I think the most important connection I can make in terms of how Ad Nauseum and that which we have already discussed and study, is the constant struggle I have with who I really am. The ideas within Feed, and The Ad and The Ego, Ad Nauseum and even in Brave New World, its that the corporate or branded world, is defining us rather than us defining it. In the opening chapter of Ad Nauseum, they make reference to ad's being predatory, and that in their development, it went from trying to help you, to trying to control you. I feel that like Feed, Ad Nauseum is hinting at the world we are not supposed to see, the world that is planning your next vacation, what and where you eat, who your friends are. I feel that "it" is getting closer and closer to creating our reality for us, brand naming it, and selling it to us a discount price, because you've "got a nice face."
The scary part is that you do not know how deep it goes, nor how you have been affected subliminally. That lemonade you bought may be your favorite drink, or maybe you just think its your favorite drink, or maybe its because you were corralled to like that drink. It plays on the subject of how in control are you in your own life, when at the start of your life, you are inundated with the wishes of others. So at what point is it your choice.
In Ad Nauseum, it discusses how although ad's from an outside perspective may seem silly (the Viceroy Cigarette Ad was classic) they still connect with people, and still play on insecurities and symbols which within the human psyche are important for "perceived success." As long as one can attain those characteristics you view as important in your happiness, whether its being sexy, having money, having tons of friends, ads play on the human thirst for societal acceptance.
For example, in "How Real is Real?", by Paul Watzlawick, he makes reference to a series of tests done a University of Penn professor in which a group of students are asked to look at a card with a single line, and then on a second card pick one of three lines which matched the length of the line on the first. At first all the students pick the correct line on their own, but for the second part of the test all but one of the subjects is told to choose the wrong line, and see whether the lone subject will choose on his own or submit to the pressure of the group.
The results were that 75% of the time, they chose the wrong answer alongside the group. The test played on the ideas discussed in our texts, that although we do not believe we are susceptible to the pressure of our peers, inherently we all do strive for some sort of acceptance, some form of connection, and if that means buying this or supporting that, than that's what we strive for.
As Willie Loman told Biff before his interview in Death of a Salesman, "Don't whistle on the elevator."
Monday, February 8, 2010
"Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by David Carr: Response
(1) Thesis: the human brain has begun to devolve in its capacity to sponge useful information from long format sources, and that the internet and instant media sources are the responsible for the creation of mental disorder's like ADHD.
(2) I agree with Carr on the subject of Google's influence in the world's inability to focus and develop skills in reading literature in its totality and then picking out the key information. It is common knowledge that on college campuses around the country, students are using Wikipedia, and Google, to do most of the work for them, when in the age without computers, one had to read a book from cover to cover to truly understand a subject in its totality. Even as I type this right now, I did not capitalize Wikipedia or Google, and my computer's spell check let me know that they are meant to be capitalized.
I also agree with Carr on the idea that our brains are so malleable that this new form of research and learning, has retooled our brains capacity and even the manner in which we develop ideas and process information. I really enjoyed the excerpt on Friedrich Nietzsche and the way in which the technology of the typewriter, changed the manner in which he processed his words, perhaps its the non-personal touch of the keys rather than the pen to the page. I personally prefer writing things out before I type them, because I feel I have better control and develop better thoughts when I am writing freehand, rather than staring at a white screen trying to create a cognitive thought.
I do not however agree, and I am not sure he was actually saying this, that the nature of our current difficulties with reading and paying attention, can be blamed completely on the technology of today. Although, I do agree that it plays a large part in this general malaise, I believe that there are other factors which must be taken into account. Things like what we teach our children to appreciate, the importance of the past, and the passing down of generations of ideas, culture, and technology. Our separation from our heritage, and the replacement of the personal, all play enormous factors in our ability to connect and focus in today's technological world. We don't know what it was like without the internet. Instead of practicing cursive writing, we are having kids learn to write on keyboards. Its all connected, even when its not.
(2) I agree with Carr on the subject of Google's influence in the world's inability to focus and develop skills in reading literature in its totality and then picking out the key information. It is common knowledge that on college campuses around the country, students are using Wikipedia, and Google, to do most of the work for them, when in the age without computers, one had to read a book from cover to cover to truly understand a subject in its totality. Even as I type this right now, I did not capitalize Wikipedia or Google, and my computer's spell check let me know that they are meant to be capitalized.
I also agree with Carr on the idea that our brains are so malleable that this new form of research and learning, has retooled our brains capacity and even the manner in which we develop ideas and process information. I really enjoyed the excerpt on Friedrich Nietzsche and the way in which the technology of the typewriter, changed the manner in which he processed his words, perhaps its the non-personal touch of the keys rather than the pen to the page. I personally prefer writing things out before I type them, because I feel I have better control and develop better thoughts when I am writing freehand, rather than staring at a white screen trying to create a cognitive thought.
I do not however agree, and I am not sure he was actually saying this, that the nature of our current difficulties with reading and paying attention, can be blamed completely on the technology of today. Although, I do agree that it plays a large part in this general malaise, I believe that there are other factors which must be taken into account. Things like what we teach our children to appreciate, the importance of the past, and the passing down of generations of ideas, culture, and technology. Our separation from our heritage, and the replacement of the personal, all play enormous factors in our ability to connect and focus in today's technological world. We don't know what it was like without the internet. Instead of practicing cursive writing, we are having kids learn to write on keyboards. Its all connected, even when its not.
FEED & Brave New World Review
Part One - Resist the Feed:
1. Link: ugly, tall like Lincoln, wealthy, happy go lucky, competitive.
2. Meg: crazy, insane, super
DA DA DA: like blah blah blah, same old same old, boring
Unit: buddy, or friend
3. Like Our Culture: instant connectedness almost sickeningly close to ours, the control of thought through advertisements, or even the molding of personal belief through things, and the hunger for things or materialism, the importance of having rather than being.
4. Not Like Our Culture: the literal control of all personal choices made by corporations, the lack of nature's existence, and the idea that you are plugged into the consumer market, literally fused to media.
5. Themes: the destruction of self, the importance of choice, the nature of corporate greed.
Part Two - Brave New World:
(1) The thesis of this article is that the nature of the human condition is one that requires a certain standard of social interaction, however the new terms in which we define our social connectedness has removed personal interaction and has created a climate of intense personal scrutiny in a privacy less forum.
(2)Ambient awareness describes the social attitudes within the new technology of instant social connectedness. It basically identifies the emotional interactions with others based on a similar model of peer by peer social codes, and relies on the constant influx of personal expression through non-personal means to define ones social "circle," which in today's current climate could be called a social "black hole."The idea that one must adhere to the new media, or otherwise be left out of close multi-personal relationships, creates a system of pressure for acceptance and conformity, as well as a carelessness for ones own privacy even down to the most mundane day to day life experience.
I can relate, in that I once had a Facebook account, and I checked it once every 5 hours, and I cared very much at how my page looked, what my pictures might say about me, what people were discussing on large Facebook forums. But I came to a point, when I looked at my friends list, and realized only about 20 of the 500 were actually close with me, and the others were social media connections, Facebook started to make me feel alienated from reality. I felt that by creating a Facebook, and giving into that world, I was creating a somewhat false reality, and that I was furthering a standard of inconsequential experience and connections in my own reality, my own world.
(3) Thompson makes reference to the idea of privacy being a necessary tool in this new world of instant media, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think that in order for social media to exist and to expand properly, it must be regulated by its users, in terms of what one wishes to have broadcast and who they want to see it.
Thompson also made reference to the ideas of connections which are not close and that are merely internet acquaintances, can be used as incredibly powerful tools for self promotion and personal success. I believe that having the ability to connect oneself and use that connection to create a niche market or to further ones career can be very beneficial. However, it also is something I don't agree with fully, because within this social tool, there is a great deal of room for exploitation. As we read in "Feed" the nature of the machine, or the corporate world, is for greed, and I believe that we are not far from corporations creating fake users to pump promotions and commercials to the public.
Also I do not agree that the social media connects a person to thyself, and that only through personal interaction, and not screen to screen contact, can one grow socially. If you leave yourself only the friends you have on the internet, where would you be if it all went down. Alone.
1. Link: ugly, tall like Lincoln, wealthy, happy go lucky, competitive.
2. Meg: crazy, insane, super
DA DA DA: like blah blah blah, same old same old, boring
Unit: buddy, or friend
3. Like Our Culture: instant connectedness almost sickeningly close to ours, the control of thought through advertisements, or even the molding of personal belief through things, and the hunger for things or materialism, the importance of having rather than being.
4. Not Like Our Culture: the literal control of all personal choices made by corporations, the lack of nature's existence, and the idea that you are plugged into the consumer market, literally fused to media.
5. Themes: the destruction of self, the importance of choice, the nature of corporate greed.
Part Two - Brave New World:
(1) The thesis of this article is that the nature of the human condition is one that requires a certain standard of social interaction, however the new terms in which we define our social connectedness has removed personal interaction and has created a climate of intense personal scrutiny in a privacy less forum.
(2)Ambient awareness describes the social attitudes within the new technology of instant social connectedness. It basically identifies the emotional interactions with others based on a similar model of peer by peer social codes, and relies on the constant influx of personal expression through non-personal means to define ones social "circle," which in today's current climate could be called a social "black hole."The idea that one must adhere to the new media, or otherwise be left out of close multi-personal relationships, creates a system of pressure for acceptance and conformity, as well as a carelessness for ones own privacy even down to the most mundane day to day life experience.
I can relate, in that I once had a Facebook account, and I checked it once every 5 hours, and I cared very much at how my page looked, what my pictures might say about me, what people were discussing on large Facebook forums. But I came to a point, when I looked at my friends list, and realized only about 20 of the 500 were actually close with me, and the others were social media connections, Facebook started to make me feel alienated from reality. I felt that by creating a Facebook, and giving into that world, I was creating a somewhat false reality, and that I was furthering a standard of inconsequential experience and connections in my own reality, my own world.
(3) Thompson makes reference to the idea of privacy being a necessary tool in this new world of instant media, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think that in order for social media to exist and to expand properly, it must be regulated by its users, in terms of what one wishes to have broadcast and who they want to see it.
Thompson also made reference to the ideas of connections which are not close and that are merely internet acquaintances, can be used as incredibly powerful tools for self promotion and personal success. I believe that having the ability to connect oneself and use that connection to create a niche market or to further ones career can be very beneficial. However, it also is something I don't agree with fully, because within this social tool, there is a great deal of room for exploitation. As we read in "Feed" the nature of the machine, or the corporate world, is for greed, and I believe that we are not far from corporations creating fake users to pump promotions and commercials to the public.
Also I do not agree that the social media connects a person to thyself, and that only through personal interaction, and not screen to screen contact, can one grow socially. If you leave yourself only the friends you have on the internet, where would you be if it all went down. Alone.
Media Childhood & Feed Review
(1)Media Memoir: When I had to sit down and think of my exposure to media as a child, I discovered that a great deal of my media exposure was from my peers rather than my family. I grew up in Darien, CT, about an hour north of NYC, the heart of Fairfield County. I was an only child until I was 8, so the rules were quite different in my development than that of my sisters, in that I was the first child and my parents were just figuring out how they wanted to raise their child.
In my childhood, I was not allowed to watch TV, only the news and only if my parents were already watching. Movies were certainly allowed, and I loved them, and I pushed the boundaries of my parents no movies over PG policy on many occasions (I won a few times). I guess not instead, or because of, but I am sure that in some way the lack of televisions influence in my childhood may have helped me develop my love of reading, and sports. (Also the majority of my friends when I was very young, had parents who refused TV and other influences)
Now my sister is a completely different story. She was born when I was eight, and my parents had already played (rulemeister) to their first child, so Molly got the abbreviated rules of a nearly ten year old child rather than that childhood I had received. As my television restrictions were that of no TV at all other than news, my parents became lenient, now putting on childrens television for Molly, believing that she could be entertained and perhaps learn, while they go their errands done.
Perhaps its the changing the global American psyche from my first years, and my sisters, or perhaps its just a betterment in technology, the ability to reach and span socioeconomic gaps, find supple minds further and further away from home. I did not grow up in the internet age, although I am a slave to its influence in society today, my sister however was a member of the internet age. She was using the internet to talk to people, before my parents even knew we had gotten a router, and it used to show a lot in her daily interactions with people and family, a little reserved, a little awkward.
As I was typing this though, I found that I don't think either of us were molded by media, sure the nature of the human experience is through social connections and in some terms that has become media's MO, but it really is what you are taught at that most important of developmental stages. I feel that my parents did a good job raising us to be social, moral, and understanding people, and although media plays a big role in development these days, its the "harness" you have on what your child filters and what he lets mold him, that makes a difference.
(2) "The Children of Cyberspace": This NYTimes article spoke bluntly on the scientific and future repercussions of this instant media age, as well as the outstanding developmental deviations which future generations may inherit from this technological age. What stood out most for me, was the discussion of the "multitasker," the idea that those not under the age of 20 can multitask up to 7 different technologies, and that for those in their thirties can only handle about 5 and a half. I feel this fact can be connected to a large number of stress and study disorders, like ADHD, and people with panic attacks, the constant flow of instant connection, and the isolation that comes along with social connections through technology, I believe is having a terrifying effect on future generations. I feel that as technology becomes obsolete and the next generation supersedes it, I believe that in this technological climate, certain necessary social functions will be replaced by technologies new instant format, and when you forget the past, the self no longer exists.
(3) "The Machine is Using Us": the video by Michael Wesch, hints at the idea that the nature of the internet and communications has changed, and that "the machine" or the heart of our connectedness, our channel for interaction in the digital world, has become a tool that learns from our constant interaction with it. Its important I think to understand that what Wesch is in turn defining, is the ways in which this "machine" has to be managed so that in order for it to be appreciated rather than abused, it must be regulated in order to protect the people using it. I found it incredibly interesting, the nature of the development of new forms of structure and definition for the technology of this modern age, and the ways in which development can in turn be a devolution in terms of the nature of the content. It will be fun to see how all facets of technology develop in our lifetime, and its important to understand but also know when to turn it off.
In my childhood, I was not allowed to watch TV, only the news and only if my parents were already watching. Movies were certainly allowed, and I loved them, and I pushed the boundaries of my parents no movies over PG policy on many occasions (I won a few times). I guess not instead, or because of, but I am sure that in some way the lack of televisions influence in my childhood may have helped me develop my love of reading, and sports. (Also the majority of my friends when I was very young, had parents who refused TV and other influences)
Now my sister is a completely different story. She was born when I was eight, and my parents had already played (rulemeister) to their first child, so Molly got the abbreviated rules of a nearly ten year old child rather than that childhood I had received. As my television restrictions were that of no TV at all other than news, my parents became lenient, now putting on childrens television for Molly, believing that she could be entertained and perhaps learn, while they go their errands done.
Perhaps its the changing the global American psyche from my first years, and my sisters, or perhaps its just a betterment in technology, the ability to reach and span socioeconomic gaps, find supple minds further and further away from home. I did not grow up in the internet age, although I am a slave to its influence in society today, my sister however was a member of the internet age. She was using the internet to talk to people, before my parents even knew we had gotten a router, and it used to show a lot in her daily interactions with people and family, a little reserved, a little awkward.
As I was typing this though, I found that I don't think either of us were molded by media, sure the nature of the human experience is through social connections and in some terms that has become media's MO, but it really is what you are taught at that most important of developmental stages. I feel that my parents did a good job raising us to be social, moral, and understanding people, and although media plays a big role in development these days, its the "harness" you have on what your child filters and what he lets mold him, that makes a difference.
(2) "The Children of Cyberspace": This NYTimes article spoke bluntly on the scientific and future repercussions of this instant media age, as well as the outstanding developmental deviations which future generations may inherit from this technological age. What stood out most for me, was the discussion of the "multitasker," the idea that those not under the age of 20 can multitask up to 7 different technologies, and that for those in their thirties can only handle about 5 and a half. I feel this fact can be connected to a large number of stress and study disorders, like ADHD, and people with panic attacks, the constant flow of instant connection, and the isolation that comes along with social connections through technology, I believe is having a terrifying effect on future generations. I feel that as technology becomes obsolete and the next generation supersedes it, I believe that in this technological climate, certain necessary social functions will be replaced by technologies new instant format, and when you forget the past, the self no longer exists.
(3) "The Machine is Using Us": the video by Michael Wesch, hints at the idea that the nature of the internet and communications has changed, and that "the machine" or the heart of our connectedness, our channel for interaction in the digital world, has become a tool that learns from our constant interaction with it. Its important I think to understand that what Wesch is in turn defining, is the ways in which this "machine" has to be managed so that in order for it to be appreciated rather than abused, it must be regulated in order to protect the people using it. I found it incredibly interesting, the nature of the development of new forms of structure and definition for the technology of this modern age, and the ways in which development can in turn be a devolution in terms of the nature of the content. It will be fun to see how all facets of technology develop in our lifetime, and its important to understand but also know when to turn it off.
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