Technology is an essential part of our lives and understanding its role is important for those who research and develop new technologies as well as those who use them. It can be difficult to define because it has different meanings to each individual, but in general it is considered the application of knowledge for practical goals such as making tools or devices that improve people’s lives.
Technology helps to automate tasks that would otherwise take longer and increase production, for example a bakery can use technology to monitor the temperature in the room to make sure it doesn’t drop or rise beyond a certain point that could cause spoilage. It can also be used to store data remotely or in a centralized location, this allows business to make decisions quickly based on facts and figures rather than guesses.
The earliest known technological inventions are simple hand tools such as knives and spears, but even the most complex modern technologies require a lot of time and effort to research and develop. This is because it’s very rare that a scientific result or engineer’s idea can be directly translated into a usable product. Instead, the development of any technological tool usually involves a series of stages where each step validates the underlying ideas and tests them against reality. It’s this process that explains why seemingly promising early technologies often stall mid-way through their development, although in many cases they end up proving to be extremely useful.