Definition : application of knowledge in practice, especially in one area, a skill brought about by the practical application of knowledge a way of carrying out a task, particularly one involving technical procedures, methods, or knowledge the unique features of a certain field of activity
Technology is a wide term that refers to how a species uses and learns to use tools and crafts, as well as how that usage and knowledge influences that species’ capacity to manage and adapt to its environment.
It is a result of science and engineering in human civilization, despite the fact that many technical developments came before these two ideas.
It’s difficult to give “technology” a precise definition:
In addition to wider concepts like systems, organizational methods, and procedures, it may also relate to tangible items that are useful to mankind, such machinery, technology, or utensils.
The phrase can be used to refer to a broad range of technologies or to those used specifically in a field, as in “construction technology,” “medical technology,” or “state-of-the-art technology.”
Numerous ways exist in which technology has impacted society and its environment.
Technology has aided in the advancement of many civilizations’ economies, particularly the modern global economy, and has facilitated the emergence of a leisure class.
Many modern activities harm the Earth and its ecology by wasting natural resources and producing undesirable byproducts, sometimes known as pollution.
Different technological applications have an impact on a society’s values, and emerging technology frequently poses fresh ethical dilemmas.
Examples include the challenge to conventional standards and the growth of the idea of efficiency in terms of human production, a phrase that was previously solely ascribed to machines.
Meaning and examples
The words “technology” and “logia” are Greek words that mean “craft” and “logic,” respectively (“saying”).
[1]
Technology, in general, refers to how civilization interacts with its tools and crafts and how much environmental control it has.
dictionaries Merriam-Webster
provides two definitions for the term: “a capability supplied by the practical application of knowledge” and “the practical application of knowledge, especially in a particular area.”
Another explanation of the term was provided by Ursula Franklin in her 1989 “Real World of Technology” lecture; she described it as “practice, the way we do things around here.”
[3]
Instead than referring to technology as a whole, the word is frequently used to suggest a specific area of technology, high technology, or merely consumer electronics.
In Technics and Time, 1, Bernard Stiegler gives two definitions of technology: “organized inorganic substance” and “the quest of life by methods other than life.”
[4]
The most general definition of technology is any entity—material or immaterial—that is produced through the application of both physical and mental effort in order to accomplish some sort of value.
Technology in this context refers to devices and apparatus that may be utilized to address issues in the actual world.
A combination of procedures can also be referred to as “technology.”
In this sense, it refers to the human race’s existing understanding of how to combine resources to generate desired goods, address issues, meet requirements, or gratify desires; it comprises technological approaches, aptitudes, procedures, tools, and raw materials.
When used in conjunction with a different phrase, such as “medical technology” or “space technology,” it alludes to the current status of the knowledge and equipment in that particular subject.
The term “state-of-the-art technology” describes the best technology that humanity has at its disposal in any sector.
Technology may be seen as a process that creates or modifies culture.
Technology is also the use of math, science, and the arts for the betterment of known life.
a current instance
engineering, science, and technology
It might be difficult to tell the difference between science, engineering, and technology.
By using formal methods like the scientific method, science is the reasoned inquiry or study of phenomena with the goal of identifying lasting patterns among components of the phenomenal world.
Because they must meet criteria like utility, usability, and safety, technologies are typically not just the result of science.
Engineering, which frequently (but not always) uses findings and methods from science, is the goal-oriented process of developing and creating tools and systems to harness natural events for useful human purposes.
In order to produce a useful outcome, the creation of technology may make use of information from a variety of disciplines, including science, engineering, mathematics, linguistics, and history.
Science and engineering are frequently results of technology, even while technology itself
Throughout human history
The creation of basic tools out of natural materials marked the beginning of humankind’s use of technology.
The discovery that humans could manage fire in prehistoric times enhanced the food supplies that were accessible, and the development of the wheel made it easier for people to move around and control their surroundings.
The printing press, the telephone, and the Internet are examples of recent technical advancements that have lowered physical barriers to communication and allowed people to engage on a global scale.
But not all technology has been employed for good; from clubs to nuclear bombs, ever-more-powerful deadly weapons have been developed throughout history.
Paleolithic (2.5 million – 10,000 B.C.E.) (2.5 million – 10,000 B.C.E.)
Early humans’ use of tools was a product of both discovery and evolution.
Early humans descended from a group of bipedal foraging hominids with a smaller brain than contemporary humans.
[5]
For the most of early human history, tool usage remained largely constant, but around 50,000 years ago, a sophisticated set of behaviors and tool use evolved that many archaeologists think to be related to the formation of fully-modern language.
rock tools
Long before the 200,000 year old Homo sapiens appearance, our predecessors had been employing stone and other tools.
The Oldowan “industry”—the oldest techniques for creating stone tools—began at least 2.3 million years ago[7], while the earliest direct evidence of tool use—found in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley—dates to 2.5 million years ago.
The Paleolithic period, sometimes known as the “Old Stone Age,” covers the entirety of human history up to the advent of agriculture around 12,000 years ago.
A “core” of hard stone with particular flaking characteristics, such as flint, was hammered with a hammerstone to create a stone tool.
Both the flakes and the core stone generated by this flaking have sharp edges, making them both suitable for use as tools, particularly as choppers or scrapers.
The early humans used these tools to perform many different tasks in their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, such as butchering carcasses (and breaking bones to get at the marrow), chopping wood, cracking open nuts, skinning an animal for its hide, and even making other tools out of softer materials like bone and wood.
The earliest stone tools were primitive, consisting just of broken rocks.
During the Acheulian age, which began around 1.65 million years ago, techniques for shaping these stones into certain forms, such hand axes, arose.
The prepared-core method was first used in the Middle Paleolithic, some 300,000 years ago. With this method, several blades could be quickly made from a single core stone.
Pressure flaking, which allowed a stone to be extremely precisely shaped with a wood, bone, or antler punch, appeared in the Upper Paleolithic, starting around 40,000 years ago.
[10]
Fire
The discovery and use of fire, a low-tech energy source with several deep applications, marked a turning point in humankind’s technological development.
[11] Although the exact date of its discovery is unknown, charred animal bones found at the Cradle of Humankind provide evidence that fire was domesticated before 1,000,000 B.C.E. [12] According to academic agreement, Homo erectus had mastery over fire by between 500,000 and 400,000 B.C.E.
[13]
Early people were able to prepare their food to make it more digestible, improve its nutritional content, and expand the variety of things they could consume thanks to fire, which was fuelled by wood and charcoal.
Housing and clothing
Clothing and shelter were two more technical developments produced during the Paleolithic era; although the adoption of both technologies cannot be precisely dated, they were crucial to the advancement of mankind.
As the Paleolithic age went on, homes got increasingly complex and intricate; people were building temporary wood shelters as early as 380,000 B.C.E.
[14]
Humans started migrating out of Africa about 200,000 B.C.E. and onto other continents, such Eurasia. This migration was aided by clothing, which was fashioned from the fur and skins of hunted animals.
[15]
Burins and racloirs made during this time period show that humans started using bones, antlers, and skins as raw materials.
From the Neolithic through Classical Periods (10,000 B.C.E. – 300 C.E.)
The Neolithic period is when man first started to advance technologically (“New stone age”).
The development of polished stone axes was a significant development since it permitted extensive clearing of forest to establish farms.
The development of agriculture made it possible to feed bigger people, and the shift from a nomadic to a sedentist lifestyle boosted the number of children that could be reared at once because tiny children were no longer had to be carried.
Children could also more readily contribute work to the cultivation of crops than they could to the hunter-gatherer way of life.
[16]
There has been a rise in labor specialization as a result of the population growth and increase in labor supply.
[17]
The development of increasingly hierarchical social structures, the specialization of labor, trade, and warfare among neighboring cultures, as well as the need for collective action to overcome environmental challenges, such as the building of dikes and reservoirs, are all believed to have played a role in the progression from early Neolithic villages to the first cities, such as Uruk, and the first civilizations, such as Sumer. However, the exact cause of this progression is unknown.
[18]
metallic tools
The capacity to smelt and forge native metals was made possible by the furnace and bellows, which were the result of ongoing advances (naturally occurring in relatively pure form).
These early metals included lead, silver, copper, gold, and others.
Early people soon realized the benefits of using copper tools over those made of stone, bone, and wood, and native copper was probably utilized as early as the Neolithic period (about 8000 B.C.E.).
Although copper ores are relatively abundant and some of them burn nicely in wood or charcoal fires, native copper does not occur in vast quantities in nature.
Eventually, alloys like bronze and brass were discovered as a result of the processing of metals (about 4000 B.C.E.).
Steel and other iron alloys were initially utilized
Power and Transportation
People were also discovering how to use different types of energy.
The sailboat is the first example of wind power.
The earliest known depiction of a ship in sail is found on an Egyptian earthenware from 3200 B.C.E.
Egyptians undoubtedly began using “the force of the Nile” to water their farms in prehistoric times. Over time, they learned to control much of it through intentionally constructed irrigation canals and “catch” basins.
The Sumerians, who were among the first inhabitants of Mesopotamia, also learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for a lot of the same things.
But another invention was needed for more widespread use of wind, water, and even human power.
Researchers estimate that the wheel was created approximately 4000 BCE. Most likely, the wheel was independently created in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Most researchers place this event closer to 4000 B.C.E., while estimates range from 5500 to 3000 B.C.E. Wheeled carts are first seen in drawings on objects that date back to around 3000 BCE, while the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these paintings were created. Additionally, there is proof that pottery was made using wheels during this time period. (Take note that the original potter’s wheel was probably not a wheel, but rather an oddly shaped flat piece of wood affixed with a little hollowed-out or punctured region towards the middle age
The development of the wheel transformed a variety of processes, including transportation, warfare, and pottery manufacture (for which it may have been first used).
It didn’t take long to realize that wheeled carts could transport huge loads, and that early mass manufacturing of pottery was made possible by quick (rotary) potters’ wheels.
However, the use of nonhuman power sources was revolutionized by the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (via water wheels, windmills, and even treadmills).
(0—) Modern history
Simple machines (such the lever, screw, and pulley) and more complicated machines are both examples of tools (such as the clock, the engine, the electric generator and the electric motor, the computer, radio, and the Space Station, among many others).
The kind of information required to support tools also becomes more complicated as they get more sophisticated.
Complex contemporary machines need libraries of written technical manuals containing knowledge that has been continuously refined and added; their creators, constructors, maintainers, and users frequently need to be experts in decades of highly specialized general and specialized training.
In addition, these tools have developed to such a level of complexity that a vast infrastructure of technical knowledge-based secondary tools, procedures, and practices (in and of themselves complicated tools) exists to support them
Technology and society substantially rely on one another in their connection, which is typically described as synergistic, symbiotic, co-dependent, co-influential, and co-producing (technology upon culture, and culture upon technology).
Additionally, it is generally accepted that this symbiotic connection began with the invention of primitive tools at the start of human history and continues now with the development of contemporary technology.
Technology affects and is impacted by societal concerns and aspects including economy, morals, ethics, institutions, organizations, the environment, and government today and throughout history.
Science and technology in society is the field that studies how science, technology, and society interact.
Philosophy, technology, and society
There are philosophical differences concerning the existing and potential uses of technology in society, including whether these uses will improve or deteriorate human situation.
While proponents of ideologies like transhumanism and techno-progressivism see continued technological advancement as beneficial to society and the human condition, Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar movements criticize the widespread use of technology in the modern world, asserting that it harms the environment and alienates people.
It was formerly thought that only humans could develop technology, but recent scientific investigations show that other primates and certain dolphin populations have also learned to make basic tools and pass on their expertise to future generations.
Technicism
Technicism, in general, refers to an excessive dependence on or overconfidence in technology as a social good.
When taken to its logical conclusion, some contend that technicism is the conviction that humans will eventually be able to use technology to govern all of existence.
In other words, humans will eventually be able to use technology to solve all issues and perhaps even take control of the future.
Some people, like Monsma, associate these concepts with the rejection of religion as a supreme moral authority.
[20]
Technicism is more frequently used to refute the widely accepted notion that newer, more recently created technology is “better.”
For instance, more contemporary computers have quicker processing speeds than older ones, while more recent automobiles have more amenities and better gas mileage than earlier ones.
since people typically embrace modern technology
Optimism
Advocates of ideologies like transhumanism and singularitarianism, which believe that technology advancement typically has positive consequences on society and the human condition, tend to make optimistic assumptions. These philosophies believe that technology advancement is ethically acceptable. Some detractors fear the idea of human augmentation and the technological singularity, which these ideologies advocate, and consider them as instances of scientism and techno-utopianism. Karl Marx has been referred to be a techno-optimist by some. [21]
Pessimism
Some philosophers, such as Herbert Marcuse and John Zerzan, who hold the view that technological civilizations are essentially faulty a priori, lean toward the pessimistic end of the spectrum.
They contend that such a society will grow progressively more technical at the expense of liberty and mental health (and probably physical health in general, as pollution from technological products is dispersed).
Many people, like the Luddites and well-known philosopher Martin Heidegger, have valid but significant misgivings about technology.
In “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger argues that this is the case: “Thus, as long as we only imagine and advance the technological, put up with it, or escape it, we shall never realize our relationship to the essence of technology.
We are still not free everywhere.
What are today regarded as dystopian literary masterpieces, such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and other publications, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, include some of the most searing critiques of technology.
Additionally, the devil offering Faust his soul in exchange for control over the material world in Goethe’s Faust is sometimes seen as a metaphor for the acceptance of industrial technology.
Theodore Kaczynski, nicknamed The Unabomber, wrote an unabashedly anti-technological dissertation titled Industrial Society and Its Future, which was published in a number of prestigious newspapers (and eventually books) in an effort to put a halt to his campaign of destroying the techno-industrial infrastructure.
Suitable technology
But in the twentieth century, the idea of “appropriate technology” was developed (for example, see Jacques Ellul’s work) to describe circumstances in which it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere.
This issue contributed to the emergence of the eco-village movement.
Various species
Other than humans, other creatures also employ some form of rudimentary technology.
These include crows, certain dolphin populations, and primates like chimpanzees and apes.
[24]
Once upon a time, the capacity to create and utilize tools was seen as a distinguishing trait of the species Homo.
[25]
However, the idea that technology is only used by humans has been disproved by the finding of tool manufacturing among chimpanzees and other similar species.
For instance, scientists have seen wild chimpanzees using implements for foraging, such as leaf sponges, termite fishing probes, pestles, and levers.
[26]
For cracking nuts, West African chimpanzees also utilize anvils and stone hammers.
