Technological determinism

I wanted to find out about technological determinism so did a bit of online research about it. This is a brief bit of what i found:

• Technological determinism is effectively the opposite of social determinism and is seen (not by everyone however) as the force which drives and shapes society.
• One example of how technology shapes society (i think) could be the internet and how the use of the internet has changed people's social interactivity, in that people can have social exchanges with others without seeing them face to face (to do with disintermediation).

I have taken three definitions of technological determinism from Wikipedia (so obviously don't take these as definite...we all know our tutors look down on Wikipedia!), but i think they outline the general notions of this theory. Here they are:

''Technological determinism has been summarized as 'The belief in technology as a key governing force in society ...' (Merritt Roe Smith), '... the belief that social progress is driven by technological innovation, which in turn follows an "inevitable" course.' (Michael L. Smith), 'The idea that technological development determines social change ...' (Bruce Bimber)''

These are the websites I used to find this stuff out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tdet02.html

http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/trinity/determin.html