Abstract
For millions of years, mankind has made countless inventions and discoveries. These inventions are basically designed to facilitate humanity's life and serve humanity. So much so that at the cutting edge of technology, there are devices or virtual environments that can listen to people, talk to them, guide them, communicate with them, read, calculate, remember, remind, play, and do many other things on their behalf. Developments that have completely changed people's living habits have brought along many positive and negative developments. With the development of technology, the most widely used technological development is digital objects and virtual environments. Due to the existence of these objects and environments and the possibilities, diversity, and audiovisual richness they offer to people, many of them have deeply affected our perception of life and lifestyle. The basis of these effects is dependent on these devices and environments.
TopThe Concept Of Technology
The concept of technology covers all the products obtained as a result of the processing of information in order to increase the welfare of human life. The concept of technology, which is accepted as the 'Science of Craftsmanship', covers all the developments that penetrate every aspect of our lives. When it comes to technology, all kinds of tools ranging from tools produced to collect invisible dust falling on carpets in our homes to all kinds of materials that will help in the exploration of other planets by going outside the atmosphere are included in the scope. The common feature of all technologies is that they are first abstractly designed in the mind and then transferred to the material world. Anything that is first designed as an idea in the mind and then brought to life as a product and in a way to serve the purpose can be called technology. In relation to the subject, Batur and Uygun (2012) point out that the dictionary meaning of the concept of technology is the processing of information, the processing of raw information with the aim of providing better service to people, the development of the information obtained and the transformation of it into products.
“Man, who was expelled to Earth, is in search of a better life, which must be due to the knowledge of creation that he carries in the depths of his soul” (Günay & Çalık, 2019) . If we associate the life perceptions of human beings with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and consider all the needs such as shelter, nutrition, aesthetics, and sexuality in the journey of human beings to complete themselves by meeting their basic needs, we see that there is a need for a tool to meet each need. When we consider weapon technologies for hunting and survival, kitchen tools for cooking or storing food for nutrition, tools produced for situations that appeal to pleasure, tools produced/developed for aesthetic needs, and needs developing for communication, we reach the conclusion that the concept of technology is parallel to human history.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Addiction: the state of spending too much time in digital objects and virtual environments.
Digitalization: The process of changing data into a digital form that can be easily read and processed by a computer.
Digital Minimalism: Using digital devices and social media platforms only in need. to use digital objects and virtual environments as little as possible.
Digital Diet: Adopting a healthy digital diet involves spending time away from connected electronic devices and virtual environment.
Digital Detox: A digital detox is a period of time when a person voluntarily refrains from using digital devices such as smartphones, computers, and social media platforms.