Professor Elaine Lally (2005) examines the role of technology and information in the home environment and found that technologies, such as desktop computers and mobile devices, have increasingly been used to store and generate personal information. Evolving personal communication, these domestic information technologies have changed the pace, rate of understanding and relationship with personal communication. Consequently, Lally highlights the idea of ‘information overload’, determining that the fast-paced nature at which personal communication can be achieved with these technologies “is generated at a faster rate than it can be processed” (Lally 2005, p. 159).

This video shows IBM’s project to package a 3D semiconductor which will be 1,000 times faster than existing microprocessors, which will inevitably increase the rate of capacity for humans to store their personal information using computer technology. It seems the trend that Lally (2005) refers to is significant and steadily continuing that computer engineers are catering for this need in society.

Lally (2005) and the IBM project demonstrate the recurring idea in social informatics, where society and technology have an important relationship. Lally’s research shows how technology is being adapted by domestic environments to catalogue personal experiences and memories, where the IBM example shows technology improving to cater for this human need to store information using technology. Thus, technology and society complement each other and support the needs and ideas of one another. By emphasising this relationship, it is clear that technology is not simply a remarkable development in science, but rather, a social artefact that affects and has a profound effect on society as a whole.