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Farewell #COM641

Blog followers few:

Thank you for joining me throughout this somewhat condensed blog debate regarding technology and what these new advances in technology mean for our future.

I have thought long about the concept of "getting on board or being irrelevant" where technology is concerned and I have decided that it is okay to be irrelevant in some situations. I will never fully agree with where technology is taking us, but that may be because I believe communication is valuable. I would rather express my thoughts and opinions to someone in traditional letter writing than 140 characters or less. I am referring to social media, of course, but this idea applies to many Internet related circumstances.

In all, be educated, be informed, be authentic.

Farewell COM 641. I have learned a lot and now question even more.

I know where we've been, here's where we're going...#COM641

I recently read chapter 15 "Where Have We Been, Where Are We Going" of Joshua Meyrowitz's 1985 publication titled "No Sense of Place" and wanted to share the following:








So you ask where we're going? I will tell you. Unless more concern is placed on the future of technology and its impact, it will begin to shape us, mold us into what it wants us to be, not who we are.

Flash From the Past: Neil Postman- 6 Questions to Understanding Media #COM641

In one of my earlier posts, I said I would attempt to answer the following six questions as posed by Neil Postman and that I would do so when I was close to finishing this course. What I failed to mention in the previous post was that I would try to answer these six questions pertaining to social media. So, here goes!

ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Question #1 What is the problem to which this technology is a solution? Possibly the sense of community between groups that are not able to coordinate actually seeing one-another on a regular basis. For instance, stay-at-home moms, people that work from home, long-distance relatives, etc. The word "community" however, needs to be examined for authenticity within a given social media group. Only those who are truthful, upfront, honest and a shared interest are true communities. In essence, social media as a problem, can also serve as a solution to more efficient news or sharing between people who use it.

Question #2 Whose problem is it? At this point I feel social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, cell phones, etc.) is the primary responsibility of the parents and educators of our children. I don't put my trust in the engineers who are the masterminds of creating this new technology to know what is best for our younger generations, but rather it is the people's responsibility to be well-informed of the pros, cons and unknowns. With social media as a trade-off to the old way of writing, speaking, and pure social exchange is changing. It is up to those parents and educators to decide what is 'safe' and appropriate uses for our youth.

Question #3 Suppose we solve this problem and solve it decisively, what new problems might be created because we have solved the problem? Well I think the biggest problem is that we won't ever be able to really keep up with the social technology media in the first place, thus causing constant information overload and confusion as to what we should/shouldn't know and how to teach this to our kids. There will always be new problems. I think the biggest issue might be the possible change in what is acceptable for speaking and writing and how this will change dialogue in general.

Question #4 Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution? Schools. Whether primary, secondary, college and beyond, this will change the way teachers teach and students are taught. It will also have a huge effect on our publishing companies and telecommunications.

Question #5 What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies and what is being gained and lost by such changes? The written and spoken word is being changed. Read my blog post titled "Superficial Communication" and I think that post answers this question.

Question #6 What sort of people and institutions acquire special economic and political power because of technological change? Again, I feel that the education systems are a huge area of concern as well as multi-media news sites. I don't believe that they now have special economic and political power because of technological advances, but they should. Those that hold such power now are those in political professions, more government based programs along with engineers.

As a blog post, this is a condensed version of all my thoughts regarding these questions.

3/28 #COM641

I was at the bank today when I noticed numerous colored drawings hung on a wall. The title of each drawing was "what I am saving for" and they were done by 3rd graders. I quickly noticed a pattern of wants when browsing through the drawings. Out of 28 drawings, only 3 consisted of items like a necklass, cat and gift for someone. The remaining 25 drawings displayed the following: Wii's, iphones, ipad, Kindle, cell phone, car etc.).

Really? This is what they are savign up for? With the exception of a car, I wonder how these kids came to draw what they did. Is it their hearts desire to own an iphone? If you ask me, marketing has either done it's job promoting their latest advances in technology to ages 7-100 OR our kids know nothing else. Likely both.

Ugh, very sad in my opinion.

Superficial Communication #COM641

Thoughts on Chapter 14 "The Nostalgia of the Superficial Young" by Sherry Turkle

Texting, blogging, e-mail, Tweeting, etc. All of these forms of social media are how young people communicate today. Will there come a time in our kids lives where they will experience "less pleasure for an immediate response?" OR will our kids and generations to come continue to live in virtual space?











I'm afraid to admit it, but my personal feeling is that technology is on the fast track to running the lives of our young; programming them as if they were robots taught to communicate in a specific way and direction. So...where does this leave us as parents? I'm not sure, but I find myself wanting to somehow capture the meaning of the written letter, stories on an actual page of paper and face-to-face communication in a way in which I can share with my children how important this type of communication is, instead of was.

While the Internet can play a part in constructing the identity of our youth, it can also create internal struggle and chaos. A line needs to be drawn, bt whose responsability is it to draw it? Will we soon have a way of Parents vs. Technology?

Food for thought: The above comments and questions capture only a few of the many I have after reading this chapter. In Turkle's last paragraph she says it best:

"Where we live doesn't just change how we live; it informs who we become. Most recently, technology promises us lives on teh screen. What values, Thoreau would ask, follow from this new location? Immersed in simulation, where do we live, and what do we live for?"

What do we live for?

A Tale of Two Tech Worlds #COM641

"Shallow" Takes on New Meaning #COM641

According to author, Nicholas Carr, it isn't just watching television and wasting time that is making us "stupid" - it is the Internet (i.e. Google).

Carr is something of a fatalist when it comes to technology. "He views the advent of the Internet as "not just technological progress but a form of human regress.""

Finally, someone I can agree with! Carr's position is that using the Internet can actually rewire our brains so that new skills are gained, but many others are lost along the way.

A few major points to note from "THE JUGGLERS BRAIN" a chapter from Carr's, "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains":

1. The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from working memory to long-term memory and weave it into conceptual schemes.
2. Those elements that we are able to hold in working memory will ... quickly vanish unless we are able to refresh them by rehearsal.
AND
3. When the [information load in our working memory]exceeds our mind's ability to store and process the information... we're unable to retain the information or to draw connections with the information already stored in our long-term memory.

Carr draws some great points and relevant to our time. The question now is, what do we do about this chronic distraction?

Even Google Was Invented Via the Wheel, Ha! #COM641