Definition: technology

Applying a systematic technique, method or approach to solve a problem. Except for mechanical solutions, all of today's technologies use computers in one way or another. Even devices without chips or electrical motors were likely designed with computers. See high tech, microcontroller and computer.

The Bottom Line
Technology giveth and taketh. Households have a TV with an endless selection of entertainment. The smartphone can deliver in seconds everything the world has to offer.

Yet technology has added layers of complexity from the underlying code running that people never see to what they do see when navigating a poorly designed app. There is hardly any software application that cannot be made easier to use (see first-time user and user interface).

Today, social media enables everyone on earth to be a publisher and as a result, objective truth has disappeared. What is true depends on the sources we follow for whatever reasons they have gained our trust. On top of that, add in all the security breaches, viruses, ransomware, spammers and scammers, and there is the omnipresent fear that someone is out to get us. Like most things in life, technology is indeed both good and bad. See Systemantics.

Just a Few Changes!

Computer technology has brought us a degree of complexity few could have imagined decades ago. The 33-page owner's manual for a 1955 Chevrolet is dwarfed next to the 658 pages for a 2017 Honda.