Blog Entry #4

After asking both of my parents about how they defined technology, I began to wonder if my upbringing by them affected the way I defined the word. I decided to ask my brother what he thought the word meant to see if there was any similarity. My brother very loosely and ambigously defined the word ‘technology’ as “Stuff we use that betters our lives and allows us to live long, fulfilling lives”. As I said before, the way my brother defined the word was very unclear and broad, but it basically seems like his idea was the same as my initial thoughts. He said that technology is the “stuff” we use to better our lives, and I said that technology is the “things” we use to better our lives. He could have meant anything with the word “stuff”, but the rest of the definition clearly points out that, in his opinion, technology is used to benefit humanity. He uses the word fulfilling to describe how technology can add more to our lives. Without technology we would not be able to do many things, and the internet is the pefect example of this. The internet allows us to view the entire world and talk to thousands of people we do not even know. My brother mentions that technology “allows us to live long, fulfilling lives”. I am not exactly sure what he meant by “live long”, but technology does allow us to live long, with advances in sanitation and medicine. In the end, it seems like we had the same initial thoughts on what technology is and is used for, which makes me think about how different people define the word. It depends strongly on your upbringing.

Blog Entry #3

After seeing what my dad, an engineer, defined as technology, I decided to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and ask my mom, an english major, what she thought the word meant, or ought to mean. She defined the word as, “Progressive leaps in all areas of living standards such as medicine, housing, agriculture, etc. due to constant research and invention”. The part of this definition that sticks out to me the most is how she made it clear that technology comes about through “constant research and invention”. This statement goes back to what my dad said about technology being “specialized”. Once again, technology does not just come about by accident, you have to work at it. Another important part of my mom’s definition is how technology is the “progressive leaps” in areas of living, the invention and research itself alone is not technology. When all of these inventions and all of this research comes together to make a progressive leap in some area of living, then it becomes technology, but until then, it is simply an invention, or it is simply research. I find it interesting to see that the engineering point of view I received focuses on what is being created, and how it was created, and the more liberal point of view focuses on what technology does overall. According to my dad, technology is used to accomplish something, maybe anything, no matter what it is. On the other hand, my mom says that technology is used for the betterment of life. I believe that both of these definitions are basically the same, just in my mom’s case, the task that needs to be accomplished improves the quality, or standards, of life.

Blog Entry #2

To further help my understanding of the word ‘technology’, I asked my dad to tell me what he thought the word meant. My dad has a degree in computer engineering, so he would have a lot of experience with what most people call technology. He defined technology as, “The means to accomplishing a task using specialized methods, processes, or products”. This goes along a lot with my original idea of doing something, or accomplishing a task, but I focused mainly on the products side of it. I think my dad brought up a good point with methods and processes. Technology does not necessarily have to be an object, or something tangible you can buy at a store, it can be an idea, or a way to do something. I thought my idea of technology was very broad, but looking at what my dad said, mine now seems too narrow. For instance, if we look at the scientific method, I would have originally defined something this method produced as technology, whereas my dad would define the scientific method itself as technology. Another key word in my dad’s definition is the word ‘specialized’. I think that this word plays a major role in what my dad would call technology. Technology is not simply doing some random thing and eventually accomplishing something by sheer luck, but it is planned out, and created to accomplish whatever task is at hand. This brings up the idea of technology as being well thought out and somewhat advanced in that you cannot simply stumble upon technology.

Blog Entry #1

When I hear the word ‘technology’, I think of the advance of humanity. In my opinion, technology is the word for the things we as humans create to make it easier for ourselves to live our daily lives and get the things we want. I believe technology is all around us, and has been around us since the earliest humans, and has since been changing the way our society functions. There is no doubt that technology plays a vital role in our culture, but different people are affected by technology in different ways. I also believe that different people would have differing opinions on what technology truly is, and what it is used for. For instance, what I believe about technology and how it affects humanity may be entirely different from what somebody of a different wealth class, age, gender, or culture may believe. Before I was actually posed the question of what technology is, I always thought of technology as things like computers and cell phones, just the latest electronic items. However, when I think of it, technology can be almost anything. As long as something makes it easier for a human to do anything, I believe that you can call it technology. Technology can be using rocks to sharpen spears to using the World Wide Web to access almost anything. However, thinking of technology’s influence on our society makes me wonder if all of these advancements are truly helping society, because there is no doubt a little harm coming from technology. It is getting easier for others to access our personal information, and if humans continue to develop things such as TVs, computers, and telephones, we may eventually have no reason to leave our homes. Technology is beneficial to society, but it could potentially be more harmful than we think.