The adage that an object is neutral and the morality is placed upon it by outside forces is one that has been reinforced by our secular, humanistic culture. In a recent blog, I battled to keep this mantra intact. In week 2, I am proven wrong. In the manner modern society and culture clings to technology to cure our ills, especially security, we have been programmed (if I may use that word as I shape this discussion in a negative framework) to accept with findng the good in technology. It is only after the negative effects can we start to display our reason, thus negating mainstream culture and alienating ourselves. This is the real danger in accepting the linguistic brainwashing of the good of computers and the internet. We become addicted first, then we must not only realize the problem, but separate ourselves from the only world we know how to communicate and interact in.

There is no neutral language when it comes to modern technology. It is the best, the fastest, the easiest, the most critical in making our lives successful.  The die is cast and we are left with trying to keep up. The real metaphors we should attach to the ever growing need for technology with reason is "running out of breath" and "losing control". The metaphor I gained after the videos is that we are losing our self identity as technology's "mind control" becomes ubiquitous.

The videos displayed these metaphors, both the positive and negative ones. The first two promotional videos are void of true life. Set in a future of ammonia smelling cleanliness, the people act more like robots that are expecting to arrive, expecting to think this way, and expecting to act according to the rules the devices suggest. What was easier before, like calling home, making a cake, and checking into a hotel room, becomes void of human emotion. This lack of emotion is the most disconcerting part, other than the idea that technology will drain and void emotion in the unpredictable human.

And there is the rub in the following videos. The problem with data driven technology world is that it wants to rid the world of emotion. The true freedom of the human is the way they emotionally connect with nature, people, and objects. Computers can not calculate for the spectrum of the human emotion palette, so any world that is depended on technology with have to cease being emotionally different. Technology is cold and though it may make better cars and increase security with its algorithms, it will continue to be less than the human until we are under its total control, similar to the Sight video.

So where does that lead us? It leads us with a bad taste in our mouth as we give up our freedoms for technology addiction. We become less emotional as we see things in numbers, whether they been points in a game or on a personality test. If we use the deductive power of the computer over our own instincts and emotions, we lose what makes us human. We realize the great fear of becoming robots and robots is just what a technology world desires.

The more we give up to technology, the less human we become. For two last metaphors to construct based on my growing skepticism of technology's usefulness in education (the most human of interactions in creating humanity and its society), I use Star Wars Obi Won Kenobi's lines: "He was seduced by the dark side of the force"  and "He is more machine than man". The real question for educators is: Are we creating Darth Vaders who will be incapable of feeling?      

ChelseaWa

Is the use of technology leading us to a utopia or distopia? 

The course is filled with 40,000 students. A MOOC stands for a Massive Online Open Course and I wanted to see what e-learning is and whether it has merits. The course has been sound with excellent links involving original, creative, functional and challenging material. That just means everything works (all links and videos) and it has been engaging. There is a bit of guilt that my actions will end another occupational market by stealing information from professors and university for free, but it does beat Drexel University's $3000 for an online course focusing on the same topic.

And what is the topic? Technological Determinism

Has technology been good for society?

Has technology been good for the individual?

Is technology our only future?

How we deal with technology in our lives shapes us as individuals, but also becomes a keen marker on how others judge us. Not only that, as parents and leaders in our community, our promotion or rejection of technology use or advancement has a powerful impact on our children, especially in our homes and schools. Technology is ubiquitous. We can not run and we can not deny its attractiveness in the economy and popular culture. We must look at this dragon and wonder if we can live with him. 

These questions are not new. In the films of the course, we see how technology has fascinated our species from the beginning. We treat technology as a god and yet we are ready to dispel him the minute something new can hold our attention longer. We also have valued our own ingenuity to create technological advancements over nature; almost creating an inner struggle resulting in self loathing and guilt. Nature often takes the pain and damage of our universal attraction to technology as it improves our lives through leisure and entertainment. 

Technological Determinism is the idea that technology itself moves society and culture. It is the most important and sole reason we advance and with each new technology, we become more enslaved to its power. This is both an easy and hard philosophical argument to defend and support. We invent things we think we need and from the first hammer, it has allowed our species to live a quality of life unlike any other animal. On the other hand, we walk down the street and see the majority of the people handcuffed to phones and wired from ear to ear.    

The Chandler essay makes an important point when he says that we can not lump all technology into the word. It has come to represent everything from the first sharpened knife to television. We need to break technology into pieces and judge the parts. When we over generalize, we are caught in the mud of ambiguity. But to go so far as to say that technology is amoral is incorrect. The elements of technology must be judged by reason and impact, including ecological, social, political, and educational. When we just devour technology without thinking, we may do harm we never intended in changing the fabric of our world.

Technology is power. It has the power to help us communicate and express democratic ideals to enhance our way of life and freedom to the world. It also has the power to enact fear, chaos and totalitarianism with the ease not yet comprehended in history. This much power does not make it omnipotent, but it is time to consider its significance and if we should limit its function and impact on our daily lives and the lives of our children and community.

We must comprehend what we gain and lose with each new invention and whether that net gain or loss makes us less self-reliant and independent. We must understand the implications of technology on our neighbors and whether the world will be a more peaceful and nurturing environment with its use. We must also stretch our imagination to see the true ramifications beyond the immediate pleasure. If we consider these ideas in our relationship with technology, much like human's relationship with nature, then we can make positive decisions with technology. We can stop trying to catch up to technology and start taming it.

Most importantly, we must teach this cautious approach to future generations as they deal with technology and maturation. 

bfishadow

The e-reader was introduced in 2007 to my utter disgust. Soon after, my technophile friend was showing it off. He was an avid reader with a Master of English degree and a teacher, but he was also a technological enthusiast interested in experiencing the latest gadget. I didn’t mind since his thesis was in postmodernism and I thought as a matter of course, he had to change mediums as a justification of warping his brain with Phillip K. Dick novels.

He carried it into the office where the unwelcomed computers were jutted off to the side as a uniform protest against change to the cloisters of the English department. Here was a sanctuary of books. Here was where men and women discussed novels as if the characters and author sat at the head of Algonquin table. Computers were for grades and fancy power points the leaders demanded were the future of literacy education. And all of sudden, there it was, the flat silver rectangle the size of a Insight magazine, sitting there staring at us, with no other work on its face but Melville’s Moby Dick.

It was a white whale to be rejected in unison and tossed back into the ocean. We looked at it like a new child. No one wanted to touch something that new, that heavy in meaning, as it became Hemingway’s elephant clouds. We didn’t talk about the clear screen or the idea of carrying a library in your bag. We talked about our passion for paper, the smell of literature, the spills of soda, whisky, and taco sauce in our stash of books at home. We cut our fingers, as good Tom Sawyer would have it, and swore never to betray the book, the reason for our existence and elevation of mankind. Laughing Judas took up his Kindle and read in blasphemous manner all through lunch.

Then it happened. The infidels, I once counted as colleagues, through gifts at birthdays and Christmas, one even at Valentine’s Day (damn Cupid), carried the e- readers into the office, each one with a black cloak of the Inquisition. First shameful of their iniquity, then ostentatious in their disrespect for Guttenberg’s principle. They fell like columns of the Acropolis for the technology as the books for trading, sharing, and discussing disappeared. Books died a slow death, each summer disappearing more and more until I was alone in my defiance. One man and his book, alone, tattered, and abandoned in a mocked Quixotic quest.

Libraries have turned into computer cafes with the books jutted to the side like art at the museum. Coffee shops are void of any pages other than the free car magazines or a newspaper forgotten  by an octogenarian. The English office is a train station of light and sound, none of our own making. The Borders has closed, as have the small independent book shop on my daily walk. I looked for Babbitt this week and I could not find a copy. It will take me five days by standard shipping. The Art of Fielding is reserved for two more weeks. I am left stretching Harold Bloom out for three more days trying to convince me How to Read and Why.

 I have stayed steadfast and determined only to be broken. I am the last of the readers of page and ink and soon the final sacrifice to the Orwellian Kindle gods.

Brian Omura

Just in the past two weeks, we have had videos of a cop losing his job for hitting a woman, a law suit for a cop using a baton, and a wedding melee broadcasted around the globe. The above story is about a high school couple who were videotaped having sex on a trip in Spain. A whole generation is growing up thinking that it is fine to pull out their phones and videotape whenever something goes wrong or might be controversial. Whether they broadcast it on the internet, sell it to the media outlets, or show it to their friends, they are misusing and misrepresenting a person’s private property: their image. Why is this not against the law? The technology of instant video recorders is relatively new, but the damage to unsuspecting victims in reputation and occupation is too powerful to ignore.

In the United States, video voyeurism is against the law in nine states. We are not able to use another person’s voice but his or her image seems to be public domain. Technology has allowed us to blur the line of privacy in so many ways, but now we, as a society, seem to have a right to record anything. Should we make it criminally illegal to video record someone without their permission?

We are beyond educating people on their behavior when it comes to stealing images. We have grown up in a culture of sharing information on the internet. What is most disturbing is the amount of hits or views an accident, violence, or sex obtains when placed on You Tube. We have become a society of voyeurs looking for our next trending fix. We have disassociated with the victims and perpetrators and moved right into passive watching, then judging, with cruel impact. We have buried the shame of evading one’s privacy, while judging a situation with little impetus to find facts or seek understanding. Modern Voyeurism has gone past the videographer into the general internet using population.

Because of this pervasive, universal action, the federal government needs to make recording others a crime if the person uploads the video of an unsuspecting person without their permission and it leads to negative effects. Whether it was the recorder’s intention or not to embarrass or destroy another person, the power of the new law will make him or her think about consequences.

Things are not free on the internet or in public. We have learned to pay for music, videos, and games. We have learned to pay for television. We learn in this society that stealing is wrong. It is wrong to record another’s voice without permission and it should be wrong to steal someone’s image. It will be a long time before a person’s instinct to video everything will change, because many have grown up doing just that. But if we are to be just and fair society, we need to use technology prudently. If that means making people accountable for their videos they create, then legal restraint must be taken for the good of us all.