And lastly....

Over the course of the term I have learned a lot about my own personal views on progressive technology. As someone who participates in all sorts of modern conveniences like; iphones, texting, skype, facebook, pinterest, etc, it would seem like I wouldn’t have a problem with people being heavily invested in their personal devices. The more I read and the more videos I watched on different topics the more I felt that our society was losing its personal touch and people my age didn’t seem to care. I think have better ways of staying in contact and up to date is great, but it’s an issue when we decide we’d rather use those ways as our primary mode of communication. I definitely look at things differently every time I go online, and think about how different sites affect people and what the point of those websites are. I definitely have a new perspective on how “hooked” I’ve been in terms of technology and how hooked everyone around me is.

Too much

Thinking about Lanier’s argument that the old web is better confuses me. I don’t think it is fair to say that one version of the internet is more harmful than another because really it is all what one personally chooses to do with it. I could simply use the modern internet for research not necessarily all social media things. Or I could have used the old internet to search people’s personal webpages all day. I think that the more the internet progresses there are good parts and bad. With a more advanced internet we have the ability to learn all sorts of wonderful things. I can learn about a Queen Alexandra's Birdwing Butterfly, what they eat, their mating seasons, all sorts of things in a matter of minutes. That’s the great thing about the internet, obviously there are some negatives, and people do useless things and waste hours on the internet doing dumb things like surfing facebook and pinterest.

Jaron Lanier

I’ve watched many clips of Jaron Lanier and done the readings. Lanier makes it clear that he feels that the modern web is a huge problem because it isn’t individualized and it is mass produced. He talks a lot about the glory days of everyone having a webpage rather than something like a facebook or twitter account. Jaron Lanier is an impressive individual; he is a huge figure in the technology community and is well known for coining the idea of virtual reality. At first he was a huge proponent of progressive technology but now he has chosen to preach against it because it is tearing people away from reality.

Passive attempts

This week we talked a lot about having your voice heard online. The more I think about this concept the more it annoys me; it seems so passive and safe. Our country is known for taking a stand when groups felt oppressed whether it meant protesting in the streets or doing some sort of demonstration, there were people everywhere willing to put themselves on the line to make a change. Now our generation thinks it’s fine to share their thoughts solely online. I think because my generation grew up with social media we are a more passive group when it comes to taking a physical stand. There are protests here and there but people in this generation feel much more comfortable expressing their distaste for something behind the safety of their computer screen. I just don’t feel like tweeting about something has the same impact a march or protest does.

Actively Involved Online

The article “small change” basically discusses how people perceive social media sites to help rally with political injustices. Basically the conclusion of the article was that tweeting and liking things on facebook really isn’t a huge factor in moving people to protest, long before social media people got together and rallied against different issues. If people feel truly oppressed or against something they will (and should) protest against it. It seems that this article is saying that just posting things online isn’t really helping too much. I think that it stops motivating people for example someone could see the facebook page for PETA and like their ideas against animal cruelty so they hit “like” but that’s not really doing much of anything, they aren’t out volunteering or being actively involved, but they think by doing that they have helped out. The next site we looked at was a blog called the egyptianchronicles and it is written by a woman who has strong feelings about the way her country is run. She constantly updates the blogs with information on where the elections will be held and stories of people who have been grievously affected by the tainted justice system. I think that this blog is different than just expressing dislike for one thing; she is actively informing her readers on important issues that they may not know about otherwise.

Too Close for Comfort

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how committed and locked in we are to technology. I think it’s great that we are so innovative but the more I look around the more it seems that people are addicted to their computers, ipads, and smartphones. I can’t say I don’t benefit from these social based devices, I live 22 hours away so it’d be extremely hard to contact my family without cell phones or skype. I think that a lot of people don’t have preferences about how they communicate with their loved ones anymore, face to face or skype it’s all the same. The thing is even when I’m with my friends or family they are glued to their phones or laptops and I can’t have a coherent conversation with them because they are scrolling through facebook or re-pinning things via pinterest. It seems like I’d have a better chance of having a conversation if I facebook chatted them in the same room. This week I learned more about the iwatch and google glasses and feel that these devices are getting too close for comfort in a way because they are on your body. Now they are even more invasive in your-face than ever before. I don’t think I’ll be the type to want any wearables but who knows, maybe I’ll end up being a huge proponent of them.

Mark Zuckerburg as a character

I thought the movie “Social Network” was entertaining. It portrayed Mark Zuckerburg as one of those brilliant people who don’t have very good judgment with people. The movie’s plot was that facebook’s invention was driven by Zuckerburg’s break up with his girlfriend. In reality this wasn’t the case at all. Another important movie point was that the more successful facebook got the more problems and friends Zuckerburg lost. I’m wondering if maybe Zuckerburg lost friends because of his own social issues and bluntness rather than his success. While watching the “Social Network” I couldn’t help but compare Mark Zuckerburg to Steve Jobs. They seem to both be really crass and rude but Jobs seems to do this very deliberately whereas Zuckerberg isn’t as aware he offends people. All in all I didn’t see Zuckerburg as a completely unlikable character in the movie but I found myself feeling sorry for him a lot of the time.