Oliver Waldo

Before reading this article I have never reflected on what the word technology means to me or what it represents in our society today. To me, technology has always just been a term used to describe the appliances and things we utilize everyday to simplify and improve our lives. The author Stephen Kline writes of four specific usages of the word that that we may encounter today. Of the four his description of technology being a sociotechnical system of use stood out to me. The definition he writes is as follows, “ A sociotechnical system of use is a system using combinations of hardware, people ( and usually other elements ) to accomplish tasks that humans cannot perform unaided by such systems — to extend human capacities. (Kline, 217). His elaboration of the subject explains that by taking advantage of our capacity to use a sociotechnical system to improve our living standard has directly affected our evolutionary path. He also states that by building upon and extending our current systems, we have become the most dominant species on earth and without this ability we would be relatively powerless. He concludes with the idea that if we are to employ this power we are to continue advancing the systems and the methods of which they are applied. Although this concept contradicts my previous usage of the word  his article helped me to further understand the meaning of the word technology and I agree with the definitions he layed out for the term. I do believe that our ancient ancestors used technology to create systems and with these systems came improvement upon both the technology and the sociotechnical systems of use of which the technology was applied . And with this growth our species evolved into what we are today; the human race. As a whole the humans dominate the world and we are the only species to have almost utmost control of our natural resources and all other living creatures in our world today. The only reason we have this power is because we are the only species that has the ability to take advantage of what we have created, build systems out of our technology and utilize these systems to further develop what we consider as the normal living standard. Thus to conclude, technology does not only sum up our appliances and hardware that we have today. Instead it is the use of these creations in complex systems that we will continue to build upon and improve. And with this capacity to utilize a sociotechnical system of use our race will advance even further.