As written in the dictionary, technology is the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of the technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science. Scientifically, technology is defined as using scientific knowledge to solve practical problems. However over the years, technology has been defined by modern society as a device with a power button. Technology is so much more then electronic devices with a power button. Technology has improved so many aspects of our lives.
A perfect illustration of technology would be the use of shopping carts at grocery stores. Prior to shopping carts, consumers used baskets to carry their items in grocery stores. In 1936, Sylvan Goldman needed a way to increase the amount of groceries purchased by consumers in his grocery store. After several ideas, he stumbled on the idea of placing a basket on the seat of a folding chair and placing wheels on the legs. Goldman then recruited one of his employees Fred Young, who was also a mechanic to assist him with improving his concept of “folding basket carriers”. In the beginning, both male and female consumers were not impressed by the invention and chose not to utilize the shopping carts. In order to display and promote the problem solving functionality of the carts, Goldman hired a few male and female models to push his shopping carts around his store. The models demonstrated and explained the use of the shopping carts to consumers. Thereafter, shopping carts became overwhelmingly popular and is still in use today.
I myself can appreciate the use of a cart. My family and I live on the third floor of a three level apartment building. Our apartment does not have a washer and dryer, nor washer and dryer hook ups. However we do have the convenience of a laundry facility on the first level of our apartment building. With a family of five and three growing, active, and messy boys; you can only imagine the frequency and quantity of my washing load on a weekly basis. It’s a total of four loads every four to five days. Laundry was a daunting task that I despised and made my family well aware of my feelings towards it. The task was daunting mainly because I had to carry each load one at a time to the laundry facility. Having to make a total of four trips down to the laundry facility on laundry day was not convenient to me at all. So one day they surprised me and purchase me a foldable cart. I was floored and ecstatic when I saw it…I even cried (that’s how happy I was). It just made it so much easier for me. I not only used it to make one trip down to the laundry facility, but also use my foldable cart to bring groceries up from the car. Hey, I even used it as my personal foldable cart on my bi-weekly trips to Costco.
There are a plethora of examples I can list in this paper, but it is more evident all around us. All you have to do is just look around your surroundings; your home, your work place, even in the bathroom. Can you imagine having to use stone and pieces of clay instead of toilet paper, as the ancient Greeks did? Or using Chūgi, an anal cleansing stick used by ancient Japanese civilization in the 12th century? In the 14th Century, Chinese emperors had paper made specifically for that use. In the early Western civilization corncob’s and paper torn from both newspapers and magazines were used before toilet paper was invented. It wasn’t until 1857 when Joseph C. Gayetty produced the first packaged flat sheets of pre-moistened toilet paper medicated with aloe in the United States. The toilet paper we are oh so familiar with now rolled on to the scene around 1880. Speaking from personal experience and my own humble opinion, I would probably be lost without the comfort of toilet paper.
When asked what technology is, today’s generation would provide a long…