers the computer is used to put children through their paces, to provide exercises of an appropriate level of difficulty, to provide feedback, and to dispense information. The computer programming the child.
Seymour Papert, Mindstorms
