What Is the Study of Technology?

So, I was just wandering around the Internet ("surfing" as it is often called), when I came across this question at wikianswers:

"What is the study of technology?"

I thought that it was a very good question, so I thought about it for a bit, and wrote a little response. I just kept on rambling, so maybe it's not very concise, and it may not even be accurate. Feel free to update the page. I've decided to re-post my response here for my own records:

There isn't really a good answer to this, partially because there isn't really anyone who does this. I would guess that this is in part due to the fact that there is a lot of different kinds of technology. Someone who studies computer technology might be a computer scientist, or a computer engineer or something like that, but someone who studies telescopes might be an astronomer. But actually, the only people who are studying telescopes are people who are studying to become an astronomer. The people who study current computer technology, are merely studying to become computer engineers. Because it's the making of the technology that people care about. The computer engineers are the ones making the pieces of computers that are so highly prized. The physicists are the ones making telescopes. So someone who is studying technology is merely a student. In that sense, it could be said that "academics" is the study of technology.

From a different perspective, if we jumped forward 1000 years, and a group of people from the future were trying to study our technology, they would probably be called archaeologists. If we found some alien technology and we were studying it (or vice versa), might be called Xenology or Exology (unless it was historical, then we might call it Xenoarchaeology or Exoarchaeology), but it depends on why you're studying the technology, if you're trying to learn about how the technology works, you might be a physicist, but if you're trying to learn about the culture, you might be a (xeno)sociologist.

Which brings us back to the original formulation. It all depends on how the technology is studied. What is trying to be learned? Something about the people? (sociology?) Something about how the technology is able to function at all? (physics?) Something about how the technology looks? (architecture? aesthetics?) How comfortable or easy to use the technology is? (ergonomics?)

So, it all comes down to how it's being studied.