Snow Crash

Snow Crash has been a really interesting book, unlike any other that I have ever read before. Hiro is the main character in the story and he spends most of his time in the metaverse. The metaverse is an online virtual reality community. Within this reality community you create an avatar which is an audiovisual body that you use to communicate within the metaverse. This book is supposed to predict the future of 2010 for our society and in some senses these ideas seem absurd but in other instances I wonder if we've already created a metaverse. With our instant messaging screen names you get to decide who you are, what your name is, and how you want to act when speaking to others. You can pretend to be anyone you desire and make others believe you are someone who you completely are not when not sitting in front of a computer. I guess in a way this is already a scary thought, even though it has not gone nearly as far as snow crash assumes it will.

Dehumanizing Technology?

After all of this thinking about technology and how it has already started to "dehumanize" our society, I have wondered if maybe I could defend the other side of the situation. Maybe all of this technology is helping us, not hurting us. When I think about cell phones I do agree that they have made us quite rude. But only rude when you answer it at the wrong time, like for instance at a restaurant with someone else. On the otherhand, I feel that my cell phone has made me closer with many people in my life. I am a very family oriented girl and I could not imagine coming away to college without my cell phone to keep in contact with my family. I talk to my parents at least once a day, my sisters a few times a week, and both sets of my grandparents at least once a week. Now in my mind those are all forms of wonderful communication that I cannot imagine living without. When I am home I of course prefer seeing all of these important people face to face and spending quality time with them, but when I am away my cell phone keeps me in touch with the people I love.

As for instant messaging, I talk to my dad and my sister every day between my classes. I usually won't speak to my dad on the phone because he is very busy at work, but instant messaging allows us to send notes back and forth to one another and gives me time every day to at least say, "I love you!" and, "Have a good day." If it weren't for instant messaging I would feel a lot more distant from my family.

With facebook and myspace I do not feel like I am losing "human touch" with people but instead that I am gaining a new way to stay in touch with people. I am constantly posting on my friends walls and I love looking at their pictures and feeling like I am some way involved in their lives while I am away at college. I love being able to hear about my friends' "college friends" and being able to stay in touch with my friends. I find that these technologies have made our friendships more personal and have made my access to others much easier.

In these few ways, I have to take technology's side and say, "Thank you" for making my life easier and for bringing wonderful forms of communication into our world!

Smart Mobs

I felt the points made by Fortunate in chapter 8 were very interesting. He speaks to the problem of degeneration of civility in human communication and asks, "How is it that artificial communication can have the better over natural communication?" He speaks about technology and how we are replacing humans with devices. We have become products of multi tasking and will so rudely answer our phones while a person face to face with us is in mid sentence basically saying, "The person at the other end of this cell phone holds more importance than you do." We are becoming incredibly rude and this trend is becoming more of a lifestyle than anything. I feel that our government is trying to take a hold on our newly rude tendencies by trying to make talking on your cell phone or listening to your ipod while crossing the street illegal. But then you have to ask yourself where the boundaries will end? If we made every distraction illegal then everyone would be given tickets everyday. I feel that people don't know how to handle these advances in technology so they are trying to make laws in order to get a grip on them but I am not sure that this will help either. If we are going to say that you can't talk on your cell phone while crossing the street then we might as well say that you can't walk a dog or push a stroller across the street because you will be paying more attention to that then you will the cars coming toward you. It's the same question I ask myself about not being able to talk on your cell phone in the car. Then we need to start pulling over women putting on lipstick and pulling over people who are eating their breakfast on the way to work. Where will the line be drawn?

Rheingold

In chapter one, I found the information about the "thumb tribes" very interesting. The teens in Tokyo are using text messaging as a form of rebellion and independence. Being that the majority of their parents are very involved in their lives, text messaging has given them more freedom and privacy then ever before. So in one aspect this is a positive result of text messaging as I feel it extremely important for teens to feel as though they have some sort of independent privacy. But in another aspect this texting may turn children away from oral communication and they may lack social skills as they get older. Their thumbs may end up strong and quick but intellectually this could cause many problems. These teens need to not only rely on texting as a form of communication and must continue speaking to people face to face as well.

What will come of everyone's reliance on cell phones in the future? For one I think that cell phones add extra stress to everybody's lives as people feel "naked" if they don't have their cell phone in their pocket or in a purse with them. In the future, this may cause a rise in anxiety in people all over the world. Constantly talking, texting, and being in contact with people decreases alone time and privacy which will eventually cause you to be completely stressed out. For example, when I am at the gym I see people talking and texting on their cell phones while they are on a machine. Exercising is supposed to relieve stress and help you clear your mind but our constant use of cell phones has started to ruin this as well. Although these means of communication have become conveniant, I feel that they have inevitable harmful effects that we will begin noticing in the near future.