Technology is the tools, devices, and materials used to solve problems and make life easier. Technology encompasses everything from the invention of stone tools to computers and self-driving cars. Technology is a crucial part of everyday life, and it is important to understand how it works in order to use it effectively.
The technology that humans develop and use depends on personal experience with the properties of things, combined with techniques for manipulating them. These experiences and techniques may come from one person’s trial and error or from accumulated know-how passed from master craftsmen to apprentices over many generations. Often, however, the technical knowledge that underpins technology also comes from scientific understanding.
Even simple technologies can have complicated side effects. Refrigerators, for example, may leak a small amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, but this has a large cumulative effect on earth’s climate. The same is true of most large industrial technologies, such as nuclear reactors and agriculture.
While technological development depends on individual inventiveness, social and economic forces strongly influence what technologies will be pursued, paid attention to, invested in, and used. This happens both directly as a result of government policy, but also indirectly as a consequence of the circumstances and values of society at any given time. In the United States, for example, decisions about which technological options will be prioritized are influenced by such factors as consumer acceptance, patent laws, risk capital availability, media attention, and economic competition.