What Is Technology and How Does It Shape Our Lives?

Technology is all about creating tools that help us in meeting our goals, both personal and professional. It is also about understanding how these tools shape our lives and the world around us.

The word Technology is derived from the Latin technologia, which means the science of the practical or industrial arts. According to Merriam-Webster, it is a general term for techniques, methods, and systems that are the result of scientific knowledge used for purposes of facilitating human activities.

It is very rare for a technological innovation to exist in isolation, as most of them have to be sold, operated, occasionally repaired, and eventually replaced. These related activities usually require training, which can be a major cost. These factors make it very difficult for designers to design an isolated technology without the full context of its uses in mind.

Despite these limitations, many important innovations in technology take place as a result of individual inventiveness and technological competition. However, social and economic forces strongly influence which technologies will be adopted, paid attention to, invested in, and used. These influences may come from the availability of risk capital, patent laws, media attention, government regulation, economic competition, and so forth.

Throughout the 1900s, people discovered how to fit the parts that make electronic products work onto tiny chips called integrated circuits, which enabled them to shrink them to a much smaller size. This made electronic products such as CD players, cellular telephones, digital cameras, and personal computers possible. People also began using electrical devices to help them live healthier and safer lives, such as hearing aids and kidney dialysis machines, which operate from outside the body. Doctors also use devices like pacemakers to keep hearts beating steady.