The most important communicative technology in my life is the laptop. Laptops are an easy way for me to access new information with the keystrokes of a few fingers. To me, the laptop is an all-in-one device that allows me to be capable of sharing important documents, researching information through databases that have scholarly information intertwined within them, getting my assignments finished, and more. With that being said, a negative point I can make is that it is easy for me to get off task. With the wonders of the internet at my fingertips, I can easily get side-tracked with my curiosity of what certain things are that I see through web videos, links, pictures, articles, etc., and my curiosity can leave me unfocused for long periods of time. The laptop that I currently use is the new Google Chromebook. It uses its own operating system that is set apart from Windows and Mac, and it gives me easy access to the internet, email, documents via Google Drive, calendar, and other applications. It is also very slim, so I am able to take it with me anywhere I go with ease.
Having a cell phone is another important form of communicative technology that I am grateful to own. In this day and age, a cell phone is commonly referred to as a smart phone; I see them as tiny laptops. From what I have heard and witnessed, one can have the world and new information in his or her pocket and close to anything I previously stated a laptop can accomplish. For the sake of this post, I will talk about the basic functions that have changed the world that a cell phone can do. I am pleased with the fact that I am able to stay in touch with family, friends, colleagues, and new contacts with a device that fits so easily in my pocket. I have also recently been able to send and receive picture messages as well. This is coming from a person that owns a flip phone that performs only the most basic functions: texting, calling, and picture messaging. A cell phone or smart phone can be a great device to keep in touch with people, but it could also be a distraction when in the workplace, in class, with family, etc. I feel excited when I get a new message or call on my phone, and sometimes that excitement and curiosity distracts me and keeps my mind racing in situations where I should be focused on my task at hand. It would probably be even worse if I had a smart phone with many more functions and applications to attempt to distract me.
Another important form of communicative technology is social media. I feel that social media has virtually taken over with how we communicate and keep in touch with other people. Facebook has taken the world by storm, along with Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. People share information, such as what they are doing at the moment via words or pictures, communicate with one or multiple people as they choose, make new connections, find out information about people, and more. I have found social media useful for finding out about when certain events are as well as keeping connections with contacts that can help me obtain opportunities in playing my instrument, that are long-distance family members to see how they are doing, that go to school with me so we are able to collaborate to achieve a common goal, and more. With that in mind, I feel social media can rob people of something I find so sacred: the human connection. I feel that social media has split the personalities of people from who they are on social media to who they are in person.
In regards to the young people in the video, I do agree that technology has become a convenience for society, especially since one is able to have it in his/her pocket whenever needed. One person said that with the absence of technology, she would not have most of the hobbies she has since they are internet-based. I agree with how rapidly the world is converting into a digital format since the world has become so dependent on the easy access to technology. But, I also agree with the girl that states she is a human, not a computer. I would hate to see our world become so reliant on technology that we lose the value of the human connection.
Lauren, our top three technologies are very similar. I chose my computer, my smartphone, and Twitter. First, you have made me very curious about the new Google ChromeBook! I had never heard about that until your post. I agree with you that all of this technology that we have access to can make our lives very easy. At the same time, these technologies can take us off course and distract us. As a master procrastinator, I believe that sometimes getting off track can be a good thing. If I'm doing research for a paper and I begin clicking on different links/articles I can find myself learning new things that I hadn't even intended to learn. Of course there are distractions, such as social media, that can be purely social without any educational outcome.
ReplyDeleteI also thought that your observation that social media can split our personalities between our online persona and our real-life persona was really interesting. Prior to reading your post I hadn't given this idea much thought, however I can now see exactly what you mean. Again, this "personality split" can have positive and negative impacts. On one hand, we may be pretending to be something that we aren't. However, someone's online persona could be a reflection of who they wish they could be in person but may feel too shy to truly express themselves. As some of the students in the video stated, they are able to convey their personalities online by developing web pages, choosing songs, pictures, and colors, etc.
Julie, thank you so much for your feedback! That's pretty sweet that we had around the same technologies, especially also coming from a master procrastinator. I was unable to comment on your blog post, so I will leave my feedback here.
DeleteI couldn't agree with you more about my dependence on the internet when Myspace came out. I was in middle school when that emerged, and it was our most popular medium of communication alongside AIM. We needed some way to communicate other than blogging on Xanga, so the new best thing was to make out pages pretty and post bulletins and make sure our top 8s were perfect. We had nothing better to do as middle school students! At this point in my life, I would say I was too shy to express myself as a person, so I did use that as an extension of myself. However, as the years have gone by, I started to notice how I was one person on social media and another as a human, so I made that observation based on my personal experience.
I also agree that putting pen to paper beats out typing onto a laptop any day. As a music major in music history class, constant note-taking really did help me remember my notes and dates. I remember the strokes of my pen over pressing the letters on my keyboard to take notes.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/devices/landing.html?utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bkws&utm_medium=ha This is a link to everything Chromebook. It's a qwerky computer, and I love it. I have the Samsung model and it does wonders for me.
It really resonated when you said, " I feel social media can rob people of something I find so sacred: the human connection." This is so true, like you were saying through technology we are expanding our connections and quantity of people we are able to experience on a day to day base. However I am scared how it is effecting the quality of our relationships and how much becoming so connected actually makes us so alone.
ReplyDeleteLauren-
ReplyDeleteI agree that the computer is such a critical and influential tool which can accomplish such an array of tasks...and agree even more so that it can also be a great distraction, seeing as we can virtually do just about anything other than what we should be focusing on. This seems to be the greatest problem facing our generation who are becoming so dependent on these technologies and conveniences; with so many things simultaneously dividing our attention (typing an essay while checking Facebook, as well as downloading a new album, tweeting, looking up the definition of a word and watching a Youtube video of the newest popular dance move) it seems to be difficult keeping our attention on one thing and one thing only. Hopefully we can achieve some moderation and responsibility in our technology use, which could help us in not feeling so scattered.