Can our generation live without the internet? In Computer Lib/ Dream Machine, Ted Nelson says “we live in media as fish live in water.” This statement is scary, true and sad. Our lives revolve around things like facebook, twitter. Without the internet we might truly act like fish out of water. A perfect example of this is, observing the Lawrence University campus when the internet is down. Times like these are quite chaotic. I am ashamed to say that I have a number of times referred to my laptop as my “roommate.” Personifying an inanimate object, could it get any worse? Lev Manovich portrays our situation quite accurately. We share our lives on these social media platforms and feel like we are in control and important because we can customize our pages and say what we want…but are we really in control? Douglas Engelbart wanted to use technology to increase the human intellect, but maybe...just maybe, it has made us lazier and highly dependent. Tim Berners-Lee may have seen the web as an “exciting future,” but I am quite scared!
I cannot even imagine how I would go through my day without the internet. Although an unfortunate image, a fish out of water would reflect my response to such a situation. I wonder how the world would function (if at all) in such a circumstance that we suddenly ceased to have access to the internet. Mass confusion would result as communication became muddled and internet records were permanently lost. The future we have, as you mentioned, looks much dimmer than as Berners-Lee predicted.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a really valid point about how students on campus act as though there is nothing to do or as if the world has come to halt every time the Lawrence University internet goes down. People are very concerned with the internet and, like you mentioned, I have experienced people personifying computers. I know a few people who have even made a Facebook profile for their computers, as if they were people. It really is scary! I am not quite this immersed, but I am guilty of responding negatively to the internet outages.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty important to be constantly aware of how media shapes our lives and imaginations. We can't forget how to carry on a conversation in the real world. Have been meeting many artists who have met on Facebook, which just became another tool to enable collaboration and connection.
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