What is technology? If you’d asked me that very question a month ago, I’d probably have said something along the lines of, “technology is an invention that makes you more efficient, or makes your life easier.” To me, technology was something tangible that you could hold in your hands. It was an object that you could use to complete a task. It could help you accomplish things that you wouldn’t be able do with your bare hands.
In trying to define the word “technology,” I’ve noticed something that is quite interesting to me.
Dictionary.com includes the following as a definition of “technology:”
-The branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science.
One of the definitions in the World English Dictionary for “technology” is:
-The total knowledge and skills available to any human society for industry, art, science, etc.
A definition in the Oxford English Dictionary for “technology” is:
-The branch of knowledge dealing with the mechanical arts and applied sciences; the study of this.
Each of these definitions includes knowledge, and the application of knowledge as technology. This makes me wonder not what is technology, but what isn’t technology?
