Chapter one of the book “Human-Built world: How to think about technology and culture “discusses the complexity of technology and its effect on the modern society. The chapter one elaborates how technology is confusing and complicated to define and comprehend. Furthermore, it demonstrates how technology is filled with ambiguities, burdened with human craziness and full of unintentional consequences (Hughes 1).
The chapter gives the definition of technology from the author’s perspective and discusses how one may define it, its origins and how it is used today. The author praises the ideas of various intellectuals and their thoughts about the complexity of technology and its multiple uses. Hughes introduces the book in a clear manner by combining various people's thoughts concerning technology and how people perceive it on a daily basis. It is clear from the definition that the author considered technology as complex because it consists various artifacts and systems that are mostly associated with engineering fields. However, apart from associating technology with engineering field such as civil, mechanical and electrical, the author considers technology as a tool and a source of symbols for many creative people such as architects and artists (Hughes 5).
Hughes thinks that technology involves creativity or is defined as a creative activity and that is the reason he acknowledges his enthusiasm to technology. According to the author, technology has various impacts on the culture and the way people live today compared to the past. The author abhors technology critics because they do not acknowledge what technology has done in building and transforming society. Hughes is convinced that contemporary societies are primarily technological and highlights complications, contradictions, and accomplishments linked with society's obligation to technology.
The book is developed around creativity and the how humans have used technology to build the world. The term creativity according to Hughes refers to the manner in which inventors and engineers develop and use technology to create and manage the human-build world. Moreover, the complex technology refers to the way people have used technology to change the uncultivated physical and virgin world into a perfect cultivated and beautiful looking world (Hughes 6). From the chapter, I think the author acknowledges that technology has done a lot in helping shape the world and transforming the way people live across the world. Despite recognizing that technology is complex, he upholds it and hails it for its positive contribution towards building the world.
In summary, it is clear from chapter one that the author acknowledges the complexity of technology and the way it has changed over time. Indeed, the introduction portrays the way technology is complex, destructive as well as constructive to societies. Through the introduction the author wanted the reader to understand that technology changes societies, and it is at the center state of anything that happens in the contemporary society.
Work Cited
Hughes, Thomas P. Human-built world: How to think about technology and culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Print.
