The Exploratory Essay Part 5

As I get closer to understanding what technology means, I start to look at how the rest of the world decides what is technological and who determines what is at the height of current technology. Is it the public, the marketers, or the manufacturers who have the real say in what is new and advanced? Actually, I found that they all are involved, just at different times. This is possible through what is called a hype cycle. According to Gartner.com, there are five stages to the hype cycle: the first stage is the “technology trigger,” which is the “product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.” Next is the “peak of inflated expectations,” in which “a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.” Next, “Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology. Next is the “slope of enlightenment”, in which some businesses “experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology” without the press being involved. Finally, “a technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.”

Basically, the marketers are the first to determine what is technologically advanced at a certain point in time, they are followed by the public when expectations are either met or not, and the public’s reaction is followed by the manufacturers and businesses who try to figure out why a certain product is a success or a failure. Essentially, all sides of industry share the act of deciding what technology is by modern standards, and everyone plays a part in our world’s technological progress. This cycle has evidently existed ever since technology was first created, and I think that it’s a fair, democratic system that seems to naturally feed off of technological development in general.

The Exploratory Essay Part 4

How much does practicality play a role in defining what is technological? Through my research I have come across many different versions of the definition of technology, but I found one that seems to provide an answer for this very question. According to a man named Bernd Hornung, technology is “the systematic knowledge and the methods and procedures which can be used in a specific area in order to resolve practical problems.” I think this is a very solid definition, in that it explains how technology, in and of itself, is not something physical or a product of applied science. It IS the applied science, and it is the actual knowledge and development behind whatever technological products there may be. He also puts emphasis on where it says, “in order to resolve practical problems.” By this definition, anything that is technology must serve a practical purpose; therefore it must assist in some kind of function or usefulness. You could then say that virtually anything that was made by technology but does not necessarily resolve a problem could be put into the category of art. There is a line between technology and art, and though the two may overlap sometimes, the question of what is practical will separate them.

The Exploratory Essay Part 3

Part of understanding just what technology means is understanding that humans have a huge dependency on it. I found an interesting phrase that I think summarizes it well: “Technology is a drug, and society is addicted.” (Chisholm) As human progress continues to develop over time, so does our thirst for more technology that is better and more advanced than it was before. However, just because newer technology is more advanced, does that always necessarily make it better? As my source put it, “People like technology: we think it makes our lives easier, we think it is good for society as a whole, and we have been raised and educated in a society based on progress, development and the concept that technology is inherently good. We don't know to question it.” He goes on to make examples of technology that have been presented to society as great achievements, but have also displayed a handful of negative side effects: cigarettes, nuclear power, and even the Internet. Is our dependency on technology for better or for worse?

I believe that my source’s clever introspect on how technology changes our world has made me ponder the definition of technology even further. It seems that somewhere along the line, technology reached a point where survival was no longer the top priority; “the application of science” could be applied to fix just about anything, even if nothing was broken to begin with. My source cited the post modern artist Stelarc, who “proposes that the body and the mind of the average human is too weak to handle all the information in the modern world, and too fragile to withstand space travel. Technology…has transcended the human and made the body obsolete. His solution, surprisingly, is more technology. Making the body more powerful, more standardized…is the solution. If the body is really obsolete, why is it unthinkable that technology could be altered so that it did not make the human obsolete? The answer is that we see technology as all beneficent, unquestionable and the solution to everything.” This rather unnerving possibility shows exactly what I think may give technology a more negative connotation in the future than it has in the present day.