MTintro.2

Webster’s Dictionary defines technology as the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area. I believe this definition is vague enough to encompass writing as a technology. Before this class, I did not see writing and/or other means for thinking as technology. In my mind technology involved objects and science. Words just seemed to be something simple, but now I understand how words are a technology, though they are an older one. Many millennia ago writing and even speech did not fully exist as it does today. When the first person decided to try and put into symbols what they were saying and/or thinking, it was no different than when the first person programmed a computer to print what he was saying and/or thinking out on the screen. As Goody said, the difference is in the interface. Instead of a machine being the interface, one’s own mind or the mind of another is the interface with which the technology of writing is performed.