Technology

Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia (τεχνολογία), techne (τέχνη) “craft” and logia (λογία) “saying.” It is a broad term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity’s tools and crafts.

Depending on context, the word technology has the following definitions and uses.
Technology as tool

Robert Hooke’s microscope (1655)Technology can be most broadly defined as the material entities created by the application of mental and physical effort to nature in order to achieve some value. In its most common use, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to help solve problems. In this use, technology is a far-reaching term that may include both simple tools, such as a wooden spoon, and complex tools, such as a space station or the written sets of procedures and maintenance manuals for it.

Technology as technique
In this use, technology is the current state of our knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants. Technology in this sense includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials (for example, in such uses as computer technology, construction technology, or medical technology).

Technology as a cultural force
Technology can also be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture (such as in manufacturing technology, infrastructure technology, or space-travel technology). (McGinn)

As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor. This is not to imply that technology is the only, or the dominant, culture-forming activity. Culture itself acts strongly upon, and shapes, the form and nature of technology. However, due to the increasingly widespread use of ever more complex technologies and their frequently unintended consequences, problems arise in their use. These which have been separately studied. Such topics include technological ethics, environmental effects, technological byproducts, and technological risk. The cultural force of technology (e.g., as seen in the invention of writing) may be said to be the driving force that sets us apart from other species.

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