The Future

Future technology offers increased knowledge, but a threat to peoples' privacy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvdGggusRYU&feature=player_embedded

A New Found Ability to Choose Ignorance

The Internet should be celebrated because it provides important information to countless people everyday. Because of the Internet, issues concerning poverty, genocide, rape, abuse, ect..., have become increasingly publicized. However, if you do not log on to a specific website, some issues remain hidden. Now, more than ever, people choose whether or not they want to pay attention to particular issues by choosing which websites they visit, and which ones they do not.

Is tuning out an option?

In Diane Adam's most recent post, she commented on people's increasing dependence on the Internet for financial assistance, communication, and creation. She then questioned whether or not, in such a technologically connected world, tuning out is an option. I believe that technology has provided people with an increased ability to tune out the world. By simply turning off the computer, phone, or blackberry, one can easily tune out the world. Technology has provided people with the choice to "tune in" if and when they want to.

Faigley discusses two revolutions occurring simultaneously: an economic revolution where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and a technological revolution that provides increased access to new information. Faigley suggests that these revolutions are connected, as the rich continue to have the money to purchase Internet connections, and thus have more access to fresh information. Selfe provides her reader with statistics supporting Faigley's assertion. I found myself astonished by the fact that not only has our society become more and more economically separated, but because of technology and the Internet, individuals' access to knowledge has become even more associated with wealth. Furthermore, as employers continuously demand employees who have "knowledge of computers and the internet," it seems that technology has created a new problem for lower class citizens who are searching for opportunities.

Do we know where we are going?

Certainly, the Internet has awarded individuals the access to information, which they may not have been able to easily locate before; it has provided people with a forum to voice their opinions, to create themselves, and in some cases, it has allowed people to recreate their lived reality. But, while technology may be celebrated because of how it has opened the doors to a new world of communication, construction, and exploration, technology has equally opened the doors to a dangerous world of misinformation and miscommunication. The most fundamental danger that the Internet poses may be that people's ability to recreate themselves and their reality ultimately diminishes their realized and lived experiences. Relatively, student's absorption into a technological academic world may sacrifice their experience as students. Technology cannot recreate the academy and provide a connected, personal, and interpersonal experience where ideas are not merely transmitted through perfectly chosen words, but through expressions, eye-contact, and tone.

I'm on

Blogging attempt 1.