Social Implications of Computing

What is the basis (your epistemology) for evaluating the evidence you use to analyze the way computer technology impacts (influences, delimits, shapes) social change? In other words, do you trust and how do you use: History? Natural Sciences? Social Sciences? Personal experience? Playing/Making (one often makes, rebuilds, tinkers with tech to understand it)? Philosophy? Religion? Political commitments? What are the main ideas or defined forces you look for when trying to understand how computers (as both a technology and as a metaphor) change society? Affordances? Cui bono? Human nature? Technological Determinism? Chance? Culture? Patriarchy? Be specific.