Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Information Overload


While beginning to read Feed by M.T Anderson, it made me realize how scary our future could be depending on the route that technology takes. The basic concept to Feed is neural implants placed in humans and essentially the wealthier you are the smarter you are by having the ability to purchase a more advanced feed. It is frightening to think that this could ever be a possibility for the future of our country. The whole so-called “American dream” would disintegrate and evaporate into nothing if this were to come about. There would be no hope at rising to the top based on your abilities or what you were best suited for, everyone would be engineered based on the amount of money your family makes. Now many of you may think to yourself how likely is this really that people would allow neural implants placed in their brains and to a certain extent yes this is true that method probably wont come about if at all until

hundreds and hundreds of years from now. But we have to think about the other ways this could come to be more specifically technology that is already present within the scientific community today, genetic engineering. It is already possible to pick the sex of your baby from the womb and to edit the genes searching for genetic mutation, how far off are we from hand picking the traits our children receive? The fact is that this selective process is a pricey endeavor as well and so if the technology came about where we were able to hand select how smart our children would become based on their genes then there is no doubt the wealthier classes would get an advantage. This advantage would be a repeated process where the rich would stay at the forefront of developments and at the top of the academic sphere and those from more humble means would have no chance to get ahead in the world. So the question that is presented is should we continue on in developments and hope we don’t end up in a society similar to the one found in Feed or should we place restrictions and enforce rules to keep these developments in check making it a fairer environment for everyone and ensuring the American Dream.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Communication Changing Our World


Email is fast becoming one of the most disruptive technologies of this century. It has taken over language and the development of rhetoric adding specific terminology that is now a staple within many communities such as the college campus, to this day. Email is changing the way we communicate with each other, not only in the business arena but in the areas of personal communication as well. Email has altered the way we relate to one another with rhetoric and has changed business practices that are now simplified and made easier through the use of this new medium. Through the development of email, it has changed not only communication practices but also social norms as well prevalent within many households through out the United States.

One of the largest advantages present in the use of these new communication technologies via the Internet is the ability to connect to more people that you would have otherwise had the privilege of getting to know or staying connected to. However with this change in communication also comes a change in the practice and rhetoric involved. People are coming around to the online relationship and a large catalyst for this is email. There are several studies including “Getting Hyper-Personal” where this is the central theme involved in their research. The research even shows that “some people even claim that the visual anonymity and lack of co-presence adds to the “magic” of online relationship” and it goes further claiming “letter writing and thus emails and text messages are an important social practice in terms of modern relationship maintenance” (Getting Hyper-Personal). This new medium is allowing relationship, romantic or otherwise exist and it gives a select group of individuals something that was previously missing out of their past existing relationships.

Letters have been present through out history for hundreds of years and with the evolution of technologies come the letters cousin the email. Many of the characteristics that were attractive in the letter remain a draw for email as well. These included the need for people to be in constant communication with each other and the need to feel close to another human being. In the article Journalism History we see this point brought out front and center “essentially the idea is that correspondence can make people far apart feel close physically and/or psychologically/emotionally, or remind them how far apart they are”(Journalism history). This is interesting to note that while yes it allows people a link to their family and friends however it does make them painfully aware of the fact they are not with them experiencing everything that is going on. 

From this presence we have developed a dependency not only on the mail system especially on the information system of the Internet and email. If the Internet were to break down then it would be exponentially harder to gather information and stay connected with family and friends. Email is ingrained in everyday business practices in the corporate world as well as educational communities. This reliance on email is seen through out campuses through Greek organization and student groups on campus. It helps them with their recruitment process and gets their name out on campus. Overall email helps these organizations grow and expand through new forms on communication. However with this new expansion does breed dependence on the technology and it is safe to say that if Email or the Internet were to break down then many of these groups would fall into chaos and turmoil.

The existence of letters is something relatively new in forms of technology. It was near impossible to have a mass transportation system with the ability to transport mail up until recent centuries. The letter, which is similar to email in the way that it eliminates personal contact among people, has changed how we communicate. The point was already made about the connected feeling associated with sharing an email however we also have to examine the effects that sending this email is having subconsciously versus the holistic process of sitting down to write a letter. Logging on to you email account, you are bombarded with ads and subtle propaganda and advertising slogans which have taken over your home page.  In the book Letters, postcards, Email, by Esther Milne this point is brought up front and center “during the course of writing an email a Gmail user might discuss plans for an overseas trip which could prompt the display of a series of advertisements concerning particular airlines” (Letters, Postcards, Email, 156). This leads us to ask the question how much of that email and in the end the trip you will be taking is your own original thought or how much is it influenced by the media culture that we are surrounded by today. In the scary sci-fi short story “When the Machine Stops” the main concern of the lack of ideas as exemplifying by Vashti “Masses of black rock hovered below her, and merged indistinctly into grey. Their shapes were fantastic; one of them resembled a prostrate man.’No ideas here,’ murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metal blind” (When the machine stops). This shows the scary depiction of what could happen if we got so accustomed to the use of technology that we could form thoughts with out being connected in to some form of information highway.
We also see this new type of social relationship through Julian Dibbles book Play Money where we saw in several cases how these virtual worlds was the cause of the deterioration within several relationships including in the end a cause of great controversy within his own. The reasoning behind this was “it was a parallel life”(Dibbel, 7). This new way of communicating allows the players of Ultima Online a way of breaking off from their real lives and in a sense merging it with their new one found online and the medium they are using to interact and communicate apart from MMORPG chat room is via email. This new form of communicating and connecting was also part of the basis for the movie “Second Skin” which follows several MMORPG players and in particular a couple who happen to meet through the Internet. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpvsoP6UDGMSecond Skin Review In several clips we see how the couples relationship evolved and changed via online communication and how it impact not only their social skills and the ability to meet a partner the natural way but also it seemed to breed volatile and complicated relationships.
Changes in the composition of relationship, is not all that has evolved since the use of email and the Internet as a forum for communication. There is the ever-present issue of what many people feel is the deterioration of the English language through the use of electronic mediums as a way of broadcasting our thoughts. The Gutenberg Elegies is a prime example of how many fear that from the use of improved electronic telecommunications it will eventually lead to the down fall of eloquent language even if such eloquent language was transmitted through the computer instead of a paper backed book. Birkerts states, “Words read from a screen or written onto a screen…have a different status and affect us differently from words help immobile on the accessible space of a page” (Gutenberg Elegies, 154). Even in an interview Birket again voices his concerns when posed a question about the increase in writing prevalent on blogs and through email he then responds “my intuition is that there will be much more TYPING, and much less writing and the effect of all this communicating will be the depreciate the stylistic and rhythmic qualities that are the very soul of communication”(Is cyberspace destroying society?).

Ted Kaczynski gives relatively solid advice support many of Birket’s ideas. While many of their concepts are not directly related, the opposition to technology is at the core of both men’s arguments. Kaczynski uses the argument relating the creation of technology with the waning of the private self and in most cases this is true. The Internet and email are all about connecting to one another and the spreading of ideas. Nothing involved with electronic communication deals with you, the sole purpose is to connect to others. The development of all communications in the past has served this purpose. It has filed the void missing in sending information. Whatever the effects of this constant need to communication is will not be known though in these next few decades it can only be seen through out hundreds and hundreds of years.

Still in the same realm discussing changes dealing with linguistics almost every college student with some way of communicating through the Internet has seen the ever present “LOL” or “BRB.” These meaningless phrases might not mean much but when they are carried out into everyday language which I have been witness too it marks a change in linguistic patterns and what people deem acceptable jargon to use in a social setting. In the article “Global Englishes and the sociolinguistics of spelling” the researchers examine the differences in Jamaican language through blogs and email from the Creole dialect to the common English dialect. We see through increased communication with blogs how people are exposed to new language and new spellings of the same words. This shows how culture within in the Jamaican community is changed as a result of their increased involvement with the Internet and email. Email has made it so they are able to communicate within not only their dialect and people but also be affected by communities around the world. This change in the dialect of the Jamaican culture represent a shift in cultural attitudes and changes within the very structure of their speech due to the increase knowledge and increased exposure to the Internet.

While clearly for the vast amounts of evidence for the effects email and online communications is having on language and relationships to this day is has yet to be determined whether or not this is for the betterment of communities and is simply the natural cycle that the English language has come to. When thinking about the evolution of language there is no denying we do not speak with the same eloquence that was prevalent in the seventeenth century however we have to note that a great deal less people had the means or resources to write back then. Now so many people through out our community have the opportunity to express themselves and their opinions, which in the end could lead to the differing level of intelligence embedded in everyone’s writing.  It is unfair to assume that every person with a blogger account or any person drafting an email would put the same attention to detail that was used in drafting the great literary works of the century.

It is hard to decide in the end what the best solution or outcome is when it comes to email and the innovations that comes with these new communicated technologies. On one hand they help our communities stay connected and interact on a different level, they allow relationships occur where they would have otherwise not and they create a medium for the easy distribution of ideas and information. However on the other hand all of this progress can’t occur with out a price, the price being the deterioration of the English language and of our dependency on technology in general.  Even with these negatives though the benefits out weigh them entirely. Email has helped develop our communities in to what they are today and shape how we interact with each other.

Sources:

Milne, Esther. Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Tonkin, Sarah. "Getting Hyper-Personal." Global Media Journal 4.1 (2010). Print.

Siff, Stephen. Journalism History 36.2 (2010): 118-19. Print.

Forster, E. M. "THE MACHINE STOPS ..." NCSA Web Archive Bounce Page. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html>.

Dibbell, Julian. Play Money, Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot. New York: Basic, 2006. Print.


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6350-Review-Second-Skin

Kaczynski, Ted. "The New Civility: Union Thugs Target Ann Althouse." Big Government. 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2011/03/17/the-new-civility-union-thugs-target-ann-althouse/>.

Hinrichs, Lars. "Global Englishes and the Sociolinguistics of Spelling: A Study of Jamaican Blog and Email Writing." English World Wide 32.1 (2011): 46-97. Print.

"Digital Culture - Is Cyberspace Destroying Society?" The Atlantic — News and Analysis on Politics, Business, Culture, Technology, National, International, and Life – TheAtlantic.com. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/aandc/trnscrpt/birkerts.htm>.

Parker, Philip M. Email Webster's Timeline History. San Diego: ICON Group International, 2009. Print.

Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: the Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. New York: Faber and Faber, 2006. Print.

Wu, Timothy. Master Switch. [S.l.]: Atlantic (Uk), 2011. Print.

Sundqvist, Anett. "A Qualitative Analysis of Email Interactions of Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication." AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication 26.4 (2010): 255-66. Print.



Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Zuckerberg the Revolutionary



This past week when watching the movie “The Social Network” I was amazed at the innovation and creativity of Mark Zuckerberg and how he created one of the most revolutionary applications of this century. While a good portion of the movie is devoted to Zuckerberg’s clash with ownership rights to the very idea of Facebook, there is no denying that Zuckerberg is the one who propelled the social networking site to what it is now today. Zuckerberg knew what teenagers want and that is to communicate with their friends and keep up with what they’re doing in everyday life. What really struck me from the film was how fast Facebook seemed to catch on in the college scene. I personally remember logging onto Facebook for the first time in the 9th grade of high school and I was not that impressed. I would log on at first and then I would get bored and let it idle for months. However since, I’d say my junior year, I have discovered all that people are talking about from this new medium. In the movie though there was one scene where, a college student from Stanford, who recently logged onto Facebook claimed she was already hooked and addicted to this new technology. This may say something about the age difference between myself as a 15 year old, and a 21 year old but there is no denying the great mass of people becaming addicted and entranced with this technology. This could also say something about the very nature of the way teenagers communicate. There is the well know stereotype about that once you become a teenager texting will take over your life and you will always need to be in constant contact with your friends. I think this is very true at some point we feel the need for the communication and Facebook is right there luring us in. While we may never know the real reason that so many people feel the need for constant communication it can be safe to say that it does not look like Facebook is going anywhere any time soon.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Project 3 Proposal and Annotated Bibliography


Throughout my day as a typical university of Richmond student who, before entering the FYS Cyberspace, was unaware the extent to which communication technologies are incorporated into my everyday routine. More specifically I was unaware the extent to which the use of email as a way of communicating not only with my peers but for academic purposes as well was incorporated. Personally I am very much dependent on the Internet and email as a form of communication and from this dependence would have very little reason to question the origin or the impact the Internet is having on my social life and how it is shaping the personal lives of people across many universities around the nation. This concept of our personal attachment to email arose after noticing not only how email was general the only source of communication with my professors outside of class but also through the process of joining a sorority where email is the main medium to spread vital information throughout the whole chapter. Since becoming a member of my sorority it is becoming clear how much email is ingrained in the very root of all we do. Questions that arise for me include, how did email become such an integral part of the academic and business community and to start off with how did email evolve into the communications source that it is today? How has our reliance on email changed the way in that we exchange information with one another, in the academic or social sense? From this change in how we exchange information has it made as more socially dependent and interlinked, as Ted Kaczynski would have suggested, and is this a bad thing? Sven Birkerts makes the argument about the deterioration of language through the use of technology, is this noticeable or supported that through the use of email we are witnessing the break down of the English language. In my research so far I found these questions could be hard to find evidence for because they are all relatively general and cover a broad basis of email and the Internet. I also have to note that in the sources I find people could be very biased themselves because a majority of individuals benefit from the creation of these new Internet technologies; benefit in the form of jobs and profit. So it could be safe to conclude that there will be many sources that strive to prove the merit in advancing communications technology. A tentative thesis statement that I have come about through my research so far is as follows; Email is changing society in the way that we communicate and we find that the more and more connected we are to the internet the more and more we are disconnected from our individuality as a person.

Annotated Bibliography

1) Parker, Philip M. Email: Webster's Timeline History, 1697-2007. Icon Group International, 2009. Print.

Parker introduces us to the timeline of Email and when the linguistic word first appeared it communities and its usages throughout history. My article is interested in the evolution of email as a form of technology so it could potentially be useful to be able to follow the creation of the word email in linguistic terms. Parker is a source where I can derive information of the development and creation of email and how it has become ingrained in literature and pop culture.


2) Milne, Esther. Letters, Postcards, Email: Technologies of Presence. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.

Milne shows us the connection between letters, postcards and email with networked communication practices. Milne concludes that the physical absence in the forms of communication through these mediums may not hinder social practices but instead promote a more intimate and spiritual connection with the other individual they are corresponding to. Seeing as how my project will focus mainly on how email is changing communication either for better or worse this would provide a source where it would counteract the claim that email is breaking down personal relationship through impersonal contact and support the idea that email is indeed making these relationships stronger.


3) Mann, Ronald A. Norfolk Fire Rescue Officers' Attitudes and Perceptions towards Cell Phones and Email. 2007. Print.

Through this source Mann presents the view from the governments perspective of the use of Cell phones and email, through the attitude of the fire department. This could be useful in my paper because it give the perspective of how the government feels about the use of these telecommunication presences and how it is either beneficial or a hindrance on their practices. My paper focuses mainly on the uses of email in the social and business arena but an opinion on the use of it in governmental practices to promote safety could be a strong claim supporting the practice of email. Also the points made opposing incorporating new technology in the everyday practices with the fire department could counter the positive feedback.


4) Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: the Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994. Print.

In Birkerts writing he focuses on the demise of the English language through the advancement of communication technology. Birkerts predicts that through the advancement of these technologies people will become gradually become less aware of themselves as individuals and the overall quality of the writers work will suffer in the transition from letters to email. For my paper, I will focus on how email will affect the English language in university communities and business communities. Birkerts helps us to see how; email in the place of letter writing can lead to impersonal contact for all involved.


5) Sundqvist, Anett. "A Qualitative Analysis of Email Interactions of Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication." AAC: Augmentative and Alternative Communication 26.4 (2010): 255-66. Print.

In this study Anett aims to study how a group of six children are introduced to different forms of communication technologies and how they interact after the experiment. It claims through the study, that from the use and practice of email, the children developed new social skills and increased their social participation. This source can be introduced in relation to email within the academic environment because from the data collected we can gather how it is effecting the socialization of the youth in different communities, in this particular case, Sweden.


6) Hinrichs, Lars. "Global Englishes and the Sociolinguistics of Spelling: A Study of Jamaican Blog and Email Writing." English World-Wide 32.1 (2011): 46-73. Print.

In this study Hinrichs analyzes the linguistics from Jamaican Blogs and Email writing, in relation to the English language. He discusses the use of slang dealing with linguistic constraints and makes the connection back to the Jamaican or Creole communities. This could be useful as a source within my paper because from this study I can gather evidence of culture influencing online writing in the form of blogs and email and how the informality of these mediums allows such lenience within the English language.




Apple Does it Again


During my break I was casually flipping through the newspaper and came across an article discussing the new ipad that recently appeared on the market and to my shock and delight I understood pretty much everything the article was referring to. One of the biggest issues it talked about was how the ipad is now being considered a disruptive technology for newspapers, books, and even in some cases computers. It discussed how at the very start of its release the ipad was demeaned, by the critics as useless and unnecessary but once that tablet caught on there was no stopping it for Apple. People found the ipad, a technology that they never would have imagined they needed, with such apps that include movie-watching capabilities, Internet browsing, and overall storage bank for apps. It astonished me how fast the reviewer jumped to the conclusion and called the ipad a disruptive technology; while yes it is a nifty new piece of equipment I don’t think we have seen yet the longevity of the ipad. Seeing as how the ipad was just released last year it can be assumed that there will be a mass amount of people flocking to store to check out the next great device Apple has put out. However I am still skeptical of whether or not the 

tablet computer will really take hold in the technological community. I feel that the longer the tablet is out then there will always be improvements being made and the general public will ask for a smaller and more lightweight instrument to make portability easier. In this case for the ipad the smaller it were to become than wouldn’t it just become exactly like the iphone. There is no denying though that the ipad is a disruptive technology for newspapers though. Better known publications are transfer all there articles online and in the upcoming years we will see a huge shift away from paper and towards electronic copy. The question that arises from this disappearance of newspapers is the question of profit. If these companies are to remain in business than they do need some incentive to do so but when no one is willing to purchase the paper anymore and demands it will be free than how can we keep that study flow of information going? So the ipad disruptive or not that question will be answer in years to come. For now though we can bask in its newness and embrace its revolutionary new ideas for technology. 

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The End of the World


Reading today’s headlines unrest in the world is splattered across newspapers, from the New York Times to the Washington Post. Headlines, which include major complications occurring throughout Egypt and now Libya. The most interesting thing to note once you get past the shock and the horror associated with thousands of people suffering from terrorism is how these groups are functioning and communicating, through the Internet. In the communications age where we live today it is frightening to think of the way this technology can be manipulated in order to cause harm to huge groups of people. Terrorists, are now banding together through the information highway known as the Internet and organizing in order to get their fundamental issues and cause harm to innocent bystanders. In “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” we see the Internet as the only way of communication left after a huge massive nuclear strike on the entire world. We can directly relate this back to today where it is 

entirely plausible to imagine people rallying through the Internet, as we see with these new terrorist groups. People today know the Internet is huge resource to the community and so if it was the only way of surviving then people in the technologic field would do about anything to keep the that medium open. With the “Machine” I feel the emphasis is more on the actual machine as related to a God, at one instance it is even pointed out “You mustn’t say anything against the machine”(The machine). This takes on a sort of human nature where we cannot even think to go against some device. This is a different contrast to Doctorow’s works where while the Internet is shown in a light of great need and a helpful resource, eventually in the end of the story the men and women have to venture out on their own with out technology. There are a few people in the computer industry who feel it would hamper our quality of life dramatically were we to take away the Internet and I feel it would be taking away the future of the world, whether good or bad, it’s a place to organize and fight for what you want.