Technology is a collection of tools used to help achieve practical goals in an efficient way. This can include tangible tools such as utensils or machines and intangible ones like software or the internet. Technology has a broad scope and is constantly evolving. It is important to understand the different types of technology available in order to choose which ones will be best for your needs.
For example, using a tool like Boomerang to manage your emails and reminders in Outlook is a great example of a technology that can increase productivity. This type of tool can help you organize your emails and reminds you to respond to emails in a timely manner. It also helps you clean up your inbox so that you don’t have to spend time searching for important emails.
The word “technology” derives from two Greek words: techne, meaning art or skill, and logos, which means word or discourse about the way things are gained. It is this latter sense of the term that most people use when discussing modern technology, i.e., the invention of the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, among other examples. But the notion of technology has a more general treatment as well, dating back to our hominid ancestors’ discovery of controlled fire and the wheel, and even further still to the first hand tools created by our earliest ancestors.
The development of any technology requires a lot of human effort and creativity to design, build, install, and maintain the tools. As such, there is a great deal of scholarship related to the history of technology and its role in culture and society. Eric Schatzberg’s classic article ’Technik Comes to America: changing meanings of technology before 1930’ is an essential read for students and researchers in this area.