Knowra Technology and society Technology and society An interdisciplinary field examining how technologies shape social life and how social values, institutions, and practices shape technological design and use.
Social construction of technology : An approach explaining how social groups shape the meaning, design, and stabilization of technologies. It shows how groups and institutions influence which technological designs succeed.
Technology : The practical application of knowledge through tools, techniques, and systems. The field examines technologies ranging from everyday tools to large infrastructures.
Digital divide : Unequal access to, use of, or benefits from information and communication technologies. It demonstrates how social inequalities shape who gains from digital technologies.
Science and technology studies : An interdisciplinary field examining how scientific knowledge and technologies develop within society. It is the closest established scholarly home for many questions in this field.
Technological unemployment : Job loss caused by technological changes that replace or reduce demand for human labor. It focuses attention on how technical gains can shift costs onto workers.
Actor–network theory : An approach that studies how humans and nonhumans form networks that produce social effects. It traces outcomes through linked people, devices, organizations, and rules.
Social change : A significant alteration in social structures, relationships, institutions, or cultural patterns. It names a central outcome whose links to technological change the field investigates.
Automation : The use of technology to perform tasks with reduced human intervention. Automation raises questions about work, expertise, and the distribution of economic benefits.
Luddites : British textile workers who resisted machinery and workplace changes in the early nineteenth century. Their protests illustrate that resistance often targets social consequences, not machines alone.
Privacy : The ability to control access to personal information, spaces, and activities. Technologies alter what can be observed, recorded, and disclosed about people.
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