Technology is the study of any methods, techniques, systems, or processes utilized in the achievement of specific objectives, for instance scientific experimentation, or in the development of new products or services. Technological change occurs because of advances in science and technology, changes that enable a new product or process to be produced, altered, improved, or made more accessible to users at a lower cost, and other reasons. Technologists in many fields are involved in shaping the current and future makeup of society. There are some who work on the technological, societal, or economic fronts. Technological change includes such developments as Information Communication, Computer sciences, and Information Technology.
Technological change refers to the application of science and technology to provide a variety of solutions to practical problems. Technological change also produces new technologies and associated materials. In order to assess the magnitude and impact of technological change, it is necessary to apply the appropriate statistical methods. One of these methods is known as the analysis of technological transition. Analysis of technological transition attempts to identify the process by which new technologies and associated materials are developed and made available to markets and organizations.
Technological change has affected society in a number of ways, most significantly through the development and adoption of new scientific knowledge. Scientific discoveries can produce amazing results, but often the methodology for discovery is not clearly outlined and established. The process of cultural change is intimately tied to scientific change, since it is difficult to change cultural norms without also changing the science that informs those norms. Because of this, the analysis of technological transition attempts to describe how changes in scientific knowledge may affect society and the forms of societal organization that result from those changes.
Analysis of technological transition attempts to address three broad questions. First, what types of changes and modifications have occurred? Second, how do these modifications impact the process by which science and technology are developed, refined, and disseminated? Third, to what extent can these modified technologies be applied to new situations or to existing ones? The answers to these questions provide an analytical category of the subject that can be used to represent the patterns and trends that have occurred over time and to provide a background for discussions of particular technologies and their effect on society.
Technological change occurs in a number of different ways. In terms of changes in scientific knowledge, there has been a progressive attempt to standardize the definition of the field of science itself. At the same time, there has been an effort to standardize the definition of technologies, in order to create a single, standardized field that can be used to explain a range of technological innovations. Finally, there has been an effort to develop a uniform system of measurement by which to measure technological developments, thus integrating quantitative methods with qualitative methods in scientific research.
The analysis of technological change has become particularly important in the study of technology change since the advent of twentieth century science and technology. The development of new technologies has been accompanied by an increasing amount of social scientific research, with a tendency toward meta-historical studies that attempt to describe historical developments in terms of theoretical understanding. As one of these historical accounts of technological change was written, the work of Jean Piaget, the most influential French philosopher of the late nineteenth century, the term technics is used. The term was first used in a distinctly German context, as a proposal for a possible definition of the various technological innovations that had taken place during the period. It was eventually adopted as a common idiom by a number of eminent philosophers including Helmuth von Moltke and Carl Scheler, to describe the entire subject.