Social artifact is any product of individuals or groups (social beings) or of their social behavior

Social behavior

In physics, physiology and sociology, social behavior is behavior directed towards society, or taking place between, members of the same species. Behavior such as predation which involves members of different species is not social...

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Artifacts are the objects or products designed and used by people to meet re-occurring needs or to solve problems.

An example of a common social artifact is a document

Document

The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...

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The philosopher Marx W. Wartofsky

Marx W. Wartofsky

Marx W. Wartofsky was a philosopher, specialising in historical epistemology. He was a professor of philosophy at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the editor of The Philosophical Forum.. With Robert S...

 distinguished several types of artifacts:

• primary artifacts, which are used in production (e.g., a hammer, a fork, a lamp, a camera, etc.)
• secondary artifacts, which are representations of primary artifacts (e.g., a user manual for a camera)
• tertiary artifacts, which are representations of secondary artifacts

Social artifacts, unlike archeological artifacts, do not have to have a physical form (see for example virtual artifact

Virtual artifact

A virtual artifact is an immaterial object that exists in the human mind or in a digital environment, for example the Internet, intranet, virtual reality, cyberspace, etc.-Background:...

), nor do they have to be of historical value (items created seconds ago can be classified as social artifacts).

Further reading

• Habib, Laurence, and Line Wittek (2007). The portfolio as artefact and actor. Mind, Culture and Activity, Vol. 14, No. 4, ISSN 1074-9039.