WOW.
Just when I think I'm an articulate communicator, I encounter a quote like that. My previous blog was basically summarized in its entirety within the first half of that quote. I'm feelin' sheepish over here.
In class today we discussed another fascinating hand-out provided by our ever-so-wise instructor, Dr. Sara Hillin. The handout, "An interview/dialogue with Albert Borgmann and N. Katherine Hayles on Humans and Machines," is, well, an interview with the aforementioned characters. But it really struck home with me--I'm embarking on a voluntary project for my Intro to Profession class, and this material reinforced my argument enormously. But I digress...the interview itself is worth revisiting.
Hayles touches on a concept she calls "the transformation from the human to the posthuman," which as I interpreted it, occurs within our relationship with cyberspace and other technologies. Cyberspace itself is defined by Borgmann as "the realm of electronically and digitally mediated information (soon to include television)", where in the "realm of leisure and consumption...cyberspace very much resembles television, except that cyberspace is much more diverse and allows for (increasingly easy) interaction." Ultimately, this leads to the profound conclusion: "The temptation to entrust one's curiosity and desires primarily to cyberspace will be even greater than it is now."
Though Hayles argues that "the idea that humans will 'live' in cyberspace will last very long" and that it is "clear to most people...that they have real lives in the real world", I do feel that society's idea of the real world is increasingly merging with that of the 'world' within cyberspace.
How people selectively disregard what happens in cyberspace is an example; people often enter into personal conflicts with one another in social networking sites as a result of the liberating freedom of speech, which turns into uninhibited social behavior in these realms. However, when one party has perhaps gotten a little carried away with his or her social behavior in a networking site, they happily excuse themselves from responsibility and instead act as a victim of the site itself: "It's just Facebook. It's just Myspace. That's why I should probably delete mine, it all is just a bunch of drama."
Basically, people use the internet to behave just as they wish they could in reality, but when they have 'misbehaved' or something like that, they absolve themselves of accountability by turning on the internet as though it is its own entity; like some wild, unpredictable animal that sometimes you can play with, but only with caution. I feel that this is when people begin to mistake what is reality and what is merely 'cyberspace.'
But because human beings abuse the technology does not mean it is not a valuable tool; as Hayles urges, we must "begin to think in more sophisticated ways about how human-computer interactions can be fruitful and richly articulated."
Now, for my final thought.
Sometimes I worry that my concerns about internet behavior are limited to a small group of goofballs that would behave this way outside of cyberspace if there was no social networking. But the fact is, the 'small' group of goofballs is not only growing, but it has gravitated toward the weakest members of society--teenagers. I'll be 25 in December, so I remember all too clearly how hard it is to be a teenager. The hormones, the hormones, the hormones....are the root of all terrible things teenager. And their confused, misguided relationship with technology is frightening. At a time when you think everything you say, think and do is correct, teenagers are using the internet to indulge themselves and each other in their wildly absurd and neurotic philosophies about life, and brutally condemning one another in retaliation when disagreements occur. Take this charming young gentleman, for example.
He's not alone, I promise.
Though Hayles argues that "the idea that humans will 'live' in cyberspace will last very long" and that it is "clear to most people...that they have real lives in the real world", I do feel that society's idea of the real world is increasingly merging with that of the 'world' within cyberspace.
How people selectively disregard what happens in cyberspace is an example; people often enter into personal conflicts with one another in social networking sites as a result of the liberating freedom of speech, which turns into uninhibited social behavior in these realms. However, when one party has perhaps gotten a little carried away with his or her social behavior in a networking site, they happily excuse themselves from responsibility and instead act as a victim of the site itself: "It's just Facebook. It's just Myspace. That's why I should probably delete mine, it all is just a bunch of drama."
Basically, people use the internet to behave just as they wish they could in reality, but when they have 'misbehaved' or something like that, they absolve themselves of accountability by turning on the internet as though it is its own entity; like some wild, unpredictable animal that sometimes you can play with, but only with caution. I feel that this is when people begin to mistake what is reality and what is merely 'cyberspace.'
But because human beings abuse the technology does not mean it is not a valuable tool; as Hayles urges, we must "begin to think in more sophisticated ways about how human-computer interactions can be fruitful and richly articulated."
Now, for my final thought.
Sometimes I worry that my concerns about internet behavior are limited to a small group of goofballs that would behave this way outside of cyberspace if there was no social networking. But the fact is, the 'small' group of goofballs is not only growing, but it has gravitated toward the weakest members of society--teenagers. I'll be 25 in December, so I remember all too clearly how hard it is to be a teenager. The hormones, the hormones, the hormones....are the root of all terrible things teenager. And their confused, misguided relationship with technology is frightening. At a time when you think everything you say, think and do is correct, teenagers are using the internet to indulge themselves and each other in their wildly absurd and neurotic philosophies about life, and brutally condemning one another in retaliation when disagreements occur. Take this charming young gentleman, for example.
He's not alone, I promise.
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