When we talk about technology, it is very common to associate the concept only with the so-called ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and, although they are indeed part of it, we should not fall into reductionism. 

Let's go back more or less 14,000 years ago, more specifically to the Neolithic Revolution. This event marked a before and after in the history of humanity because it was the first radical transformation in people's ways of living. The discovery of agriculture and livestock farming allowed our ancestors to go from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one. Although the history of technology itself does not have clear and fixed origins, we can highlight this event as the beginning of a long list of other revolutions that changed not only "living", but also "thinking" of human beings. 

But... what do we mean by this? Basically, technology has existed since the very existence of man. The history of technology includes absolutely the entire history of the development of human capabilities through the creation and use of tools and techniques, which allowed them to satisfy the practical purposes of each era. 

Logically, each stage of humanity had particular requirements. Or perhaps in the Stone Age, humans demanded that the Internet work with more GB of speed? 

Here a very important point arises in this whole question, and that is that technological development finds its space only to the extent that it is linked to the social order of a time and responds to certain needs without which such development would not have occurred. So, from this perspective, the conquest of fire, the use of lithic (stone) tools, the creation of an articulated language (orality) and symbolic (writing), were (and are) also forms of technology.

TECHNIQUE AND TECHNOLOGY: TWO COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPTS, NOT EQUAL.

Although this is not a history blog, we did find the previous historical context important to understand the difference between the concept of technique and that of technology. Although they are friendly concepts, their meaning is not the same.

Technique is the way, the procedure, the METHODOLOGY that we use to complete a task. Therefore, the techniques will be used in different areas, including technology, as ways to carry out all types of tasks in everyday life. 

While, technology is the application of a series of knowledge, skills, methods, techniques and processes, aimed at solving problems that concern human beings.

So, the distinction between the two is that technology implies the knowledge and good use of the technique to use it as a tool.

So, for example,  The technique of writing was one thing, but the technology of writing involved not only the development of instruments and materials for writing, but also the development of an enormous body of knowledge, especially the ability to read.

THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.

The Digital Revolution, also considered the 3rd Industrial Revolution, arises from the incorporation of computers and computerized networks transversally in society.

Just as the Neolithic Revolution marked a before and after in humanity, without a doubt, the Digital Revolution also did, and in fact continues to do so because the beginning of this new “era”, which we can also describe as digital, is just beginning. 

The concept of “digital era” refers to the advancement of technology since the

analogue mechanical and electronic devices, up to digital technology. The origins of this era are found in the 80s of the 20th century, with the beginnings of the Internet and its subsequent developments that include two stages: 

Web 1.0: was the era of navigation and pioneering search engines such as Alta Vista, Terra and the first Google. 

Web 2.0: era of content-producing users, connectivity, social networks, platforms and applications, the era of the new Google, Safari, Wikipedia, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Blogs, My Space, Amazon, Spotify, Deezer, iTunes, Tinder, among other platforms.

It was from this moment that the concepts of: “information society” and “culture of connectivity” appeared, where the supremacy of the value of information over that of raw materials, work and physical effort stands out.

In this new model of society, the economic, political and social focus of attention moves from the management of raw materials to information management.

Some characteristics of the digital age:

- Interactivity perceived as a dialogue between participants (individuals or

groups) of communication through ICTs.

- Immediate communicative responses.

- Emergence of prosumers (users who consume and produce content).

- Reach and massive dissemination of content created by users.

- Overcoming the limitations of space and geographical borders.

- Increase in the possibility of media communication production

alternative to the centralization of traditional mass media: a clear example is the possibility of advertising much cheaper on social networks than on television, for example.

- Permanent access to content, although we recognize the existence of digital divides.

- Big Data, accumulation of data in sets or combinations of sets of

data (structured or unstructured) in large volume, complexity,

variability and speed of growth. The data has been transformed into the

most important capital.

- Convergence, the possibility of having access to the same content on different devices thanks to connectivity. These contents (videos, images, audio or text) are increasingly on more devices such as cell phones, SmartTVs, or computers.

- Emergence of “influencers” as new sources of influence on a large scale. 

- Hypertextuality, access to content is done through links

(links) to sources, the “clicking culture”.

IN CONCLUSION

Although the existence of technology takes us back more than 15,000 years, it is in this era in which we live where it acquired the greatest speed of development, improvement, advancement and, above all, diffusion. 

This is a process that began back in the 1940s, but that spread and accelerated like an F1 car in the mid-20th century with the appearance of the transistor, which allowed the development of the first computers. It was from that moment, and without expecting it, that the lives of the pioneers, of us and of future generations, changed forever.