how do technologies become cultural technologies?

Technology has long since progressed from its original purpose to make our daily tasks quicker and easier to fulfil. We now witness the emergence and growth of new technologies every, single day without batting an eyelid. In fact, we are now at the point where we not only embrace it, we expect it. It has become so much a part of our cultural identity that the concepts of culture and technology must now be considered as intertwined.

In his book “New Media: an Introduction” (2005) Terry Flew discusses the notion of technologies becoming "cultural technologies", and explains that this occurs when technologies are used for personal purposes. One common way technologies become “cultural technologies” occurs when we use the technology as a social tool. Thousands of modern inventions have been utilised for social purposes though this may not have been the use for which the technology was originally intended. Modern forms of social networking have birthed these “cultural technologies” and created cultural communities.

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Flew, Terry. (2005). New media : an introduction, Melbourne: OUP, pp.61-82.