Increasing Technological Literacy Through Improved Understanding Of Technology Emergence And Diffusion

Understanding technology change and how to influence the process has been identified as a critical societal problem, and efforts to define and increase technological literacy have been underway as an approach to solving the problem. Technological literacy cannot be complete, therefore, without an understanding of major processes of technological and social change. Contrary to popular wisdom and belief, the emergence and diffusion of new technology is a relatively orderly and predictable process. Successful results in the forecasting of technological change have given fresh perspectives on acceptance criteria and adoption rates of new technology. Quantitative technology forecasting studies have proven reliable in projecting in time technological and social change using relatively simple models such as logistic growth and substitution patterns, precursor relationships, constant performance improvement rates of change, and the identification of anthropologically invariant behaviors. In addition, extensive studies of the evolution of patents have uncovered not a series of breakthrough discoveries or creations, but predictable trends of incremental technological innovation, governed by a short list of parametric variations. This paper presents an overview of the major processes describing technological change indentified through quantitative technology forecasting techniques, and the author provides several examples of his experiences researching and applying the methodologies. The author shares his experience introducing the concepts and sample studies in discussions of career and personal technology choices with undergraduate students in introduction to engineering and engineering technology courses.