Monday, September 8, 2008

Second Assignment

               I believe we are shaped incredibly by technology, but we still have some say. We pick and choose technologies based on our interests, how do we get those interests is hard to say, was it the chicken or the egg? This word, technology, I believe, needs some clarifying. I don't consider language or the pencil part of my meaning of "technology. I know that at some point it was, and the argument is there that it still is, but I just don't mean any of that stuff when i say technology and I believe many agree with me. 
               I like this idea of secondary orality. Stories, ideas and news are now passed face to face (sort-of) through applications like youTube. Im gonna pretend I'm from the 50's for a second and say that this is pretty neat. Stories, news and ideas are absolutely better expressed and enthusiasm mirrored when you can see a talking real live person expressing something. Reading can lay the fundamentals and the data, but the face is a timeless story teller that is respected in countless cultures as the only means of communication. Even when these cultures acquired writing skills stories were still passed orally because of the impact they have and the traditions that they hold as a daughter learns a folk story from her gramma.
        In closing, I underrepresented our obsession with technology, and there is an obsession. We are our own person but are extremely influenced by technology. I would say you are shaped incredibly if you are an avid CNN watcher, this means that you are heavily shaped by using technology, the television.

3 comments:

BtownBear said...

I like what you said about youtube creating a new tradition of passing things through a viewing... but do you believe that this is the same as face to face? I would guess you would say no, the interaction is only one way. Is there a possible way to duplicate face to face interaction?

Anonymous said...

So basically we are shaped by technology, but we get to choose the technology that will shape us?
I don't know if we can freely choose, sort of like grocery shopping, what will influence us.
Even more so, can we control the extent of the effect that certain technologies have on us? Ie; can we choose what aspect of a particular object affects us, and not another?
I feel that this is too much autonomy on our part. How can we choose what will have an affect on us? It's like asking a person not to be offended, even before you say something. You can't know the result beforehand.
Also, if you get sick of something, how can you pull yourself out?
How much control do you have over the technology, and its effect on you?

Becky, Sam, Merel, James, Adrienne, Asa said...

i cant think about this too deeply. the way i see it is that i choose to use facebook. What I see and do on facebook impacts me. I choose to listen to the radio and what i hear over those waves has an affect on me. I chose to invest in an mp3 player and now I cant imagine my life without one. When my cell phone breaks i can't help but to feel SO out of touch with people, even though i know it's not acutally that big of a deal.

this reminds me of the quote about drugs..."they say marijuana is the gateway to other drugs," so my question is what form of technology brought me to the state i am in today...what lead me to the technology ruled world i am surrounded by?...was it one specific thing or a culmination of technologies among the years? Why am i addicted to technology?

-adrienne