Becoming One with Technology

http://www.artsandopinion.com/2006_v5_n3/volume_images/cell%20phone-2.jpg

In a remediated world...

In a remediated world, writing changes and adjusts. Writing becomes more accessible and utilized for variable purposes, such as blogs, websites, and communication. Writing becomes increasingly public, and the rules of “standardized writing,” are constantly challenged. Writing becomes public and often attached to visual representations such as art, photographs, or videos. Writing becomes increasingly political and words may create broader social implications.

Uploading a Photograph

Hmmm...

After watching the ID channel...

As technology becomes increasingly immediate, humans become increasingly dependent on technology for lived experience. By becoming part of the computer realm, people have become part of a very personal, yet contrived, community. And in doing so, these same people have given themselves to an online network that is, in some ways, uncontrollable and unpredictable. At the same time, peoples' online lives are tracked and traceable, and their past is forever archived somewhere. If society continues to become more and more immersed in a technological world, we may find ourselves living in a created place where we are constantly monitored. Or maybe we are already there.

GPS doesn't just help you find your way...it helps people find you.

Our secrets are embedded in our computer. Just watch an investigation unfold: detectives are able to find a suspect's emails, conversations, deleted documents, text messages, contacts, and online searches, and much more, just by confiscating a computer.

Discovering an Ideal Escape

Because the computer relies on repeated commands to function, and at times may not respond appropriately or timely to the commands, it becomes difficult to visualize the objects on the computer screen as “real.” Rather, as Bolter and Grusin note, computers are “too obviously mediated” (33). In this way, computers have been unable to hide the presence of their medium.
The desire to hide the medium is a desire to make real something that is not. People’s attempts to create three dimensional computer realms, where an individual feels part of the technology, represents human’s desire to control and create their reality. If humans can forget about the medium, and become part of the technology they use, they can very much escape reality into their created reality.

Of course, for some, this would be ideal.

English the next Philosophy

I was interested by Selber's comment about how English departments may marginalize themselves if they do not embrace and teach technology. If English departments do not embrace technology and how technology has contributed to changing interpretations of communication and education, English studies will become more and more irrelevant and unimportant in our fast paced society. Like philosophy, English studies will become solely the study of past thinkers and writers. Technology has created a new importance for English departments, but if English studies shun technology, they will become less and less important.

Future World