Which term describes technology as the practices a community adopts around technology?

Which term describes technology as the practices a community adopts around technology?

• A. Social practice
• B. Tool
• C. Medium
• D. Instrument

Answer: (A)

Technology isn’t just the gadget or the function it performs; it’s about how a community adopts, shares, regulates, and integrates it into daily life. The term social practice focuses on these shared routines, norms, and collective arrangements around using technology, explaining why different groups can use the same tool in different ways and how adoption is shaped by social context and collaboration. By comparison, calling it a tool or instrument emphasizes the device or the means to act, not the social life around it, and a medium highlights the channel of communication rather than the surrounding practices.

Technology isn’t just the gadget or the function it performs; it’s about how a community adopts, shares, regulates, and integrates it into daily life. The term social practice focuses on these shared routines, norms, and collective arrangements around using technology, explaining why different groups can use the same tool in different ways and how adoption is shaped by social context and collaboration.

By comparison, calling it a tool or instrument emphasizes the device or the means to act, not the social life around it, and a medium highlights the channel of communication rather than the surrounding practices.