The Question of Technology

What is technology? I encourage you to take a second and write down your own definition. As time moves along you may find yourself redefining what you hold to be true about innovation, this is something I have been doing consistently over the last few weeks. We have come to recognize major advances in our society by identifying them as “technology.” The invention of the alphabet over 2,500 years ago had transformational effects on Greek society and even to this day we can’t imagine our modern world without it. The long days of scribing texts by hand came to a close with the printing press and the work of a German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg. Gottlieb Daimer invented the car in 1893 and well the list of world-altering invention goes on. I assure you, there is no easy way to address the question of technology; what you think it is, how it behaves, how it comes to be and do what it does. Technology is a means for accomplishing a task; it is a solution, a capability, the application of science, a tool or process, applied human knowledge, industrial art, devices, applications and power… well according to some.

There is no doubt that technology is here to serve purpose. Martin Heidegger, a 20th century philosopher, suggested that if we understand what technology is, and how we relate to it that we can essentially have a “free relationship” with it. If you are feeling masochistic I would suggest a long night with a dense Heidegger reading and for a more gentle approach a cliff notes version.

There is also no doubt that this fast moving thing called technology is dramatically altering our world. But then again it always has, be it the wheel or the world a ‘Twitter. My Dad isn’t ancient enough to have missed Edison’s brilliance (har har.) However, the other day he told me with astonishment about the lights in my family’s home; perhaps a testament to our digital age. He wakes to a world that is aglow with tiny lights. There is the flash of a digital alarm clock. The electric toothbrush is charging with a green flicka; the TV, satellite and blue-ray all suggest the power is off with a red light on. A trip to the coffee pot at 5:30am is guided like an airport runway by every digital light on the major kitchen appliances. Do you want the time? Do you want the temperature? Do you want to know that I am charged, or perhaps I need charging? They all suggest, “We can help you with that.” My microwave even says, “Have a nice day” on its display as it comes to a beeping hault. The realization: there is no longer absolute darkness among the twinkling screens, and perhaps this is metaphoric as much as literal. Perhaps this is why I hear more and more about jaunts to “electric-less cabins in the deep woods.”

Think about the technology of your lifetime, what have you seen rise, fall, or more likely seen updated and replaced? It’s rather overwhelming.

You’ve got to hand it to Samuel Morse and the boys who laid cable across the floor of the Atlantic: the telegraph is an awesome example of the power of revolutionary technology. The first telegraphic message released communication from the restraints of geography and bore a new concept of immediacy. Messages could now be sent and received in time for the content to still be relevant. Today we can bawk at the ten-minute coast-to-coast window that it took for message translation with our ‘instant’ capabilities, but in its day the telegraph was astonishing. There were fundamental effects on commodity markets, industry/imperialism, language and military efforts. The standardization of time was also made possible; socially and economically the world experienced radical advancement. No one could foresee how powerful the invention of the telegraph or even the introduction of the alphabet would be in its early inception. We must understand that the powers of a technology, and the extent of its capabilities, are never realized as it is implemented.

It is far easier to recognize how technology changes our external world but as Walter Ong wrote, “All technologies affect man’s sense of his lifeworld, his sense of himself in relation to the universe, and thus enter into human consciousness to change its structure.”

Perhaps one of the greatest definitions of technology that I have found, "Technology is how people modify the natural world to suit their own purposes... generally it refers to the diverse collection of processes and knowledge that people use to extend human abilities and to satisfy human needs and wants" (Excerpt from Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology, ITEA, 2000).

You might feel like you want the last few minutes back when I tell you that I don’t have the answer to technology. I realize, and I’m sure you have too; that we live in a world that is growing more and more dependent on technology and the speed at which that technology is evolving is unprecedented in history. The power and responsibility we willingly hand to technology is daunting. Somewhere along the line I feel like technology has promised to be more dependable than our human counterparts, and as flawed individuals we accept. So… when do we become robots? Well, I’m not a big fan of gunmetal grey or taking orders so what I can tell you is that there is power in technological literacy and awareness; the ability to use, understand and assess the technology we use is incredibly important.