Posting for a Class in CMC

I'm taking an online course at Chemeketa C.C. called Computer Mediated Communication. Here's my "reflection" for this week. It will just need to do double duty. The teacher asks us to write privately on certain topics.


"How has technology affected your life and improved or detracted from your life? Are you a technophile or a technophobe? What are the benefits and liabilities of using technology in your life? List four or five benefits, i.e., connecting with family and friends and four or five liabilities, i.e., spending too much time on the computer, etc."

The spork is both a spoon and a fork. As a technological innovation it is both a stroke of genius and a joke. It does the work of two utensils but does that work inadequately. In my experience, all technology has some sporkiness about it.

Because this is a class focused on technologies of communication, I won't talk about my love/hate relationship with cars. Well, come to think of it, the automobile did have a huge impact on communication by giving people a private protected area outside the home in which to share intimacies. Cars also made it possible to spend time with distant (i.e., over 10 miles away) family and friends. So the car actually IS a communication technology. But not of the sort we're talking about in this class. The car is not "intended" as a channel of communication but as a mode of travel.

Technologies can often have unexpected consequences. The usage of technology can also have unexpected effects on the further development of same. Technology and society impact each other in complex ways, as our author notes when he quotes Rob Kling on "social realism" (p. 43) Social realism views the "relationship between technology, culture, and social interaction as more of a two-way street."

The same is true of my personal experience with technology. I act on it as it acts on me. I can use technology for unintended purposes (I can hang a spoon from my nose or use an old laptop as a target). Technologies encourage me to use them.

I am a bit of a social constructivist in that I tend to believe more that our social systems and groups impact how we manage technology. But I'm not strict about that.

There are many technologies that I love and value. I love email. It's a quick way of keeping a paper trail at work while communicating basic information or just socializing. If I relied on only oral communication I'd also have to keep a journal or notes so that I'd have a record of agreements. I love writing on a computer. That's the thing I love most: word processing programs. When I first started keyboarding, it was on manual typewriters. I remember in high school turning in papers that one teacher called "topographical" because they were covered with so much liquid paper.

I love researching in databases or on the web. And, wow, Boolean searching is the bomb. It is SOOO much simpler than card catalogs or going through indexes.

And my life has been made immeasurably richer by first microfilm and now digital copying of old newspapers. The New York Times is completely available! I did a radio show on our local low power fm station that was focused on the music and news of the WWII era: "Swingtime With Sylvia." It wouldn't have been possible without technological access to old recordings and the New York Times. The coolest CDs I have were a huge collection of music copies from "V-Discs," Victory Discs, records (wax singles) that were sent to military bases for free. I have these amazing recordings of Fats Waller, Woody Herman, Glen Miller, Artie Shaw...etc. All this amazing history, complete with comments to our boys oversees, made possible by both old and contemporary technology.

I also love being able to watch my niece push towards success as a model as she posts dozens of startlingly glamorous photographs.

Now for the downside. I am addicted to visual narratives. I watch way too much television, especially crime dramas and police procedurals. I assume that if I weren't watching I'd be reading, becoming more educated, being more creative, etc etc. I occasionally go on media "fasts" to try and cure this addiction but it always comes back. I also communicate too often with email when I could just walk down the hall and talk to someone. I sit too much. My body protests. I also don't read as much fiction as I used to and can barely get through a novel. My attention span is the size of a gnat. Was it ever any larger? Do I remember?

And there are times when I feel utterly overwhelmed by the amount of information trying to push its way into my brain. When I was young, I prided myself on being able to talk about the news. Now, even though I listen to NPR ever day, I really hate a lot of what I hear. I find that too much news makes me depressed. I feel like the fat kid in the Gary Larson cartoon: "May I be excused? My brain is full." http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/images/extbrainfull.htm

Also, I'm not a big fan of the death of privacy, but since it's a relatively recent invention, I'm trying not to sweat the loss too much.