We can't shape what we don't understand, and what we don't understand and use ends up shaping us.

The quote argues for technological and civic literacy: if we don’t understand the systems and tools around us, we can’t intentionally design, govern, or reform them. In that vacuum, those systems—often built by others with their own incentives—quietly determine our habits, choices, and even values. The second clause reverses the usual “we shape technology” narrative, warning that unexamined use becomes a form of consent: by adopting tools we don’t comprehend, we allow their defaults and constraints to structure our lives. The line is a call to learn how things work (and to participate in shaping them) so that agency remains with people rather than with opaque infrastructures.