In Closing

The end of January is approaching which means that our project is coming to an end pretty soon. So for this post, we wanted to bring together some of the ideas that we have brought up in the past month. I believe that most of our work can be summed up into what different people place importance on. In terms of defining our connections with other people, things need to change to incorporate digital means of connecting with other people. Along with the telephone, the internet has extended our reach in connecting with others. While maintaining this idea, I feel that we should not take for granted the conversations we do have with others, whether in person or online. In some ways, I have found myself agreeing about how the use of telephones has degraded to quick questions and check-ups. Personally, I have thought about how I use technology to communicate, and I believe that my telephone conversations rarely have much substance.

Technology has evolved so rapidly that it is often overwhelming when put in perspective. The number of people with computers at home has exploded since the 80’s. It is amazing to see where technology has brought us. But there is also danger in that people can exploit the advantages technology lends us. Advertising on the internet is the main source of income for any website. As technology has evolved to a necessity of life, media and advertising has also become unavoidable. Movies, books, news, games, TV shows are always on hand now. Can we control ourselves from overloading our brains with all this content? Also, with the birth of HDTV and technology constantly placing us one step closer to realism, will we be able to separate ourselves from the fantasy worlds on the screen? There are examples for both sides. The majority of people are on the side that uses technology with moderation. The few deaths caused by technology, which JD pointed out in his last post, are simply insane. The key for anything is moderation. While things like this do happen, people have a firm grasp on reality and understand that the media is created.

For Wednesday, we are going to perform a little experiment. Basically, we are going to (try) and go a day without contact with media. I guess it is similar when one goes camping to get away from everything, but as part of a generation so closely attached to media (having television and computers growing up) it will be interesting to see if we can avoid subjecting ourselves to media and technology for a day. Basically, this means that we are not going to watch television, use computers, cell phones, or read the newspaper. We will be recording our activities over the course of the day. We decided that books will be allowed. We expect frustration entering this experiment and already find ourselves preparing for the impending experiment. Basically, we feel like we must get most of our emails done illustrating how much we rely on technology. While this may seem like cheating, I think the feeling of not being able to check email freely will be a major annoyance. So is there such a thing as “internet addiction” or “technology highs” (getting a good feeling when finding new content on the web)? Well, we are going to take it a step further so stay tuned for the results.