Sociology has a deeply reciprocal relationship with technology. 
As Foucault reminds us, sociology has its origins in
technologies of governance, especially the birth of statistics
and the concomitant emergence of ‘populations’ as objects of
study. Despite critical interventions at the margins, mainstream
sociology continues to treat technology as a mere object of
study. Technologies generate new forms of sociality that
encompass both the researcher and her method – technology is
already social, just as the social is already delimited by
technology.  While social scientists often associate
technologies with physical forms, the idea of technology has its
origins in the Greek word tekhnologia, or technique – a mode or
pattern of thought that is inclusive of, but not limited to,
specific ‘technological objects.’ Necessarily, systems of
thought often emerge before the generation of appropriate
technological objects. Although there has been some research on
technological objects, there has been less interest in th