Will technology surpass our wants?

So with our generation's technology increase, it is hard to see where we will stand in the form of technology expansion. We think we have everything, we have computers in our pockets. this is something that thirty years ago would have been fantasy. This makes thirty years in the future way more difficult to predict. What i think is going to happen is that we will be given a huge Utopian world without being able to live. I say that because if we are given every thing, we do not have struggles, and with those we learn. With age we get these experiences, with those we learn to live. so in the future if we continue with this rapid technological expansion, we are loosing the ability to live. Now I fell as though I will be hearing the all of the comments saying that if one struggles to much they then suffer. Now I do believe that no human should struggle, especially when there life deteriorates. With that in mind, I feel as though life experiences come with desires. If we are given everything that we can think of, not in a political stance of course, it takes away from growing and learning.

Technology Gives You a Voice

Over this lovely break, I spent a decent amount of time with my family who were snowed in with me. Unfortunately, my little sister and dad were sick. Because of this I now have completely lost my voice, which was wonderful for rehearsal for the plays I'm in. Luckily for me, I have my cellphone in order to communicate with anyone I need to. Instead of being able to get my parents' attention by talking to them, now I have to text them. This reminded me of the fact that there are people who use their phones to talk. Mute people often need to use an app to communicate to those who do not know how to use sign language, like this one. Text to speech and speech to text help makes communication easier for those who do not have the means to communicate with everyone around them. Luckily for me, my voice will come back over a couple of days.

Snow Days Featuring Technology

I don't know what I or almost any other Shepherd University student would have done over this long break without technology. I don't just mean the video games I played while I was holed up in my room. Many forms of technology helped make my days off less stressful. The rave alerts helped me by telling me when school was cancelled so that I wouldn't have to frantically search around the Internet to figure it out myself. The emails from my professors helped me keep up on my work and made it so the missed days of class did not put everyone behind in their learning. And last but not least, all the social media helped by giving me a way to pass the time while I was unable to leave my building because of the awful weather. Without the help of technology, I would have been extremely bored and incredibly stressed out about these snow days. 

Cellphone Games

Cellphones are commonly seen as a waste of time, a distraction, or sometimes a way to easily keep in touch with friends and relatives. An abundance of cellphones have access to the internet, allowing for many methods of communication and many tools to further general knowledge, and twice as many distractions. Many mindless phone games are being played all around the world, whether it be waiting for a bus or just to spend 30 minutes trying to beat a level that was impossible before bed last night. It may seem useless, yet this website is predicting that “The mobile gaming industry is predicted to reach $54 billion by 2015.” Cellphone games make up “76 of the top 100 grossing iOS apps” and gross billions of dollars every year. It really blows my mind that so much money is being made when many people I know have never spent money on a phone game. What is your opinion?

Live Like It's 1986

I was recently on BuzzFeed and I came across an article that I thought was very interesting. I was about a family that decided that they were going to live only with the technology they had in 1986, for a whole year. The reason the couple chose to do this is because they felt that their children were obsessed with their iPads and iPhones. They used old phones instead of smartphones, encyclopedias, radios, and they even did their banking in person. Anyone who visits them also has to hand over their electronic devices until they decide to leave.

For many of us, this probably sounds like your worst nightmare, but I think the family may have the right idea in this situation. Their kids are reading more and playing outside instead of sitting on the couch and playing video games all day, although they are allowed to play Super Mario. I think living like this family for a week would open a lot of people’s eyes about how addicted they have become to technology. Now people are so concerned with being connected at all times, that they miss out on other important parts of their lives.

Kanye West: Our Generation's "OG," and Apparent Priority

I'm sure by now everyone in class has seen Kanye West's "fire" subtweet marathon supposedly directed at Wiz Khalifa. And it's precisely that which annoys me- why is it that the vast majority of our generation can repeat the tweets sent out by a celebrity, but would have trouble naming all the current presidential candidates? I understand that I'm a news and politics junkie, and that those topics aren't everyone's cup of tea. However, it seems silly to me that our priorities as a culture lean heavily towards celebrities’ subtweets and very far away from things like who the next person to lead our country might be.

I just wish that we as a culture were a little more balanced when it comes to our priorities. If we valued things that actually impact our daily lives as much as we value how much “shade” Kanye “threw” to another rapper over Twitter, I don’t think our generation would be nearly as apathetic as it seems to be. That’s not to say previous generations haven’t been apathetic as well; I know most recent generations struggled with having apathy towards politics and other similarly serious matters. But I have higher expectations for our generation when it comes to being better than the generations before us, and I think part of that improvement includes being aware of the things that truly impact us in society.

P.S. I promise that I’ll make a blog post that isn’t negative or has anything to do with my criticisms of our generation/culture/society sometime soon… probably.

Technology For The Better

Hearing all the negative comments about technology I wanted to add something that technology is doing to improve lives. I recently stumbled across this video that has a 'smart helmet'. It is a motorcycle helmet designed to help the rider see the road in ways they couldn't before. The helmet is called Skully AR-1. This helmet includes a heads-up display so you can view GPS directions, MPH, and even see a full 180 degree view of the road around you. The helmet has built in bluetooth as well so when you're riding you can connect your phone to the helmet and receive phone calls or listen to music without ever touching the helmet while riding. With the product being fairly new the helmet costs around $1,500.
 I think that all helmets should be this way to better help motorcyclist's have a full view of the road. I think it is good that they can have all of those features and not even have to take a hand of the handlebars. With my dad being a motorcyclist himself, he was pretty excited about the idea. He believed all helmets should be made that way. So, I was really happy to come across a post that showed how technology could be helpful to those on the roads.

Will we ever understand other generations?

Everyday teens are lectured by the elder generation to get off our phones. "Go get some fresh air!" "Be productive or something!" When will we hear the end of it, honestly... Generation after generation, life is lived differently. Life just so happens to be developing a whole lot quicker than it did even when our parents were kiddos. Sure, we have so much technology that we don't know what to do with it, but that doesn't mean we are inept in other aspects. I have been agitated for so long now with those who tell me to get my face out of my phone for a hot second, as if they know what I am doing.  They tell us that we are less considerate, less unaware of the world. But in all actuality, the world is at our fingertips by all means of the phrase.

I love the elderly and all the stories and wise advice that they have to share, but what is different between them getting together in a coffee shop and reading the newspaper and us reading the news on the internet?

With that said, rant over. Enjoy this photo of someone's grandpa.

Putting the “Cell” in Cellphone

A question on the handout we had to do for today caught my attention. In the handout, the second to last question told us to “Pick one of their conclusions (the statements in bold). What do you think of this conclusion? This isn’t something you can “agree” or “disagree” with—they are just reporting facts. But you can have a reaction to it.” So I picked the statement “Americans’ cellphones are generally with them and rarely turned off” (Raine and Zickuher 10).

It was one of those “double-take” statements that you look at, but don’t really notice until you restate it in your mind. For me this statement hit hard, because I realized that the statement is kind of true. Weather we are using our pones for directions, entertainment, or to get connected with each other, they are always on.

Speaking about my own experience with this, the last time I actually turned my phone off, not because it was dead because I’d drained the battery, but consciously turned it off, was maybe two or three months ago. The reason I did this? Because before that I hadn’t turned it off for over four months and I thought turning it off would help it run faster because it froze. Last night I turned it off for the exact same reason. I never have my phone off, even when it’s charging, or when I’m asleep, or when I’m at the cinema (I just turn it on silent).

So with this one headline, I realized that most Americans are like this. And I think maybe it goes back to Turkle’s argument about wanting to be interrupted. We are so obsessed with contacting each other as soon as we can or getting information as fast as we can, that we don’t turn our phones off for months. Months! And when we finally do it’s because it needs to reboot because we’ve had it on so long. We are constantly waiting for that next text, that next update, that next interruption, that we lose sight of the fact that we can do things in other ways. Instead of using GPS, we can use a map. Instead of looking it up on google, we can research in the library. We don’t always have to be reliant upon such a small piece of wires and switchboards. Which leads to the meme that helped inspire this post:

Wam Slam Thank You Ma'am

So recently I was browsing around Facebook and I saw this performance of a slam poetry that really spoke to me and reminded me of the podcast "Finding the Self in Selfie." Savannah Brown's poem "What Guys Look For In Girls" speaks about how girls are taught to see themselves as imperfect and ugly unless they adhere to specific personality and body types. In the poem I enjoyed the positive message that Brown was sending about learning to accept yourself--not just the body that you reside in but yourself as a person. She also mentions in her poem how girls are told they are narcissistic if they hold themselves up and say that they are beautiful, and this was the portion that reminded me of the podcast the most. The girls in the podcast, even though I thought they were shallow, banded together in order to save their self-esteem from others or themselves who would try and tear that confidence down. Their compliments, whether genuine or not, helped build their self-esteem during a more trying time in life. "What Guys Look For In Girls" greatly affected me because I feel like verbal positivity needs to be shared more often, and whether its said in person or on social media is inconsequential.
*As a side note, she has another poem called "Hi, I'm a Slut" that, even though it is a bit more graphic in it's language, is absolutely on target for how women are oversexualized in media and in life.

Monday Snow Day: Day Three of Being Irritated

Listening to the assigned podcast today while being irritated for being in stuck in my house for a solid three days annoyed me even more. It annoyed me because the podcast basically just reflected what I’ve said numerous times in class and what I wrote my last blog post on: the fact that way too many of us are really obsessed with ourselves, and with each other. It made me sort of sad to listen to these girls talk about their (and all their friends’) needs to be constantly validated by all of their peers online. Rather than just being able to feel pretty on their own, they need twenty-five comments on every selfie they post of every girl in their grade telling them how incredibly gorgeous they are. And to them, this constant need for online attention and validation is nothing unique to them; it is the norm.

In addition, what really made me sad to hear was how some girls actually hold it against them that they think they’re pretty, and tell them awful things like, “You’re so pretty, I want to throw you in front of a train.” What kind of attitude is that? It saddens me that more girls view each other as competition, rather than as potential friends.

Monday Snow Day: Socialization?

I never understood the obsession with Instagram. With this podcast, I might understand Turkle's opinion about technology. I could not ever be able to deal with spending all my free time scrolling down a phone screen liking photos and commenting my obligatory comments. I am not sure if my distaste for this subject is because I am older or before this time, or because I think that the need of others to comment on a photo of me telling me that I am "gorg" is self-centered and narcissistic. I understand that Instagram is a way to converse nowadays, but the lack of words makes me wonder if Cushing is actually right about how technology is a way of socializing. They do not actually vary their conversations. The limited vocabulary and shortage of actual conversation. I hate that I agree with Turkle, but this constant use of Instagram is absurd in my opinion.

Monday Snow Day: It's All About MySelfie

As I was listening to the "Finding the Self in Selfie," even though I was very aggravated with the constant use of 'like' in order to describe events (thesauruses exist) I found that there was a lot of truth in what the girls were saying when it came to likes and comments, but I got a bit angry when they started talking about 'relevance.' In my own opinion, everyone is relevant in their own way, but the fact that they so easily said that they mattered, something in their tone made me think that they would bully someone that they did not see as 'relevant.' Now this may just be my own experiences with bullying coming back to haunt me, but I have a hunch that I'm right about their definition of 'relevance.' In addition, I found it funny that as a college student, the idea of 'relevance' is really not tossed around as much as it was in high school and middle school, so those girls are focusing on something that doesn't last past graduation. In college, football players are not treated differently by professors, girls aren't sent home for showing a collarbone (my goodness, the scandal!), and people who did their own thing in high school continue to do their own thing. I just found it ironic that something as silly as 'who is relevant' is so prevalent in middle and high school is irrelevant in college.

Monday Snow Day: Instagram Expectations

The podcast we were assigned to listen to definitely speaks to the article “Technology Doesn’t Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes the Way We Socialize,” in both positive and negative ways. The girls in the podcast are newly freshmen in high school and spend a lot of time on social media, especially Instagram. The way they socialize is a lot different than the way I socialize, but it doesn’t make them less social. If anything these girls seem to be a lot more social than most of the people I know.

I don’t really see the appeal of spending hours taking the “perfect” photo and asking all your friends if they think you should post it. These girls spend a lot of their time monitoring Instagram after each selfie they post to figure out who liked their pictures and what they said in each comment. Then, if their friends don’t like the picture the get upset because apparently being friends with someone means you are then required to like everything they post. These girls just expect people to like their picture and even comment, and they expect it to be nice comments about how pretty they are.

One thing that really bothers me about the way people socialize today was mention in the podcast when the girls were talking about people telling them they hated them for being pretty. I think they even mentioned some girl commenting that they wanted to throw her onto the train tracks because she was so pretty. Is that okay? If so, then how does someone respond to that, by saying “no I want to throw you”? Although, most of the comments that are left on the girl’s photos are superficial, comments like the previous example are more frequent then most people expect, and that is really
worrying.

I just find it strange that these girls rely on this social media app so much it’s like they are in a co-dependent relationship with Instagram. The way we socialize is definitely different than the way the girls do, but neither are any less than the other.

Monday Snow Day: Snow Day Technology

I have been sitting in my dorm room all day today reading and doing homework. I was originally snowed in at home but my parents made me come back to school. I got bored and decided to download yik yak. Doing the assignment today really made me think about social media and how now-a-days everything is instant. People were complaining about the snow, the campus, the parking lots, the food. All of these posts made me realize that thing happen so quickly on social media. The next thing I knew my friend Duncan called me telling me classes were cancelled for tomorrow. He called me before I even got the Rave Alert text on my phone. Technology and the instantaneous responses really shock me when I sit and think about it. And I honestly think that's why so many people hate technology. Because with a click of a button, everything is on the internet that very second.

Socialization popularity rates

With this huge uprising in social media has led to the same changes that phones did in the late 90s' and early 2000s', this change has led to many great ways of communicating to others that are great distances away. We now can keep in touch with people when they are sick or away in a different country, and with this huge change in the world, there needs to be something that can keep up with those changes. Social media held up to that new standard that needed to be present with the ever changing world. It has kept up to how people live. It is friendly to people who travel, and friendly to those who live very ordinary life. It is friendly for everyone who just tries it. It is also friendly to people who like micro-management, because they can work on it and see it grow and develop. This is why it is such a huge fad that is dominating the world right now. Anyone can do it and be successful at it, because you put in the results that you want out.

Monday Snow Day: The Girls in the Podcast

Some people who listen to the "Status Update" podcast may make the mistake of thinking that the girls who are being interviewed are self-absorbed and vain, but that is simply not the case. The way I see it, the girls are just doing what many groups of girls would do at a slumber party on a Friday night before the creation of Instagram. They would sit around and do each other's hair and just compliment each other. Now, because of technology, they are able to do it virtually. Putting a selfie up on Instagram is the equivalent of walking down the high school hallway after waking up early and spending hours trying to look as good as possible. They want to look good, and they want to tell other people that they look good. They expect their friends to leave a like and comment because they do it for them. It is as much a normal part of those girls' friendships as saying hi when they pass each other in the hallway is. Technology has just become ingrained into their friendships because it is so prevalent in today's society. That does not make them conceited. They compliment all of their friends on their Instagram pictures just as much as they get complimented, and I think it is a completely acceptable and even a beautiful thing.

Monday Snow Day: The new way to socialize

I chose to pick how this podcast relates to "Technology doesn't change us; it just changes the way we socialize." In this case the girls base how many comments and likes they get from Instagram to how good the picture is. They also think if you're best friends with them then you're obligated to comment on their picture.

This is hard for me to understand because I guess either I'm "too old" to understand the younger generations thinking on social media and the rules that apparently come with it or just that I don't view social media this way. For these girls it's all about how good you look to others. They get genuinely upset when a photo doesn't get two likes a second. I don't think that changes them, I just think it changes the way they socialize. Instead of caring about how they look to people in person they care about how they look to people online. The comments matter on their pictures more than the comments they get in person. 

I just don't see how their views matter on Instagram comments and likes. Wouldn't it mean more if someone told them they were pretty in person rather than just on their pictures? When someone does it in person it's creepy. They would rather have the comment because it makes them feel better about themselves. For them it's about the posts on Instagram not in person.

Monday Snow Day: In response to "How does this text speak to Alone Together?"

      This text kind of proves everything that Turkle speaks for. Three young girls are giving real life examples to justify her point that social media can suck in all your attention, allow you to present yourself online in ways that you wouldn’t in real life, and be brought together in the most insincere ways. All of these girls are leaving comments like “omg you’re so perfect I hate you” as if they’re best friends. Though, in all honesty, they could probably care less about each other. It is just all about how they’re being present on Instagram through comments and likes.

     

      It's sad to think that one app has the ability to take away how people perceive each other, but it's happening. Girls feel obligated to leave mindless comments on pictures that they scroll past and never think about ever again. Not only that, but they get jealous when their best friends leave nice comments for girls out of their typical friend group. It scares me to hear how seriously Instagram is being taken. These three girls seem to think that it is a gateway to friendship and popularity in high school. This may be the case, but I am hopeful that there are still enough sane teens out there to keep social interactions at least somewhat the same.

      High school, to me, shouldn't be spent worrying about likes and comments. If my friends and I were like that, we would never have the relationship we do now. Even if we can't have a serious conversation for weeks at a time because of being at different schools and being busy with classes, the closeness still remains. But if the years of middle and high school were spent with our faces shoved in phones, nothing would be the same. Yes, all of us still posted photos and status updates and whatnot, but it was no where near the most important part of our lives. 

      I hate to say that Turkle is right, but I do agree with her in these aspects. Though she could definitely be a little less negative and hypocritical... 

Monday Snow Day: Compliments and Compliment Reciprocation

I was thinking about the response I had to the second question in the third part of the handout. The question was: How does this text speak to Cushing’s “Technology Doesn’t Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes the Way We Socialize”? Eventually I came up with this response: “This podcast shows the way in which we socialize now, versus maybe ten or twenty years ago. According to the podcast, in order to start a friendship, when you comment on a post from someone you don’t know, that person is automatically required to reciprocate and comment on yours. Not unlike a few years ago when one girl would say to another that her hair was pretty, and then the second girl was obligated to say the same thing back to the first. Even though the mode in which we communicate has changed, they nuances are the same.”

I realized that this need to comment and have comments directed back to us, it isn’t some newly founded insecurity developed in the rise of modern technology. Humans have always had a need to feel accepted and our response to this acceptance is to reciprocate it. Looking back on my everyday life, I’ve noticed the way that I start talking to a stranger or the way a stranger begins talking to me; which is that we complement each other. (Girls especially do this with other girls.) For example, the other night I was doing laundry in the dorms wearing a raggedy old pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and R2-D2 slippers because, as I was doing laundry, I had nothing else to wear. Well a girl walked in, getting out her load from the dryer, and I was waiting, because I needed to put mine in the space she was creating. We were the only two people in the room and it was severely award, so I stood there in silence. I had no idea what I should say. But then this girl looks over at me, smiles, and says “I like your slippers.” In an instant I look at her and say “Oh thanks! I like your hoodie!” Suddenly we were both more comfortable and began chatting as she unloaded the next dryer and I filled the spot she’d vacated.

This interaction with this girl showed me that, even though it seems ridiculous to feel obligated to respond to a comment from someone we don’t know on social media, it isn’t, because we do it in everyday life too, it’s just not as noticeable. I’ve noticed many times that someone will say something like “Oh I really like this pic of you” and then I’ll say back “Thanks! I really liked that pic of you at the river” or something along those lines. This reciprocation is a societal norm created to ease the tension or awkwardness of a first meeting. This idea of complimenting someone and getting a complement in return has been around for ages. So I stand by what I said in the handout. Even though much of our interaction is now online, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s basically the same as if we were doing it face to face. 

Snowmageddon: The Trend of Comraderie for Workers, Students, and Parents

One of the things that I have noticed over these past two snow days is the trend on Facebook and Instagram of posting 'snowy day' pics, as well as who has some of the most snow outside of their own house. People have been sharing memes, posts, and other photos in order to express their happiness for having the day off (if they had to work), hopes and prayers for schools to continue cancellations (I have very little faith in Shepherd), or bitterness or incredulity over having to continue to go into work during dangerous conditions. I also observed the per-storm posts, and how people either took two sides on the upcoming storm. Some chose the "rather safe than sorry" approach and decided to hunker down and prepare early for a larger storm (I chose this option and decided to stay home). Others decided to have the "I'll believe it when I see it" approach and braved going out to school or work until they saw snow begin to form. I posted a position on Facebook about how I felt about what I perceived as negligent safety precautions on behalf of Shepherd, and immediately received a response in the negative for my comment. I did not perceive her comment as a form of cyber-bullying or an attack in any way, but what are your thoughts?