Marcuse looks at technology as a Marxist.
He states how the apparatus (Whatever particular new technological device it may be) is controlling our life--it is a new form of control.
Machines were created in order to free people from work, thereby giving them time to pursue other cultural and intellectual pleasures. The individual is no longer as controlled by the need to work in order to survive. Ironically, however, the machine now controls the material and intellectual culture which we were freed into by the machine. For example, the media controls our needs by creating false needs, such as the need to relax or to have fun. Since we identify ourselves according to these needs which are false, it shows that we are unaware of the control technology has on us, which shows that we have lost our individuality and conscience. In other words, we have become alienated, not because we fail to conform, but because we adapt to technological changes uncritically, without considering possible consequences an apparatus can impose upon us.
Marcuse believes that in order to halt this control technology has over us, we need to transcend, or look at things from the outside as an observer rather than from the inside as a participant, and realize the consequences and results technology can and have had. Marcuse does not seem hopeful that this will happen though.