I already started quite a fruitful discussion about the term methodology over here, but today's topic is the term technology. Whenever words end in -logy, my brain links them to the field of epistemology, because it does not primarily care about the thing itself, but more about the logic behind the thing.
Wikipedia gives a good explanation how the meaning of the word technology changed in the last 200 years, and mentions the German term Technik which does not have an English equivalent, at least in the form where Technik stands for the material item and not the method of doing things to create the item. Is there a more correct term than technologies for grouping items that require knowledge of techniques (technology) to be created?
E.g., what would be a more correct term to use instead of technologies in the following sentence?
The Internet, planes, cars and mobile phones are technologies that shaped the 20/21st century.
Best Answer
"Artifacts" connotes the aspect of being made by people, which seems closest to me to what "technologies" connotes, while "invention" (as Henry Wilson also suggests) connotes the creation moment and perhaps the creator.