01st Nov2012

Connection

by emilywarheit

Overall these articles gave me a rather unpleasant feeling. In particular the Ito, et al article and its analysis of the “mobile kit.” I’m not sure how much of the tone of the article is related to the discipline it comes out of but the subjects seemed very dehumanized. To what extent is that view of people as objects an extension of objects as parts of people (cyborgs)? Are people becoming extensions of their online identities?

In all of these articles, I am struck by the seeming contradictions of the ways mobile technology affects our lives. It seems we are simultaneously more and less connected. In the chapter by Sherry Turkle, young people leave their parents behind technologically on one hand, but on the other they are competing for attention from their parents against phones, computers, and other devices. We are at once more efficient and more overwhelmed by all there is to do. How do we go about understanding these seeming contradictions, and where do they come from in terms of the possibilities of technology and our relationship to it?

We tend to talk about what technology does to us, our relationships, ways of communication, etc. However, as much as our phones become “smart” and able to do more and more things, they are still tools designed to achieve a goal. Is it possible to interpret the ways in which we have developed and used mobile technology as driven by the ways humans really want to connect and communicate? To what extent are the effects of new ways of doing things shaping the way we do them (and ultimately the ways we want to do them), and to what extent are they actually reflecting a cultural shift that happens independent of the means?

Cyborg – an entity consisting of a human augmented with machinery, in this case with mobile networking capability.

Life mix – the amalgam of places and spaces in which we exist and interact, both “in real life” and virtually.

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