ABSTRACT
Technology is one of the intellectual roots of cultural studies, evidenced by the connection of the term technology specifically to culture (in the title—Technology and Culture—of the journal of SHOT, the Society for the History of Technology) and to civilization (Mumford, 1934/2010). Up until comparatively recently, the term technology was virtually equivalent to mechanization (e.g., Giedion, 1948/ 2013). Gradually, over the past two decades especially, technology has risen to equivalence with the mathematized sciences in the field of education, evidenced by the current acronym STEM, standing for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It has also become equated in the popular mind with digitization and its outcomes and consequences, from robotics to the dominance of the computer and the internet in human affairs. Any technology—medical, food, or manufacturing—could be considered from a comparative cultural and historical perspective (for instance, the persistence of bullock and donkey carts in India and Africa alongside modern transportation in the context of transportation in culture, Iyer, 2017). For the following examples of potential interactives, the focus will be on what is probably the most ubiquitous element of digital technology in use worldwide today: the cellphone.
