Technology is designed into 'black boxes', so that the labourer/user is left without influence over the functions that the machinery imposes on her. A classic illustration of how technology is used in this way to control labour activity is the speed set by the assembly line in a factory (Edwards, 1979). Recent studies shows that user-friendly but impregnable automation has escalated a defeating sense of helplessness among the deskilled, blue-collar workforce operating the machinery (Sennett, 1999). Furthermore, computers make even highly intellectual and artistic professions vulnerable to the deskilling process (Rifkin, 1995). Concerns are raising that multimedia and recording technology may mechanise education, turning it into a 'digitalised diploma mill' (Noble, 1998).
Sorta reminds me of Webct and Blackboard.
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