In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause” -Samuel Johnson

McLuhan, Postman urges us to ask three fundamental questions about any technology. I will attempt to answer these three questions about the digital age. 

1.What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?

As Struken notes that the desires (and concern) about new technologies are based on the “the belief that a new technology can solve existing social problems.” In relation to the digital world, the problem is impatience. Everyone wants immediate access to knowledge, people, videos, and to everything that exists on the global village. Whereby there was a time we would go to find information in libraries, people want to reach out their phone and Google the answers to the questions they have. Whereby we would wait till we were physically present with a person to communicate, people want to be able to talk, text, see another person whenever they want to. While I used to patiently wait for my favorite music video to play on TV or even my favorite song on the radio now I want to just YouTube it or play it on my iPod when I want to for as long as I want to. Perhaps this is less about impatience as it is the need to control our environments. Rather than leaving it up to the library operation times, or the DJ on the radio to control when we can attain what we want, we want to control what happens and when it happens.

 2. Whose problem is it, actually?

The problem is anyone who holds onto the feeling of her or his song being played on radio or the feeling of finally seeing someone you have not seen in years. That is to say, it is the problem of those that hold onto the old way of being. As Strucken concludes “cultural responses to new technologies are thus shaped by both a sense of lack and loss and a hopeful investment in the possibility of resolving that lack and loss in the future.” The saying, “ what you don’t know can’t hurt you” rings true. Anyone who has attained a digital attitude and has no recollection of receiving a hand written letter does not complain of the idea of email. The argument against technology affecting education does not hold true when education seems to be evolving with technology. Teachers are using ipads to teach, students are using laptops to take notes etc. However, like I mentioned in my last post about the fast rate at which a new generation is born, one wonders how much education, advertising, entertainment etc. can keep up with the evolving ages. Much like teenage pregnancy that keeps getting younger and younger, I would predict that the digital age will give birth to a new age much faster than the electronic age gave birth to it.

3. If there is a legitimate problem here 'to be solved, what other problems will be created by my using this technology?

The instant availability of knowledge, people and entertainment does not allow us to fully utilize our creative, intellectual and emotional banks. Rather than figuring out how to solve something I Google it, rather than missing someone I Skype them, rather than take a great photo I use Photoshop to edit the photo. Impatience has and will continue to foster a lazy culture. We are no longer go-getters because everything comes to us. It is frightening how many people will send emails/texts to people in the same room because they are lazy to get up and talk to them. Which leads to impersonal communication. Whilst there is a belief that we are more connected, I cant count how many times I meet people who I have great conversations, debates or jokes with on social networks and yet in person we don’t have more than two words to say to each other.

I will admit that I am anxious and weirdly curious about the baby that the digital age is pregnant with and what it will add to this organized mess we live in.  

 

Making new media make sense

 Like with anything, the evolution of technology has presented numerous   opportunities as well as obstacles. I found myself thinking “that is me!” at several points of this chapter. As a person who is on every social network possible, I find myself at the mercy of new media. Several times I have left several of the networks, but in doing so I find my professional, friendship and family communications greatly affected. I get my bookings for show on Facebook, communicate with friends via twitter and communicate with my boss and mother on whatsapp(a new social network available on smart phones, similar to BBM.) Therefore, I consider myself to be a prime example of many of the examples of how technology has changed us. Crockroft mentions how twitter is affecting our attention span, “your attention span is being reduced and you’re not engaging your brain.” I can’t help but agree. Prior to twitter people would update long ended Facebook statuses and I would read them, yet now I find myself scrolling over anything that is longer than two sentences.  One wonders about the pressure on advertising agencies to adapt to this increasing impatience that is brewing amongst society. Restraining people to 160 characters has increased the amount of short hand used by people. Not only have people become lazy to read but lazy to write. Even on other social networks that have no word limits, people will always opt for short hand.

However, one cannot ignore that the evolution of technology is only a problem if we are not evolving with it. Technology serves the age that it is birthed from. By that I mean, as much as technology shapes us we shape it. Had Facebook statuses and the need to share where we are, what we are doing at every single moment not been so popular, twitter would have never been successful.  To resist the evolution of technology is like to drink poison and expect another person to die. Because new technology governs so much of our daily lives it is in our advantage to understand new technology and how to use it to our benefit. In reading this chapter it reminded me of the clip I have attached below.

One last thought though, perhaps the problem lies in how fast technology is evolving rather than the fact that it is evolving. Through the introduction of new technology constantly, generation gaps are becoming larger and larger. I have more in common with a 35 year old than I do with a 16 year old.  Simply because there are more different generations between my younger cousin and me than with my older cousin and I. For the most part my older cousin and I grew up with the same kind of technology. There are plenty references in her life that I can understand. Yet the same is not true with my younger cousin and my childhood.  This is perhaps the biggest problem I see. With so many generations co-existing could this lead to idiosyncrasies between the youth and the elderly?

Enjoy the clip. I cannot decide if I was amazed or dismayed by what we have become.