Americans have conflicting feelings toward technology, with most predicting it will be an equally positive and negative force in the future. This and other similar findings are part of the latest edition of The Shell Poll, a quarterly survey of Americans conducted by Shell Oil Company by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.

Despite the major technological advancements of the 20th Century, 55 percent say technology will be both a positive and negative force in the future. Slightly more than a third believe future technological changes will be entirely positive, while only 7 percent said they will be completely negative, leaving the majority of Americans in the middle.

"If Americans seem to bow to the god of technology, they do so with a skeptical eye open to its downside," said Peter Hart. "On the one hand, they believe they'd have a difficult time living without some of the technological advances of this century, while on the other hand, they're wary about what technological breakthroughs the future may have in store."

While 42 percent said they are comfortable with new technologies and 11 percent said they are slow to use them, 47 percent said they are somewhere in the middle-neither entirely comfortable nor entirely uncomfortable. And though a majority believe there's a good chance scientists will clone human beings in the next 30 years, 58 percent said that possibility is what they would dread most about living in the next century.

Americans also value the most recent technological breakthroughs of this century, perhaps taking for granted those that have been around longer. When asked to name one or two of the most significant technological developments in the 20th Century, nearly two-thirds cited the computer, almost twice as many as its closest competitor, the automobile.

Just fewer than a quarter said television and only 13 percent said the airplane.