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Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the world can change within a lifetime

It is easy to underestimate how much the world can change within a lifetime. considering how dramatically the world has changed can help us see how different the world could be in a few years or decades..

Technology can change the world in ways that are unimaginable until they happen. Switching on an electric light would have been unimaginable for our medieval ancestors. In their childhood, our grandparents would have struggled to imagine a world connected by smartphones and the Internet.

Similarly, it is hard for us to imagine the arrival of all those technologies that will fundamentally change the world we are used to.

We can remind ourselves that our own future might look very different from the world today by looking back at how rapidly technology has changed our world in the past. That’s what this article is about.

One insight I take away from this long-term perspective is how unusual our time is. Technological change was extremely slow in the past – the technologies that our ancestors got used to in their childhood were still central to their lives in their old age. In stark contrast to those days, we live in a time of extraordinarily fast technological change. For recent generations, it was common for technologies that were unimaginable in their youth to become common later in life.

The long-run perspective on technological change

The big visualization offers a long-term perspective on the history of technology. 1

The timeline begins at the center of the spiral. The first use of stone tools, 3.4 million years ago, marks the beginning of this history of technology. 2 Each turn of the spiral represents 200,000 years of history. It took 2.4 million years – 12 turns of the spiral – for our ancestors to control fire and use it for cooking. 3

To be able to visualize the inventions in the more recent past – the last 12,000 years – I had to unroll the spiral. I needed more space to be able to show when agriculture, writing, and the wheel were invented. During this period, technological change was faster, but it was still relatively slow: several thousand years passed between each of these three inventions.

From 1800 onwards, I stretched out the timeline even further to show the many major inventions that rapidly followed one after the other.

The long-term perspective that this chart provides makes it clear just how unusually fast technological change is in our time.

You can use this visualization to see how technology developed in particular domains. Follow, for example, the history of communication: from writing to paper, to the printing press, to the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, all the way to the Internet and smartphones.

Or follow the rapid development of human flight. In 1903, the Wright brothers took the first flight in human history (they were in the air for less than a minute), and just 66 years later, we landed on the moon. Many people saw both within their lifetimes: the first plane and the moon landing.

This large visualization also highlights the wide range of technology’s impact on our lives. It includes extraordinarily beneficial innovations, such as the vaccine that allowed humanity to eradicate smallpox , and it includes terrible innovations, like the nuclear bombs that endanger the lives of all of us .

What will the next decades bring?

The red timeline reaches up to the present and then continues in green into the future. Many children born today, even without further increases in life expectancy, will live well into the 22nd century.

New vaccines, progress in clean, low-carbon energy, better cancer treatments – a range of future innovations could very much improve our living conditions and the environment around us. But, as I argue in a series of articles , there is one technology that could even more profoundly change our world: artificial intelligence (AI).

One reason why artificial intelligence is such an important innovation is that intelligence is the main driver of innovation itself. This fast-paced technological change could speed up even more if it’s driven not only by humanity’s intelligence but also by artificial intelligence. If this happens, the change currently stretched out over decades might happen within a very brief time span of just a year. Possibly even faster. 4

I think AI technology could have a fundamentally transformative impact on our world. In many ways, it is already changing our world, as I documented in this companion article . As this technology becomes more capable in the years and decades to come, it can give immense power to those who control it (and it poses the risk that it could escape our control entirely).

Such systems might seem hard to imagine today, but AI technology is advancing quickly. Many AI experts believe there is a real chance that human-level artificial intelligence will be developed within the next decades, as I documented in this article .

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Technology will continue to change the world – we should all make sure that it changes it for the better

What is familiar to us today – photography, the radio, antibiotics, the Internet, or the International Space Station circling our planet – was unimaginable to our ancestors just a few generations ago. If your great-great-great grandparents could spend a week with you, they would be blown away by your everyday life.

What I take away from this history is that I will likely see technologies in my lifetime that appear unimaginable to me today.

In addition to this trend towards increasingly rapid innovation, there is a second long-run trend. Technology has become increasingly powerful. While our ancestors wielded stone tools, we are building globe-spanning AI systems and technologies that can edit our genes.

Because of the immense power that technology gives those who control it, there is little that is as important as the question of which technologies get developed during our lifetimes. Therefore, I think it is a mistake to leave the question about the future of technology to the technologists. Which technologies are controlled by whom is one of the most important political questions of our time because of the enormous power these technologies convey to those who control them.

We all should strive to gain the knowledge we need to contribute to an intelligent debate about the world we want to live in. To a large part, this means gaining knowledge and wisdom on the question of which technologies we want.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my colleagues Hannah Ritchie, Bastian Herre, Natasha Ahuja, Edouard Mathieu, Daniel Bachler, Charlie Giattino, and Pablo Rosado for their helpful comments on drafts of this essay and the visualization. Thanks also to Lizka Vaintrob and Ben Clifford for the conversation that initiated this visualization.

Appendix: About the choice of visualization in this article

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. When you visualize this development on a linear timeline, then most of the timeline is almost empty, while all the action is crammed into the right corner:

Linear version of the spiral chart

In my large visualization here, I tried to avoid this problem and instead show the long history of technology in a way that lets you see when each technological breakthrough happened and how, within the last millennia, there was a continuous acceleration of technological change.

The recent speed of technological change makes it difficult to picture the history of technology in one visualization. In the appendix, I show how this would look if it were linear.

It is, of course, difficult to assess when exactly the first stone tools were used.

The research by McPherron et al. (2010) suggested that it was at least 3.39 million years ago. This is based on two fossilized bones found in Dikika in Ethiopia, which showed “stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access”. These marks were interpreted as being caused by meat consumption and provide the first evidence that one of our ancestors, Australopithecus afarensis, used stone tools.

The research by Harmand et al. (2015) provided evidence for stone tool use in today’s Kenya 3.3 million years ago.

References:

McPherron et al. (2010) – Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia . Published in Nature.

Harmand et al. (2015) – 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya . Published in Nature.

Evidence for controlled fire use approximately 1 million years ago is provided by Berna et al. (2012) Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa , published in PNAS.

The authors write: “The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question of when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.”

This is what authors like Holden Karnofsky called ‘Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement’ or PASTA. Some recent developments go in this direction: DeepMind’s AlphaFold helped to make progress on one of the large problems in biology, and they have also developed an AI system that finds new algorithms that are relevant to building a more powerful AI.

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Home — Essay Samples — Science — Evolution — The Evolution of Technology

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The Evolution of Technology

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Published: Dec 18, 2018

Words: 640 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Technology Essay: Hook Examples

  • The Digital Revolution: In the 21st century, technology has reshaped every facet of our lives. This essay delves into the profound impact of the digital revolution, from smartphones to artificial intelligence, and how it continues to shape our world.
  • From Stone Tools to Silicon Chips: Human history is marked by technological advancements. Join us as we journey through time, exploring the milestones that have propelled humanity from the Stone Age to the Information Age.
  • The Ethical Crossroads: Advancements in technology bring forth ethical dilemmas. This essay examines the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies, from genetic engineering to surveillance, and the need for responsible innovation.
  • Technology in Education: Education is undergoing a digital transformation. Explore how technology is revolutionizing classrooms, expanding access to knowledge, and reshaping the way we learn.
  • The Future Unveiled: What does the future hold in the realm of technology? In this essay, we’ll peer into the crystal ball of tech trends, from quantum computing to space exploration, and envision the world that awaits us.

Works Cited

  • Feeney, A. (2019). Overcoming Fear: Finding the Courage to Face Your Fears and Embrace Change. John Wiley & Sons.
  • Seligman, M. E. (2006). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. Vintage.
  • Adams, S. K. (2019). How to Overcome Fear and Find Your Courage: Overcoming Fear, Gaining Confidence, Building Trust, and Improving Self Esteem. Independently Published.
  • Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Avery.
  • Knaus, W. J. (2006). Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear. American Management Association.
  • Chansky, T. E. (2014). Freeing your child from anxiety: Powerful, practical solutions to overcome your child’s fears, worries, and phobias. Harmony.
  • Lerner, H. G. (2015). Fear and other uninvited guests: Tackling the anxiety, fear, and shame that keep us from optimal living and loving. HarperCollins.
  • Rappaport, J. (2017). The Courage Habit: How to Accept Your Fears, Release the Past, and Live Your Courageous Life. New Harbinger Publications.
  • McGrath, C. (2018). The Psychology of Fear in Organizations: How to Transform Anxiety into Well-being, Productivity and Innovation. Kogan Page.
  • Gilbert, E. (2019). Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Riverhead Books.

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Promises and Pitfalls of Technology

Politics and privacy, private-sector influence and big tech, state competition and conflict, author biography, how is technology changing the world, and how should the world change technology.

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Josephine Wolff; How Is Technology Changing the World, and How Should the World Change Technology?. Global Perspectives 1 February 2021; 2 (1): 27353. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2021.27353

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Technologies are becoming increasingly complicated and increasingly interconnected. Cars, airplanes, medical devices, financial transactions, and electricity systems all rely on more computer software than they ever have before, making them seem both harder to understand and, in some cases, harder to control. Government and corporate surveillance of individuals and information processing relies largely on digital technologies and artificial intelligence, and therefore involves less human-to-human contact than ever before and more opportunities for biases to be embedded and codified in our technological systems in ways we may not even be able to identify or recognize. Bioengineering advances are opening up new terrain for challenging philosophical, political, and economic questions regarding human-natural relations. Additionally, the management of these large and small devices and systems is increasingly done through the cloud, so that control over them is both very remote and removed from direct human or social control. The study of how to make technologies like artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things “explainable” has become its own area of research because it is so difficult to understand how they work or what is at fault when something goes wrong (Gunning and Aha 2019) .

This growing complexity makes it more difficult than ever—and more imperative than ever—for scholars to probe how technological advancements are altering life around the world in both positive and negative ways and what social, political, and legal tools are needed to help shape the development and design of technology in beneficial directions. This can seem like an impossible task in light of the rapid pace of technological change and the sense that its continued advancement is inevitable, but many countries around the world are only just beginning to take significant steps toward regulating computer technologies and are still in the process of radically rethinking the rules governing global data flows and exchange of technology across borders.

These are exciting times not just for technological development but also for technology policy—our technologies may be more advanced and complicated than ever but so, too, are our understandings of how they can best be leveraged, protected, and even constrained. The structures of technological systems as determined largely by government and institutional policies and those structures have tremendous implications for social organization and agency, ranging from open source, open systems that are highly distributed and decentralized, to those that are tightly controlled and closed, structured according to stricter and more hierarchical models. And just as our understanding of the governance of technology is developing in new and interesting ways, so, too, is our understanding of the social, cultural, environmental, and political dimensions of emerging technologies. We are realizing both the challenges and the importance of mapping out the full range of ways that technology is changing our society, what we want those changes to look like, and what tools we have to try to influence and guide those shifts.

Technology can be a source of tremendous optimism. It can help overcome some of the greatest challenges our society faces, including climate change, famine, and disease. For those who believe in the power of innovation and the promise of creative destruction to advance economic development and lead to better quality of life, technology is a vital economic driver (Schumpeter 1942) . But it can also be a tool of tremendous fear and oppression, embedding biases in automated decision-making processes and information-processing algorithms, exacerbating economic and social inequalities within and between countries to a staggering degree, or creating new weapons and avenues for attack unlike any we have had to face in the past. Scholars have even contended that the emergence of the term technology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries marked a shift from viewing individual pieces of machinery as a means to achieving political and social progress to the more dangerous, or hazardous, view that larger-scale, more complex technological systems were a semiautonomous form of progress in and of themselves (Marx 2010) . More recently, technologists have sharply criticized what they view as a wave of new Luddites, people intent on slowing the development of technology and turning back the clock on innovation as a means of mitigating the societal impacts of technological change (Marlowe 1970) .

At the heart of fights over new technologies and their resulting global changes are often two conflicting visions of technology: a fundamentally optimistic one that believes humans use it as a tool to achieve greater goals, and a fundamentally pessimistic one that holds that technological systems have reached a point beyond our control. Technology philosophers have argued that neither of these views is wholly accurate and that a purely optimistic or pessimistic view of technology is insufficient to capture the nuances and complexity of our relationship to technology (Oberdiek and Tiles 1995) . Understanding technology and how we can make better decisions about designing, deploying, and refining it requires capturing that nuance and complexity through in-depth analysis of the impacts of different technological advancements and the ways they have played out in all their complicated and controversial messiness across the world.

These impacts are often unpredictable as technologies are adopted in new contexts and come to be used in ways that sometimes diverge significantly from the use cases envisioned by their designers. The internet, designed to help transmit information between computer networks, became a crucial vehicle for commerce, introducing unexpected avenues for crime and financial fraud. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, designed to connect friends and families through sharing photographs and life updates, became focal points of election controversies and political influence. Cryptocurrencies, originally intended as a means of decentralized digital cash, have become a significant environmental hazard as more and more computing resources are devoted to mining these forms of virtual money. One of the crucial challenges in this area is therefore recognizing, documenting, and even anticipating some of these unexpected consequences and providing mechanisms to technologists for how to think through the impacts of their work, as well as possible other paths to different outcomes (Verbeek 2006) . And just as technological innovations can cause unexpected harm, they can also bring about extraordinary benefits—new vaccines and medicines to address global pandemics and save thousands of lives, new sources of energy that can drastically reduce emissions and help combat climate change, new modes of education that can reach people who would otherwise have no access to schooling. Regulating technology therefore requires a careful balance of mitigating risks without overly restricting potentially beneficial innovations.

Nations around the world have taken very different approaches to governing emerging technologies and have adopted a range of different technologies themselves in pursuit of more modern governance structures and processes (Braman 2009) . In Europe, the precautionary principle has guided much more anticipatory regulation aimed at addressing the risks presented by technologies even before they are fully realized. For instance, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation focuses on the responsibilities of data controllers and processors to provide individuals with access to their data and information about how that data is being used not just as a means of addressing existing security and privacy threats, such as data breaches, but also to protect against future developments and uses of that data for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making purposes. In Germany, Technische Überwachungsvereine, or TÜVs, perform regular tests and inspections of technological systems to assess and minimize risks over time, as the tech landscape evolves. In the United States, by contrast, there is much greater reliance on litigation and liability regimes to address safety and security failings after-the-fact. These different approaches reflect not just the different legal and regulatory mechanisms and philosophies of different nations but also the different ways those nations prioritize rapid development of the technology industry versus safety, security, and individual control. Typically, governance innovations move much more slowly than technological innovations, and regulations can lag years, or even decades, behind the technologies they aim to govern.

In addition to this varied set of national regulatory approaches, a variety of international and nongovernmental organizations also contribute to the process of developing standards, rules, and norms for new technologies, including the International Organization for Standardization­ and the International Telecommunication Union. These multilateral and NGO actors play an especially important role in trying to define appropriate boundaries for the use of new technologies by governments as instruments of control for the state.

At the same time that policymakers are under scrutiny both for their decisions about how to regulate technology as well as their decisions about how and when to adopt technologies like facial recognition themselves, technology firms and designers have also come under increasing criticism. Growing recognition that the design of technologies can have far-reaching social and political implications means that there is more pressure on technologists to take into consideration the consequences of their decisions early on in the design process (Vincenti 1993; Winner 1980) . The question of how technologists should incorporate these social dimensions into their design and development processes is an old one, and debate on these issues dates back to the 1970s, but it remains an urgent and often overlooked part of the puzzle because so many of the supposedly systematic mechanisms for assessing the impacts of new technologies in both the private and public sectors are primarily bureaucratic, symbolic processes rather than carrying any real weight or influence.

Technologists are often ill-equipped or unwilling to respond to the sorts of social problems that their creations have—often unwittingly—exacerbated, and instead point to governments and lawmakers to address those problems (Zuckerberg 2019) . But governments often have few incentives to engage in this area. This is because setting clear standards and rules for an ever-evolving technological landscape can be extremely challenging, because enforcement of those rules can be a significant undertaking requiring considerable expertise, and because the tech sector is a major source of jobs and revenue for many countries that may fear losing those benefits if they constrain companies too much. This indicates not just a need for clearer incentives and better policies for both private- and public-sector entities but also a need for new mechanisms whereby the technology development and design process can be influenced and assessed by people with a wider range of experiences and expertise. If we want technologies to be designed with an eye to their impacts, who is responsible for predicting, measuring, and mitigating those impacts throughout the design process? Involving policymakers in that process in a more meaningful way will also require training them to have the analytic and technical capacity to more fully engage with technologists and understand more fully the implications of their decisions.

At the same time that tech companies seem unwilling or unable to rein in their creations, many also fear they wield too much power, in some cases all but replacing governments and international organizations in their ability to make decisions that affect millions of people worldwide and control access to information, platforms, and audiences (Kilovaty 2020) . Regulators around the world have begun considering whether some of these companies have become so powerful that they violate the tenets of antitrust laws, but it can be difficult for governments to identify exactly what those violations are, especially in the context of an industry where the largest players often provide their customers with free services. And the platforms and services developed by tech companies are often wielded most powerfully and dangerously not directly by their private-sector creators and operators but instead by states themselves for widespread misinformation campaigns that serve political purposes (Nye 2018) .

Since the largest private entities in the tech sector operate in many countries, they are often better poised to implement global changes to the technological ecosystem than individual states or regulatory bodies, creating new challenges to existing governance structures and hierarchies. Just as it can be challenging to provide oversight for government use of technologies, so, too, oversight of the biggest tech companies, which have more resources, reach, and power than many nations, can prove to be a daunting task. The rise of network forms of organization and the growing gig economy have added to these challenges, making it even harder for regulators to fully address the breadth of these companies’ operations (Powell 1990) . The private-public partnerships that have emerged around energy, transportation, medical, and cyber technologies further complicate this picture, blurring the line between the public and private sectors and raising critical questions about the role of each in providing critical infrastructure, health care, and security. How can and should private tech companies operating in these different sectors be governed, and what types of influence do they exert over regulators? How feasible are different policy proposals aimed at technological innovation, and what potential unintended consequences might they have?

Conflict between countries has also spilled over significantly into the private sector in recent years, most notably in the case of tensions between the United States and China over which technologies developed in each country will be permitted by the other and which will be purchased by other customers, outside those two countries. Countries competing to develop the best technology is not a new phenomenon, but the current conflicts have major international ramifications and will influence the infrastructure that is installed and used around the world for years to come. Untangling the different factors that feed into these tussles as well as whom they benefit and whom they leave at a disadvantage is crucial for understanding how governments can most effectively foster technological innovation and invention domestically as well as the global consequences of those efforts. As much of the world is forced to choose between buying technology from the United States or from China, how should we understand the long-term impacts of those choices and the options available to people in countries without robust domestic tech industries? Does the global spread of technologies help fuel further innovation in countries with smaller tech markets, or does it reinforce the dominance of the states that are already most prominent in this sector? How can research universities maintain global collaborations and research communities in light of these national competitions, and what role does government research and development spending play in fostering innovation within its own borders and worldwide? How should intellectual property protections evolve to meet the demands of the technology industry, and how can those protections be enforced globally?

These conflicts between countries sometimes appear to challenge the feasibility of truly global technologies and networks that operate across all countries through standardized protocols and design features. Organizations like the International Organization for Standardization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and many others have tried to harmonize these policies and protocols across different countries for years, but have met with limited success when it comes to resolving the issues of greatest tension and disagreement among nations. For technology to operate in a global environment, there is a need for a much greater degree of coordination among countries and the development of common standards and norms, but governments continue to struggle to agree not just on those norms themselves but even the appropriate venue and processes for developing them. Without greater global cooperation, is it possible to maintain a global network like the internet or to promote the spread of new technologies around the world to address challenges of sustainability? What might help incentivize that cooperation moving forward, and what could new structures and process for governance of global technologies look like? Why has the tech industry’s self-regulation culture persisted? Do the same traditional drivers for public policy, such as politics of harmonization and path dependency in policy-making, still sufficiently explain policy outcomes in this space? As new technologies and their applications spread across the globe in uneven ways, how and when do they create forces of change from unexpected places?

These are some of the questions that we hope to address in the Technology and Global Change section through articles that tackle new dimensions of the global landscape of designing, developing, deploying, and assessing new technologies to address major challenges the world faces. Understanding these processes requires synthesizing knowledge from a range of different fields, including sociology, political science, economics, and history, as well as technical fields such as engineering, climate science, and computer science. A crucial part of understanding how technology has created global change and, in turn, how global changes have influenced the development of new technologies is understanding the technologies themselves in all their richness and complexity—how they work, the limits of what they can do, what they were designed to do, how they are actually used. Just as technologies themselves are becoming more complicated, so are their embeddings and relationships to the larger social, political, and legal contexts in which they exist. Scholars across all disciplines are encouraged to join us in untangling those complexities.

Josephine Wolff is an associate professor of cybersecurity policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her book You’ll See This Message When It Is Too Late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches was published by MIT Press in 2018.

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Technology and History, Essay Example

Pages: 3

Words: 754

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Are we dismissing a vital piece of the puzzle? Does technology follow, or lead? If it leads, are we moving forward blindly, and ill prepared to deal with the kind of future we are fashioning for ourselves with our own tools?

The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques as old as human history. Technological history has enabled human beings to come up with new things every day which has endeavored people to travel to places that they could not otherwise go and be able to do what they could have not otherwise done.

Technological artefacts are functions of an economy that is a drive to the economic growth and plays a major part in human life everyday. The society’s cultural practices greatly affect technological innovations. Technological progresses are a means to human civilization, a driving factor for political development and project military strategies. Technological trends in any organization can take a lead on, wait for a few first movers and then follow, or simply get out of the way and let the trend pass (OECD, 2000).

A lot of things are done to a lot of people in a very short period of time, the technology referred to as cloud computing. It has taken a significant lead in fashioning our future by building data centers that enhance the tools and services provided. This technological advancement has significantly reduced the cost of production, increased the saving and business agility (Hall, 140–183).

With increases in network connectivity, web presentation improvements and increasing capabilities on netbooks, notebooks and use of mobiles phones, business professionals are now becoming more aggressive regardless their geographical location. Politicians are taking advantage of the tremendous power and capability of these technologies to work from home or different office locations.

Unified communications has allowed greater flexibility and dependability in the military strategies and operations. Use of information technology staff for instance, has enabled the military to detect, determine and predict the rival preparedness. Economic structures are planned, implemented and monitored using the technological tools. The economical growth of any state depends on the technological level of the state.

Think of a line of theoretical understanding or “Wisdom,” and a line of “technical know how.” Do you think they are in balance in our time, and if not, how much have ignoring technology’s position and effects that lead us in new directions been problems in our educational and leadership institutions?

The technical know how is behind the theoretical understanding. Most people in the society for instance know and understand the mobile phones but do not understand fully other uses of the phones apart from calling and receiving calls. The mobile connectivity can be used in learning and giving instructions to a number of students and employees all over the world without travelling and make physical contacts. An instructor can contact his students from whichever physical location and have a conference with the participants (Oliner & Sichel, 57).

Much has been ignored in the line of technology in educational and leadership institutions. The technology is moving at a faster rate than the people can discern and accept for integration and use in education. The level of development which forms the basis of implementation and adaptation of technology is also moving at a slower rate. The cultural pratices are not ready to embrace new techniques.

While there a lot that is going on research on new technologies and their effects on teaching, learning and leadership, there is little rigorous, large scale data that makes for solid research as reported by educational experts. Very few companies and institutions promote the technology and hence the objectivity loses the point (Tassey, 153-185).

The rapid and constant pace of change in technology is creatinmg both opportunities and challenges in education and leadership institution. The techonlogy is moving at a faster rate than we can. Some institutions are keeping up with advancement in technology while others are lagging far behind. The challenge is which technology works best in education.

Works cited

Hall, Bronwyn “The Private and Social Returns to Research and Development,” in B. Smith and C. Barfield, (eds.), Technology, R&D, and the Economy . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute: 140–183, 1996.

OECD A New Economy?: The Changing Role of Innovation and Information Technology in Growth . Paris: Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, 2000.

Oliner, S.& Sichel D. The Resurgence of Growth in the Late 1990s: Is Information Technology the Story? Washington, DC: Federal Reserve Board, 2000.

Tassey “Policy Issues for R&D Investment in a Knowledge-Based Economy,” Journal of Technology Transfer 29:2 (April 2004), 153–185, 2004.

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Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)

Technology and Culture is the official publication of the Society for the History of Technology, and the flagship journal in the field. International and interdisciplinary, T&C is published quarterly, offering research articles, essays, and reviews of books, film, museum exhibits and digital projects. Our authors represent a wide variety of disciplines including history, STS, anthropology, geography and others. We are published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, with full-text electronic access on  Project Muse .

Technology and Culture is available by subscription as one of your benefits of membership in SHOT. SHOT members receive both a print subscription and access to our full-text electronic edition on Project Muse. For access to the electronic edition, log in to the SHOT website and follow the instructions on the main members page. If you have further questions or problems please contact Johns Hopkins University Press.

Join / Renew SHOT

Interested in publishing in T&C? You can submit manuscripts by clicking on the image below.

Here are some useful links for contributors:

  • Information for contributors (pdf)
  • Guidelines for manuscript preparation (pdf)

T&C 56.1

Editor-in-Chief: Ruth Oldenziel (Eindhoven University of Technology) Managing Editor: Mor Lumbroso (Foundation for the History of Technology/Eindhoven University of Technology) Book Review Editor: Dick van Lente (Foundation for the History of Technology/Eindhoven University of Technology) Assistant Book Review Editors: Henk-Jan Dekker and Leon Vauterin (Eindhoven University of Technology) Public History Editor: Johannes-Geert Hagmann (Deutsches Museum)

See T&C’s complete editorial board on our masthead.

For more information about the journal including institutional subscriptions and advertising, please visit the Johns Hopkins University Press Technology and Culture information page. For electronic access to articles published before 2001, please visit the JSTOR database .

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Best Technology Essay Examples

History of technology.

685 words | 3 page(s)

As tool-using animals, human beings have always used their technological skills to develop tools that would make their lives easier. The term technology is extremely broad and encompasses a wide range of inventions, going from language and clay items to the telephone and the Internet. For simplicity’s sake, the history of technology is commonly divided into four phases: Prehistory, Greek and Roman history, the Middle Ages, the Mechanical Age, the Electromechanical Age and the Electronic / Information Age.

Prehistory The history of technology began approximately 2, 5 million years ago, when prehistoric men learned how to give stone a cutting edge, thus creating the first stone tools ever (Toth et al., 2014). With the passage of time, mankind developed new techniques to make increasingly sophisticated tools that were used to carve various materials and give them more complex shapes (e.g. needles, hooks etc.). The discovery of fire played a key role in making it possible for early humans to make ceramics and smelt metals such as bronze and iron. This age was also marked by the emergence of other revolutionary technologies and tools, such as the brick, the loom, the plough, the wheel, spinning, knitting, weaving, mining and harnessing, to name but a few (History World, 2017).

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Greek and Roman history Between 350 BC and 600 AD, the Greeks and the Romans used the tools and techniques discovered by their ancestors to develop a number of sophisticated machines, such as the pulley, the screw, the screw press (whose pressure allowed Mediterranean people to extract oil from olives), rotary mills, water mills and cement. Their dedication to science and mathematics resulted in the development of roads, bridges and advanced architectural elements such as domes, arches and vaults (History World, 2017).

Middle Ages The medieval phase of technological evolution was marked by the emergence of vertical wind mills (12th century), the invention and adoption of gunpowder, mechanical clocks, flash locks and pound locks to manage canal systems in such a way prevent differences in water level from obstructing navigation, tide mills and cloth mills (History World, 2017). Around the end of the 13th century, people began using heavy hammers to produce more resistant clothes, thus laying the foundations for the Industrial Revolution.

Mechanical Age In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press democratized literature and culture, allowing manufacturers to print large quantities of books and manuscripts at once. Domestic clocks, pocket watches, the slide rule, the Pascaline and the difference engine are among the groundbreaking technologies that emerged during this age (Brady & Elkner, 2011).

Electromechanical Age Between the early 1800s and 1940, a series of technologies such as the telegraph, Morse code, the telephone, the radio, the voltaic battery and the Mark 1 – i.e. the world’s first automatic digital computer – revolutionized the field of telecommunication.

Information Age With the rise of the Information Age, information and data replaced industrial production as the engine of Western economies. The US Defense Department funded the development of ARPANET, a packet switching network that would then evolve into the Internet. In the 1980s, access to ARPANET was expanded and supercomputing centers were established at various universities across the nation to facilitate interconnectivity. British scientist Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web and commercial ISPs emerged, thus enabling the general public to also access the Internet. The development of personal computers and the Internet has had profound cultural, social, economic and technological implications, revolutionizing the way in which people obtain and share information, communicate, educate themselves, buy, sell, work, interact with one another and perceive the world. As reported by Castells (2014), the development of wireless communication has made it possible for mankind to be almost entirely connected, despite differences in price, bandwidth and efficiency.

  • Brady, W. & Elkner, J. (2011). History of Information Technology. Retrieved from http://openbookproject.net/courses/intro2ict/history/history.html
  • Castells, M. (2014). The Impact of the Internet on Society: A Global Perspective. Retrieved from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530566/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-society-a-global-perspective/
  • History World (2017). History of Technology. Retrieved from http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1217&HistoryID=ab11&gtrack=pthc#1218
  • Toth, N., Blades, B., Wright, R. P., and Killick, D. (2014). Prehistoric technology, AccessScience. McGraw-Hill Education. https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.543250

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Feb 13, 2023

200-500 Word Example Essays about Technology

Got an essay assignment about technology check out these examples to inspire you.

Technology is a rapidly evolving field that has completely changed the way we live, work, and interact with one another. Technology has profoundly impacted our daily lives, from how we communicate with friends and family to how we access information and complete tasks. As a result, it's no surprise that technology is a popular topic for students writing essays.

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This blog post aims to provide readers with various example essays on technology, all generated by Jenni.ai. These essays will be a valuable resource for students looking for inspiration or guidance as they work on their essays. By reading through these example essays, students can better understand how technology can be approached and discussed in an essay.

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The Impact of Technology on Society and Culture

Introduction:.

Technology has become an integral part of our daily lives and has dramatically impacted how we interact, communicate, and carry out various activities. Technological advancements have brought positive and negative changes to society and culture. In this article, we will explore the impact of technology on society and culture and how it has influenced different aspects of our lives.

Positive impact on communication:

Technology has dramatically improved communication and made it easier for people to connect from anywhere in the world. Social media platforms, instant messaging, and video conferencing have brought people closer, bridging geographical distances and cultural differences. This has made it easier for people to share information, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects.

Positive impact on education:

Students and instructors now have access to a multitude of knowledge and resources because of the effect of technology on education . Students may now study at their speed and from any location thanks to online learning platforms, educational applications, and digital textbooks.

Negative impact on critical thinking and creativity:

Technological advancements have resulted in a reduction in critical thinking and creativity. With so much information at our fingertips, individuals have become more passive in their learning, relying on the internet for solutions rather than logic and inventiveness. As a result, independent thinking and problem-solving abilities have declined.

Positive impact on entertainment:

Technology has transformed how we access and consume entertainment. People may now access a wide range of entertainment alternatives from the comfort of their own homes thanks to streaming services, gaming platforms, and online content makers. The entertainment business has entered a new age of creativity and invention as a result of this.

Negative impact on attention span:

However, the continual bombardment of information and technological stimulation has also reduced attention span and the capacity to focus. People are easily distracted and need help focusing on a single activity for a long time. This has hampered productivity and the ability to accomplish duties.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies has been one of the most significant technological developments of the past several decades. These cutting-edge technologies have the potential to alter several sectors of society, including commerce, industry, healthcare, and entertainment. 

As with any new and quickly advancing technology, AI and ML ethics must be carefully studied. The usage of these technologies presents significant concerns around privacy, accountability, and command. As the use of AI and ML grows more ubiquitous, we must assess their possible influence on society and investigate the ethical issues that must be taken into account as these technologies continue to develop.

What are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning?

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence in machines designed to think and act like humans. Machine learning is a subfield of AI that enables computers to learn from data and improve their performance over time without being explicitly programmed.

The impact of AI and ML on Society

The use of AI and ML in various industries, such as healthcare, finance, and retail, has brought many benefits. For example, AI-powered medical diagnosis systems can identify diseases faster and more accurately than human doctors. However, there are also concerns about job displacement and the potential for AI to perpetuate societal biases.

The Ethical Considerations of AI and ML

A. Bias in AI algorithms

One of the critical ethical concerns about AI and ML is the potential for algorithms to perpetuate existing biases. This can occur if the data used to train these algorithms reflects the preferences of the people who created it. As a result, AI systems can perpetuate these biases and discriminate against certain groups of people.

B. Responsibility for AI-generated decisions

Another ethical concern is the responsibility for decisions made by AI systems. For example, who is responsible for the damage if a self-driving car causes an accident? The manufacturer of the vehicle, the software developer, or the AI algorithm itself?

C. The potential for misuse of AI and ML

AI and ML can also be used for malicious purposes, such as cyberattacks and misinformation. The need for more regulation and oversight in developing and using these technologies makes it difficult to prevent misuse.

The developments in AI and ML have given numerous benefits to humanity, but they also present significant ethical concerns that must be addressed. We must assess the repercussions of new technologies on society, implement methods to limit the associated dangers, and guarantee that they are utilized for the greater good. As AI and ML continue to play an ever-increasing role in our daily lives, we must engage in an open and frank discussion regarding their ethics.

The Future of Work And Automation

Rapid technological breakthroughs in recent years have brought about considerable changes in our way of life and work. Concerns regarding the influence of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the future of work and employment have increased alongside the development of these technologies. This article will examine the possible advantages and disadvantages of automation and its influence on the labor market, employees, and the economy.

The Advantages of Automation

Automation in the workplace offers various benefits, including higher efficiency and production, fewer mistakes, and enhanced precision. Automated processes may accomplish repetitive jobs quickly and precisely, allowing employees to concentrate on more complex and creative activities. Additionally, automation may save organizations money since it removes the need to pay for labor and minimizes the danger of workplace accidents.

The Potential Disadvantages of Automation

However, automation has significant disadvantages, including job loss and income stagnation. As robots and computers replace human labor in particular industries, there is a danger that many workers may lose their jobs, resulting in higher unemployment and more significant economic disparity. Moreover, if automation is not adequately regulated and managed, it might lead to stagnant wages and a deterioration in employees' standard of life.

The Future of Work and Automation

Despite these difficulties, automation will likely influence how labor is done. As a result, firms, employees, and governments must take early measures to solve possible issues and reap the rewards of automation. This might entail funding worker retraining programs, enhancing education and skill development, and implementing regulations that support equality and justice at work.

IV. The Need for Ethical Considerations

We must consider the ethical ramifications of automation and its effects on society as technology develops. The impact on employees and their rights, possible hazards to privacy and security, and the duty of corporations and governments to ensure that automation is utilized responsibly and ethically are all factors to be taken into account.

Conclusion:

To summarise, the future of employment and automation will most certainly be defined by a complex interaction of technological advances, economic trends, and cultural ideals. All stakeholders must work together to handle the problems and possibilities presented by automation and ensure that technology is employed to benefit society as a whole.

The Role of Technology in Education

Introduction.

Nearly every part of our lives has been transformed by technology, and education is no different. Today's students have greater access to knowledge, opportunities, and resources than ever before, and technology is becoming a more significant part of their educational experience. Technology is transforming how we think about education and creating new opportunities for learners of all ages, from online courses and virtual classrooms to instructional applications and augmented reality.

Technology's Benefits for Education

The capacity to tailor learning is one of technology's most significant benefits in education. Students may customize their education to meet their unique needs and interests since they can access online information and tools. 

For instance, people can enroll in online classes on topics they are interested in, get tailored feedback on their work, and engage in virtual discussions with peers and subject matter experts worldwide. As a result, pupils are better able to acquire and develop the abilities and information necessary for success.

Challenges and Concerns

Despite the numerous advantages of technology in education, there are also obstacles and considerations to consider. One issue is the growing reliance on technology and the possibility that pupils would become overly dependent on it. This might result in a lack of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, as students may become passive learners who only follow instructions and rely on technology to complete their assignments.

Another obstacle is the digital divide between those who have access to technology and those who do not. This division can exacerbate the achievement gap between pupils and produce uneven educational and professional growth chances. To reduce these consequences, all students must have access to the technology and resources necessary for success.

In conclusion, technology is rapidly becoming an integral part of the classroom experience and has the potential to alter the way we learn radically. 

Technology can help students flourish and realize their full potential by giving them access to individualized instruction, tools, and opportunities. While the benefits of technology in the classroom are undeniable, it's crucial to be mindful of the risks and take precautions to guarantee that all kids have access to the tools they need to thrive.

The Influence of Technology On Personal Relationships And Communication 

Technological advancements have profoundly altered how individuals connect and exchange information. It has changed the world in many ways in only a few decades. Because of the rise of the internet and various social media sites, maintaining relationships with people from all walks of life is now simpler than ever. 

However, concerns about how these developments may affect interpersonal connections and dialogue are inevitable in an era of rapid technological growth. In this piece, we'll discuss how the prevalence of digital media has altered our interpersonal connections and the language we use to express ourselves.

Direct Effect on Direct Interaction:

The disruption of face-to-face communication is a particularly stark example of how technology has impacted human connections. The quality of interpersonal connections has suffered due to people's growing preference for digital over human communication. Technology has been demonstrated to reduce the usage of nonverbal signs such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and other indicators of emotional investment in the connection.

Positive Impact on Long-Distance Relationships:

Yet there are positives to be found as well. Long-distance relationships have also benefited from technological advancements. The development of technologies such as video conferencing, instant messaging, and social media has made it possible for individuals to keep in touch with distant loved ones. It has become simpler for individuals to stay in touch and feel connected despite geographical distance.

The Effects of Social Media on Personal Connections:

The widespread use of social media has had far-reaching consequences, especially on the quality of interpersonal interactions. Social media has positive and harmful effects on relationships since it allows people to keep in touch and share life's milestones.

Unfortunately, social media has made it all too easy to compare oneself to others, which may lead to emotions of jealousy and a general decline in confidence. Furthermore, social media might cause people to have inflated expectations of themselves and their relationships.

A Personal Perspective on the Intersection of Technology and Romance

Technological advancements have also altered physical touch and closeness. Virtual reality and other technologies have allowed people to feel physical contact and familiarity in a digital setting. This might be a promising breakthrough, but it has some potential downsides. 

Experts are concerned that people's growing dependence on technology for intimacy may lead to less time spent communicating face-to-face and less emphasis on physical contact, both of which are important for maintaining good relationships.

In conclusion, technological advancements have significantly affected the quality of interpersonal connections and the exchange of information. Even though technology has made it simpler to maintain personal relationships, it has chilled interpersonal interactions between people. 

Keeping tabs on how technology is changing our lives and making adjustments as necessary is essential as we move forward. Boundaries and prioritizing in-person conversation and physical touch in close relationships may help reduce the harm it causes.

The Security and Privacy Implications of Increased Technology Use and Data Collection

The fast development of technology over the past few decades has made its way into every aspect of our life. Technology has improved many facets of our life, from communication to commerce. However, significant privacy and security problems have emerged due to the broad adoption of technology. In this essay, we'll look at how the widespread use of technological solutions and the subsequent explosion in collected data affects our right to privacy and security.

Data Mining and Privacy Concerns

Risk of Cyber Attacks and Data Loss

The Widespread Use of Encryption and Other Safety Mechanisms

The Privacy and Security of the Future in a Globalized Information Age

Obtaining and Using Individual Information

The acquisition and use of private information is a significant cause for privacy alarm in the digital age. Data about their customers' online habits, interests, and personal information is a valuable commodity for many internet firms. Besides tailored advertising, this information may be used for other, less desirable things like identity theft or cyber assaults.

Moreover, many individuals need to be made aware of what data is being gathered from them or how it is being utilized because of the lack of transparency around gathering personal information. Privacy and data security have become increasingly contentious as a result.

Data breaches and other forms of cyber-attack pose a severe risk.

The risk of cyber assaults and data breaches is another big issue of worry. More people are using more devices, which means more opportunities for cybercriminals to steal private information like credit card numbers and other identifying data. This may cause monetary damages and harm one's reputation or identity.

Many high-profile data breaches have occurred in recent years, exposing the personal information of millions of individuals and raising serious concerns about the safety of this information. Companies and governments have responded to this problem by adopting new security methods like encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Many businesses now use encryption and other security measures to protect themselves from cybercriminals and data thieves. Encryption keeps sensitive information hidden by encoding it so that only those possessing the corresponding key can decipher it. This prevents private information like bank account numbers or social security numbers from falling into the wrong hands.

Firewalls, virus scanners, and two-factor authentication are all additional security precautions that may be used with encryption. While these safeguards do much to stave against cyber assaults, they are not entirely impregnable, and data breaches are still possible.

The Future of Privacy and Security in a Technologically Advanced World

There's little doubt that concerns about privacy and security will persist even as technology improves. There must be strict safeguards to secure people's private information as more and more of it is transferred and kept digitally. To achieve this goal, it may be necessary to implement novel technologies and heightened levels of protection and to revise the rules and regulations regulating the collection and storage of private information.

Individuals and businesses are understandably concerned about the security and privacy consequences of widespread technological use and data collecting. There are numerous obstacles to overcome in a society where technology plays an increasingly important role, from acquiring and using personal data to the risk of cyber-attacks and data breaches. Companies and governments must keep spending money on security measures and working to educate people about the significance of privacy and security if personal data is to remain safe.

In conclusion, technology has profoundly impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, including society and culture, ethics, work, education, personal relationships, and security and privacy. The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning has presented new ethical considerations, while automation is transforming the future of work. 

In education, technology has revolutionized the way we learn and access information. At the same time, our dependence on technology has brought new challenges in terms of personal relationships, communication, security, and privacy.

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Technological Advancement Essay

Searching for a technological advancement essay? Look no further! This simple essay on breakthrough technologies describes all the benefits and drawbacks of the issue.

Introduction

Why write about technology advancement, breakthrough technologies in various sectors, technological advancement essay faq.

Technological advancement has taken major strides in bringing liberation to the divergent human wants and gratifications. After keen observation, I have come to realize that technological advancement plays a critical role in solving the major crisis of food shortages in the modern world. In the state of Virginia during the 17th century, human labor was imperative due to the pressing need to grow enough food to serve the people in the community during the winter spell hence the need to hire slaves from Africa to work on their farms (Brush, 1988).

This has since changed partly due to the technological advancements over the years that have led to the replacement of human and animal labor with more efficient energy sources as wind power, hydroelectric and steam energies that ultimately led to a significant increase in productivity. Thus, the thesis statement for this essay is to analyze the impact of technological advancement on people’s lives from ancient times to the present modern world.

It is evident that technology is the backbone of the industrial revolution process that has occurred over the years and leads to a total overhaul from crude systems to modern efficient machinery. With this in mind, we cannot overlook the role that technology has played on the social and economic fronts of many societies hence the need to have a deeper insight and research on this particular topic. The transformation brought about by technological advancement has helped many societies in Africa and the world at large to alleviate poverty and improve their standards of living through the increased food supply and significant growth in the economy and this integrates with the research question: Is technology liberating?

The three academic disciplines from which this research has drawn insight from include: agriculture, sociology and communication sectors.

Technology Advancement in Agriculture

In the ancient world, the main source of power was human labor obtained mainly from slaves. In North America for example, during the early 17th century, most whites purchased slaves as a chief source of labor to work on their farms but with the emancipation proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war of 1863 that declared all slaves to be set free from bondage, their masters had no choice but to source for another alternative source of labor.

This act spearheaded the advancement of the agricultural revolution, which was also boosted by the industrial revolution that led to the development of more efficient agricultural machinery that required very few workers and resulted in higher farm production. Examples of some of the medieval technologies used in the ancient world included: water wheel, four-field crop rotation system, the horse collar and selective breeding of livestock with good traits.

In 1750, engineer John Smeaton working on the water wheel significantly increased its efficiency hence boosting its productivity. It was during this period that technological advancement, revolution, and innovation in agriculture were at its peak and it led to the emergence of new farm machinery like cultivators, combine harvesters and mowers that were pulled by oxen, mules, and horses. These machines were later powered by steam energy than a more efficient diesel fuel that led to a remarkable increase in farm output (Kedar, 2009). Previously, the land was prepared by a man using traditional mattocks and hoes made from raw materials obtained locally like wood and scrap metals.

With the mechanization of agriculture, farmers could now make use of the machinery like combine harvesters and petrol powered tractors to prepare large acres of land within a short period with minimum input on human labor to clear, plow and plant on their expansive farms. Technology has led to hybridization, selective breeding and inbreeding in livestock to obtain or maintain all the good qualities in their animals as high milk production, quality wool production, quality meat production, and other desirable animal traits.

Robert Bakewell and Thomas Coke doing their research on selective breeding crossed Lincoln and Longhorn sheep, to produce a hybrid that exhibited all the good qualities of both Lincoln and Longhorn and was referred to as New Leicester variety. This has helped in alleviating the crisis of food shortages through maximization of farm output.

Technology Advancement in Everyday Lives

Technology has been indispensable in bettering the social lives of many people in society. Technological advancements have led to the development in infrastructure and social amenities which has in turn positively impacted on the general livelihood of many individuals. It was until the Roman era in the 18th century that good roads were constructed, during those days, slaves were also used to carry loads and farm produce from the farms to storage warehouses and vice versa. They also used canoes and boats to carry farm products from North America between the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River during the early periods of the 19th century.

During this period, the transport system was still archaic and underdeveloped and people found it difficult to navigate from one region to another or carry heavy luggage over long distances because of poor roads and crude modes of transport. The canals preceded the construction of railroads that marked the beginning of the industrial revolution and from there we had significant developments in the transport sector with the construction of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 and the subsequent construction of tarmac roads, sea canals and subway systems (Butler, 1996).

These developments made it easier for people to move around hence positively impacting on their social lives by enhancing communication, trade, and farming. This indirectly led to improved living standards as a result of the increased food supply by farmers and the development of business firms. Farmers could now effectively carry their farm inputs and fertilizers to the farm and farm products to the market without difficulties. Businesses also thrived because of the efficient transport system and in no time firms began proliferating from every sector of the economy. This enabled them to diversify their economic activities as they no longer depended on the agricultural sector for their daily provision but also ventured into the business sector within the community.

With the recent development in infrastructure, it paved the way to the development of social amenities as schools, hospitals, public toilets, shops and market centers that increased in number as more and more investors joined the market. These amenities played a critical role in the development of the economy and elevating the living standards of the people in the community as they could now easily access all the essential resources. Hence technology played a vital role in liberating the lives of many from the bondage of hunger and scarcity to a point of abundance and stable food supply.

Technology Advancement in Communication

Communication is the act of conveying information from one person to another either face to face or by means of a communication medium. According to Scruton (1996), during the ancient times, slaves used to communicate through hymns, quilts or underground railroads while others used drums to convey coded information since most had originated from Africa and drum beating was their cultural way of communicating. These primitive modes of communications were not very reliable as the information could at times be distorted or misinterpreted by the recipient leading to a communication breakdown.

During the ancient period, people used to communicate through messages carved on stone pillars but this type of communication had limitations as the recipients had to travel miles to receive them and the message could only be read within a certain reading range. Others like the American Indians used smoke to convey a particular message to the community while others used bonfires lit on hilltops but such signals were limited to conveying specific information like looming danger, war or victory.

Communication then developed to more elaborate form which included writing on portable materials like reeds and papyrus. This medium of communication was much more reliable than the earlier archaic communication system. With the emergence of technological advancement and innovations, the transmission of signals from one person to another through a more sophisticated medium like communication cables took center stage. In the early 1830s, the electrical communication system made significant progress in this industry as people could now get in touch through electronic devices like a telephone.

In the year 1833, scientists Carl Friedrich and Wilhelm Eduard Weber researching on the electric transmission devices, made use of the principle of “electromagnetic technology” that later acted as the fundamental basis or a prerequisite for the innovation of telephones (Williams, 1993). Subsequent experiments done by Alexander Bell and Thomas Watson worked to optimize its efficiency and could now be used for commercial purposes. This was later followed by other technological developments and innovations by telecommunication engineers and scientists that led to the production of the carbon microphone, telephone exchange, data storage devices, wireless phones, and computers.

At this point, we can only appreciate the technological advancements that the communication industry has taken overtime to come up with sophisticated and very efficient gadgets that can serve multiple purposes other than communication. Such progress in technology has acted as a remedy to the many communication snarl-ups that people in the ancient world had to contend with but now people can freely share information, ideas, thoughts, opinions, photos, video clips on very many communication platforms using the sophisticated devices and handsets.

For example, use of the internet on computers and mobile phones to share information and ideas across the globe hence making the world a small village and enabling the free flow of information that is objective and informative. Hence this technology could be used to positively impact the lives of people by making them more informed and educated.

In conclusion, technology has had quite a significant impact on people’s lives over the years by making life more bearable through the production of efficient systems that require little labor but produce a significantly high output. One significant finding from the above research is that African culture and tradition has been greatly revolutionized over the years from the archaic, crude and barbaric practices to sophisticated and more efficient processes through technological innovations and advancement. The introduction of western culture has worked to raise the living standards of many African communities that were previously languishing in hunger and poverty.

  • What is technological advancement? Technological advancement implies the emergence and development of technical devices that affect various spheres of peoples’ life. It affects economic, political, social, and other sectors.
  • How does technology affect the advancement of science? Modern technologies make it easier to share information and knowledge, allow scientists from different countries to interact effectively, and also involve the development of new methods of analysis.
  • How does the advancement of technology affect society? Modern technologies influence various spheres of public life. They have significantly changed the labor market, transport and communications. People’s daily lives have become easier and more efficient.
  • How do I start an essay about technology It is a good idea to start your technology advancement with a hook. One option is to use a quote, like the following one by Albert Einstein: “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.” One more option is to use an exciting fact like the following one: Over 6,000 new computer viruses are created and released every month.

Brush, S. G. (1988). The History of Modern Science. A Guide to the Second Scientific Revolution, 35 (10), 5-8.

Butler, G. (1996). A History of Information Technology and Systems. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Kedar, S. (2009). Database Management Systems . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Scruton, R. (1996 ). The Art of Communication Over the Years. The New Criterion, 15 (30), 9-13.

Williams, T. (1993). A Short History of Technology: From the Earliest Times . New York: Dover Publications.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Technological Advancement Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/technological-advancement-essay/

"Technological Advancement Essay." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/technological-advancement-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Technological Advancement Essay'. 29 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Technological Advancement Essay." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/technological-advancement-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Technological Advancement Essay." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/technological-advancement-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Technological Advancement Essay." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/technological-advancement-essay/.

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EssaysForStudent.com - Free Essays, Term Papers & Book Notes

  • / Technology

History of Technology

By: Fonta   •  Research Paper  •  3,365 Words  •  May 12, 2010  •  2,558 Views

Systematic knowledge and action, usually of industrial processes but applicable to any recurrent activity. Technology is closely related to science and to engineering. Science deals with humans' understanding of the real world about them—the inherent properties of space, matter, energy, and their interactions. Engineering is the application of objective knowledge to the creation of plans, designs, and means for achieving desired objectives. Technology deals with the tools and techniques for carrying out the plans.

There are two reasons to pursue scientific knowledge: for the sake of the knowledge itself, and for the practical uses of that knowledge. Because this second aspect of science affects the lives of most people, it is more familiar than the first. Knowledge must be gained, however, before it can be applied, and often the most important technological advances arise from research pursued for its own sake.

Traditionally, new technology has been concerned with the construction of machines, structures, and tools on a relatively large scale. The development of materials for building bridges or skyscrapers is an example of this, as is the development of the internal-combustion engine and the nuclear reactor. While such activities involve all the sciences, from chemistry to nuclear physics, the overriding goal has been the same: to improve the human condition by finding better ways to deal with the macroscopic world.

Since World War II, the focus of technological activity has undergone a major change. While the old activities are still pursued, they have been largely superseded by applications of technology at the microscopic level. Instead of building large-scale structures and machines, modern-day technology tends to concentrate on finding improved ways to transfer information and to develop new materials by studying the way atom s come together. The silicon chip and microelectronics typify this new technological trend, as does the blossoming of genetic engineering. The trend can be expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

The dividing line between what we include in the following list as technology and what we call science elsewhere in this volume is somewhat arbitrary. In general, what we have done is this: if a term is essential to understanding a particular branch of science, it appears in the list for that science. Thus, atom appears with the physical sciences, even though an understanding of atoms is clearly important to the new technology. If, however, the term involves something that is likely to affect an individual's life, even though it is not a central concept of a particular branch of science, it is listed under “Technology.”

The words in the following section have been chosen because they are likely to appear without explanation in many publications, particularly in articles and books dealing with the impact and implications of technology. This section does not emphasize the social consequences of new technology, but concentrates instead on the basic knowledge needed to understand how technology works.

Developed applications for industry and the industrial arts; use of applied science for the development of technical applications. For example, desktop computers represent advanced electronic technology.

Application of knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to changing and manipulating the human environment. Technology includes the use of materials, tools, techniques, and sources of power to make life easier or more pleasant and work more productive. Whereas science is concerned with how and why things happen, technology focuses on making things happen. Technology began to influence human endeavour as soon as people began using tools. It accelerated with the Industrial Revolution and the substitution of machines for animal and human labour. Accelerated technological development has also had costs, in terms of air and water pollution and other undesirable environmental effects.

The application of knowledge to facilitate the obtaining and transformation of natural materials. Technology involves the creation of material instruments (such as machines) used in human interactions with nature.

History 1450-1789: Technology

Early modern Europeans paid new attention to the machines and technical processes that created most of their material goods. Appreciation of rapidly advancing arts and inventions was not particularly new—the Middle Ages also having been an era in which myriad new technologies appeared in Europe. What was becoming noticeably different by the middle of the fifteenth century was that new technologies were becoming a force in the shaping of Europeans' intellectual framework—just as they shaped social frameworks through the

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Kinkela essay published in ‘A Cultural History of Insects in the Modern Age’

Dr. David Kinkela

Dr. David Kinkela

“Food and Insects,” an essay written by Department of History Professor David Kinkela, has been published in “A Cultural History of Insects in the Modern Age.”

Each of the work’s six hardcover volumes covers the same topics, so readers can either study a period/volume or follow a topic across history. Dr. Kinkela’s essay appears in the Modern Age volume (1920 to the present).

“I looked at music, film, television and new movies, and how ideas of insects and food production were depicted in particular cultural forms,” Dr. Kinkela explained. For example: the bool weevil, a beetle, in the traditional blues song “Bool Weevil Blues.”

Other areas explored include monster movies of the 1950s, how gigantic insects were depicted on movie screens in that same era and the rhetoric around organic and industrial farming and pest control in the agricultural system. “I also discovered a great ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, showing killer bees invading the U.S., with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd,” Kinkela noted. Also found was “The Bee Movie,” voiced by comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

Kinkela incorporates research that he compiled for essay in two courses that he teaches: HIST 352: U.S. Environmental History and HIST 310: World Environmental History.

“A Cultural History of Insects” reveals people’s relationship with insects – in life and in death – and is published by Bloombury Academic Presson.

  • Department of History
  • College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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Condor telescope reveals a new world for astrophysicists

by Stony Brook University

Condor Telescope Reveals a New World for Astrophysicists

A new telescope called the "Condor Array Telescope" may open up a new world of the very-low-brightness universe for astrophysicists. Four new papers, published back to back in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ( MNRAS ) this month, present the first scientific findings based on observations acquired by Condor. The project is a collaborative led by scientists in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

According to lead researchers Kenneth M. Lanzetta, Ph.D., a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and Stefan Gromoll of Stony Brook, and Michael M. Shara, Ph.D., Curator in the Department of Astrophysics at the AMNH, Condor is now in full operation. The new "array telescope " uses computers to combine light from several smaller telescopes into the equivalent of one larger telescope and is able to detect and study astronomical features that are too faint to be seen with conventional telescopes.

In the first paper , Lanzetta and colleagues used Condor to study extremely faint "stellar streams" surrounding the nearby galaxy NGC 5907, a well-known spiral galaxy located some 50 million light years from Earth.

Such streams are produced when dwarf companion galaxies are disrupted by the tidal gravitational force of the primary galaxy. A previous image obtained by a different telescope in 2010 appeared to show a remarkable stellar stream forming two complete loops of a helix surrounding the galaxy. But another image obtained by the "Dragonfly Telephoto Array" in 2019 showed no trace of this helix.

The Condor team decided to test the new array telescope and to weigh in on the discrepancy. They obtained a deep image of NGC 5907 in 2022. Like the Dragonfly image, the Condor image showed no trace of the helix, leading the team to conclude that the helix of the 2010 image was likely an artifact related to the image processing . The Condor image also revealed faint features that were not picked up by the previous images.

In the second paper , Shara and colleagues used Condor to reassess an image of the dwarf nova Z Camelopardalis or "Z Cam" obtained by the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4-meter telescope back in January 2007. The image showed a partial shell of gas surrounding Z Cam, which Shara speculated was emitted by a "new star" recorded by Chinese Imperial astrologers in the year 77 BCE.

To test this speculation, the Condor team obtained a new image of Z Cam in November 2021. Then by comparing the positions of the shell in the earlier and later images, they measured the expansion rate of the shell, finding a rate that is indeed consistent with an explosion more than 2000 years ago.

Condor Telescope Reveals a New World for Astrophysicists

But to their astonishment, the team found that the new Condor image revealed the complete shell of gas surrounding Z Cam, rather than the partial shell shown by the 4-meter telescope. Further, the Condor image revealed yet another, larger shell surrounding the first shell.

"These new images demonstrate just how sensitive Condor is. The new shells are simply too faint to be seen by conventional telescopes," says Lanzetta.

"This is the first example ever found of two concentric shells surrounding a dwarf nova, and it confirms a long-standing hypothesis that concentric shells must surround frequently erupting novae of relatively massive white dwarfs," says Shara, lead author of the Z Cam paper.

Two other papers describe another extremely faint shell of gas surrounding another nova. That shell was predicted to exist but was too faint for conventional telescopes to detect. It is 50 times larger than previously known nova shells and is the product of multiple nova shells crashing into each other over tens of thousands of years.

Lanzetta's past research has centered on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, including issues of galaxy formation and evolution of the intergalactic medium. Gromoll is an expert on large-scale scientific computing. Shara's past research has centered on novae and the late stages of stellar evolution.

Lanzetta and Gromoll began working on Condor in 2019. Shara joined the project in 2020. In 2021, the Condor team deployed the instrument to a very dark astronomical site at the Dark Sky New Mexico observatory in the southwest corner of New Mexico, near the town of Animas.

Michael M Shara et al, Introducing the Condor Array Telescope – III. The expansion and age of the shell of the dwarf nova Z Camelopardalis, and detection of a second, larger shell, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad3220

Michael M Shara et al, Introducing the Condor Array Telescope – IV. A possible nova super-remnant surrounding the putative recurrent nova KT Eridani, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad3612

M W Healy-Kalesh et al, Hydrodynamic simulations of the KT Eridani nova super-remnant, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad3190

Journal information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Provided by Stony Brook University

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  1. History of technology

    history of technology, the development over time of systematic techniques for making and doing things.The term technology, a combination of the Greek technē, "art, craft," with logos, "word, speech," meant in Greece a discourse on the arts, both fine and applied.When it first appeared in English in the 17th century, it was used to mean a discussion of the applied arts only, and ...

  2. History of technology

    The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques by humans. Technology includes methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and information technology that has emerged since the 1980s. The term technology comes from the Greek word techne, meaning art and craft, and the word logos, meaning word and speech.

  3. Society for the History of Technology (SHOT)

    The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) was formed in 1958 to encourage the study of the development of technology and its relations with society and culture. ... Technology's Stories is SHOT's latest initiative - an open-access digital magazine featuring essays, blogs, book announcements from SHOT members. ...

  4. Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the

    The big visualization offers a long-term perspective on the history of technology. 1. The timeline begins at the center of the spiral. The first use of stone tools, 3.4 million years ago, marks the beginning of this history of technology. 2 Each turn of the spiral represents 200,000 years of

  5. PDF A Brief History of Technology

    Technology has always impacted society in significant ways. Generally used to automate, improve, inform, or destroy (Can be combinations). These causes have pushed technological innovation from prehistoric times until now. There have always been benefits and consequences.

  6. Primer: Technology

    The impact of technology is symbolic and social as well as material: artifacts have meaning; ways of making and doing embody beliefs and values, identities and relationships. Viewed as a nexus of material, cultural and political elements, technology offers a rewarding analytical prism for enriching world history.

  7. Emerging Themes in the History of Technology

    Emerging Themes in the History of Technology THOMAS P. HUGHES In 1972, at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, three historians of technology raised questions about the past, present, and future of the field.' Eugene Ferguson, in his essay "Toward a Discipline of the History of Technology," declared that the

  8. The Evolution of Technology: [Essay Example], 640 words

    The Digital Revolution: In the 21st century, technology has reshaped every facet of our lives. This essay delves into the profound impact of the digital revolution, from smartphones to artificial intelligence, and how it continues to shape our world. From Stone Tools to Silicon Chips: Human history is marked by technological advancements. Join ...

  9. History of Technology

    History of technology includes history of invention, development and innovation, as well as history of engineering and applied science. Historians of technology have varied backgrounds including engineering, economic history, labor history, history of science, sociology, and social history. ... In an essay titled 'Virginia Dare to Virginia ...

  10. Technology and History

    ESSAY REVIEW Technology and History Angus Buchanan There is a notable dearth of speculative literature about the history of technology. Most of the very substantial research which has already been published in this expanding sub-section of historical studies has been concerned with the funda-

  11. How Is Technology Changing the World, and How Should the World Change

    Technologies are becoming increasingly complicated and increasingly interconnected. Cars, airplanes, medical devices, financial transactions, and electricity systems all rely on more computer software than they ever have before, making them seem both harder to understand and, in some cases, harder to control. Government and corporate surveillance of individuals and information processing ...

  12. Full article: What is technology?

    Yet even for a recent English word 'technology' has come to embrace often conflicting meanings. In this essay review I have three aims. First, I will offer a summary of Eric Schatzberg's important new opus Technology, which untangles and clarifies the history of 'technology' and its cognates as actors' categories. Second, I will ...

  13. Technology and History, Essay Example

    Technological artefacts are functions of an economy that is a drive to the economic growth and plays a major part in human life everyday. The society's cultural practices greatly affect technological innovations. Technological progresses are a means to human civilization, a driving factor for political development and project military strategies.

  14. Technology and Culture

    Technology and Culture is the official publication of the Society for the History of Technology, and the flagship journal in the field. International and interdisciplinary, T&C is published quarterly, offering research articles, essays, and reviews of books, film, museum exhibits and digital projects. Our authors represent a wide variety of disciplines including history, STS, anthropology ...

  15. History of Technology

    For simplicity's sake, the history of technology is commonly divided into four phases: Prehistory, Greek and Roman history, the Middle Ages, the Mechanical Age, the Electromechanical Age and the Electronic / Information Age. The history of technology began approximately 2, 5 million years ago, when prehistoric men learned how to give stone a ...

  16. History and Technology

    Contributions are encouraged from scholars in all disciplines. • Images, Technology, and History: Focuses on images as historical evidence. These papers analyze images relating to technology, with two aims: To integrate more fully our understanding of technology into broader historical accounts and to reflect on historical method.

  17. Essay Review: Essays on the History of Technology, An Encyclopaedia of

    Essay Review: Essays on the History of Technology, An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology. Donald Cardwell View all authors and affiliations. An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology. Edited by Ian McNeill (Routledge, London, 1990). Pp. xvi + 1062. £65.00. Volume 29, Issue 1.

  18. 200-500 Word Example Essays about Technology

    Direct Effect on Direct Interaction: The disruption of face-to-face communication is a particularly stark example of how technology has impacted human connections. The quality of interpersonal connections has suffered due to people's growing preference for digital over human communication.

  19. Technological Advancement Essay

    Technological advancement has taken major strides in bringing liberation to the divergent human wants and gratifications. After keen observation, I have come to realize that technological advancement plays a critical role in solving the major crisis of food shortages in the modern world. In the state of Virginia during the 17th century, human ...

  20. History of Technology Essay

    The application of knowledge to facilitate the obtaining and transformation of natural materials. Technology involves the creation of material instruments (such as machines) used in human interactions with nature. History 1450-1789: Technology. Early modern Europeans paid new attention to the machines and technical processes that created most ...

  21. Kinkela essay published in 'A Cultural History of Insects in the Modern

    Dr. David Kinkela. "Food and Insects," an essay written by Department of History Professor David Kinkela, has been published in "A Cultural History of Insects in the Modern Age.". Each of the work's six hardcover volumes covers the same topics, so readers can either study a period/volume or follow a topic across history.

  22. Condor telescope reveals a new world for astrophysicists

    A new telescope called the "Condor Array Telescope" may open up a new world of the very-low-brightness universe for astrophysicists. Four new papers, published back to back in the Monthly Notices ...