A Former WoW Addicts View of Community

When I read "Online Community" in the title I first thought of online gaming. Not being a huge follower of any specific music group, I am how ever familiar with the online gaming community.My game of choice was World of Warcraft. I played other video games before, but this game was different. Like other games, World of Warcraft incorporates good graphics and a story line along with a remarkable amount of play time. What sat World of Warcraft  apart from other games was the community and followers involved with the game. 

At the time when I first started playing World of Warcraft the game was pushing 14 million subscribers. That's a huge fan base. Among all those millions of people, I managed to form friendships with a few. These friendship's were not real friendship's in the sense that we did things together outside the realm of the game. Inside the game we were friends and like any good friendship there was a sense of loyalty. My group of friends knew what to expect from each other inside the game even though their real life may leave more to be desired. 

Comparing the online music community and the online gaming community I would say they are very similar. Both communities brought people together who share a common interest. I would imagine a lot of these people would never associate with one another outside the area of interest. This to me is the magic and downfall of the online community. The power of the online community allows for people living in remote areas of the world and people who chose to live a remote life to engage with other human beings. This engagement, although artificial, may be the only contact some of these people have with other humans. Having human contact is good. Not having face to face human contact is bad. I know first hand how detrimental online gaming can be to real life. 

For about two years, my life was work, come home and play, eat, sleep, and start all over again the next day. Some days I would find my self late to work, not a good thing. Long nights playing a video game led to a lack of sleep and poor work performance. I was able to see the negative aspect of my actions and developed some control. I survived and made it through, but this was not the case for everyone I knew. The game of World of Warcraft is a community. Like any community talk gets around. People share things with others like they would share in person. News about birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, births of new children, all are shared openly. I even heard about at least two divorces and one relationship break up. This connection to real  life and the escape from real life is what makes an online community special. 

What was not mentioned in the article by Nancy Baym is the fact that people are different while online compared to real life. An online community offers people the opportunity to be someone that they are not. People can hide anonymously behind some kind of online profile hiding their true self. This opens the door for deceit and victimization of the weak and naive. Following the in game chat I was able to notice that people will fall for just about anything. Some people build so much trust with people playing the game that they forget how to figure things out for themselves.  

Nancy Baym describes the positive side towards online communities, but the dark side of online communities can not be forgotten. This is the internet we are speaking about after all. Like real life there are good and there are bad. I believe that online communities are great. They bring together a diversified group of people under one common theme. The internet was made to transfer knowledge and online communities does just that. 

The Culture Question

This article, and other things I've been reading and doing for classes, have really made me question what culture is. One part of the article was titled "Creative Destruction in the Cultural Industries." I felt really resentful toward that heading and the section it encompassed, even if it wasn't directly contrary to my views. According to the Internet God know as Google, culture is defined as "the arts and other manifestation of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively."

I feel like most people have a very narrow minded view of what culture is. I got pretty close to a good definition when, a few years ago, I was in a fine arts class and we started talking about, at some specific instance of time, high culture and low culture. This acknowledged that even the "lowly" things still had to be defined as culture. Most of the time, I think we refuse to acknowledge the low culture things as culture.

Some people lament that the internet and/or technology is causing us to lose our culture. Our culture is always whatever current "art AND OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF HUMAN INTELLECTUAL ACHIEVEMENT" we experience and contribute to. So, haters, how then is the internet itself not culture. Not only is it culture, it allows us to experience different parts of culture.

What I did enjoy about this part of the article was that it didn't refuse to acknowledge the changes caused by the internet as destructive toward culture. Instead, the section shows how culture has rippled in the wake of the internet.

What does it mean to be cultured? You use to hear, back some time ago, about how so-and-so was so cultured. But if culture exists in every facet of our lives, how can we ever escape being cultured? Everything we do has something to do with some part of our culture. I think what those meddling mothers referred to is what I mentioned earlier. They were acknowledging someone's well versed-ness in high culture. The problem of high culture and low culture arises out of, I think, the class system. Plays were once considered low culture. Ballet was once considered low culture.

Through the course of human history, as observed though the texts we read, we can see that there is a constant pull to look back and think of the good old age. That golden age is never the one we're living in and almost always the one we left. Even one of our oldest English texts, Beowulf, follows this model. Currently, Donald Trump is running his campaign under the idea of wanting to "Make America Great Again." And lots of people agree with him that America is not as great as it used to be. Through the course of history, we have always unsettled by change.

Culture follows that model. The reason that plays and ballets were considered as low class was because they were new to the scene. The new was to be disdained. As the new slowly reverts inevitably toward the old, other forms of culture erupt and take the spotlight. We then cling to the old, referring to it as high class and battle against the new new.

One of the "problems" I see arising  in this time is a lot of change across a short space of time. This is a very rapid cultural shift the likes of which nobody has experienced before. The rising generation, instead of looking back, is looking forward, embracing changes. In class a few weeks ago, we mentioned how the biggest change in the recent decades is our reaction to change itself.

Just because a cultural shift is occurring doesn't make it evil. However, thousands of years of training have forced us into that thinking.

I read an article recently about some new thing they have that will radically improve the internet and get rid of servers. It's something call IPMS or such. I'm can't remember. These smart guys were talking about how more people need to embrace this technology to better improve the internet. I started thinking, isn't the future predicted to be an internet of apps? How will this tech be good in the long run if we abandon web pages altogether?

My favorite part of this article was early on when the thought was posed. "Technology change, inflected by economic incentives and regulatory constraint, guarantees that today's Internet will be as remote by 2025 as the Internet of 2000 seems today." I'm not sure when this article was published, but I do know that we need to better embrace and accept our new culture or we're all going to be really depressed as change keeps smacking us in the years to come.

Change or Not to Change, That is the Question

When reading the article from Paul DiMaggio I was wondering, what am I going to write about. The line where he states that, "Technologies don't change us", I thought was very true. Change is a choice that people either make on their own or are forced to undertake. Life dose not evolve from technology, other than the technology of biology itself. We are not born, at least supposed to be born, with a smartphone attached at the hip. Culture is a fundamental sign of an intelligent and evolved species. Humans create what is pleasing to the eyes, ears, and the overall self. So far, technology has not been able to recreate the true artistic nature of humanity. Technology, including the internet is a creation born from humanity. The internet is humanity made digital.

To a point, I will disagree with DiMaggio and say that just about everything we can do in real life can be reproduced via the internet. It is true that seeing a movie on the big screen is a unique experience, one that is hard to reproduce elsewhere, but that may soon change. Faster internet and 4k televisions sure make a good competitor to a traditional movie house. I can now watch my movies on demand and even watch concerts from my home. Virtual reality is the next big thing for entertainment. I believe that Virtual reality may pose a threat to live and in person events. With virtual reality there may be no distinction from a computer rendered experience and the actual experience.

I like to think of technology and the internet as the expansion of the human imagination. With or without technology, humanity will always create. Sometimes the things humans create are good and wholesome and other times what we create is destructive and evil. Either way humans will still keep on creating.

Will technology be the end to our current and past culture, I don't think so. Technology expands our current thinking. We are still a curious people even with all our technology. As we expand into other areas of thought and ways to express old ideas we will still be curious about the old ways. I would like to see our future like that seen in the Star Trek universe. While zipping around the galaxy and shooting down alien star ships, the captains and crew have always enjoyed reading from a good book and partaking of a live concert on board their ships.

Technology may help flourish our culture even more. Technology has freed us from many simple and mundane tasks and automated other complex tasks. Technology has given us a chance to experience a significant amount of down time. For the first time in human history we do not have to worry where we get the necessities of life, everything is a point and click away. Even our food production can be automated through technology. The modern human has gained so much free time, even when they think they have none they still have plenty, it seems now that a new cultural event has been created. Free time, what we do in our free time paints a nice picture of what our culture is like. We need to compare what life was like 25, 50, 100 years ago to today. This difference I am sure would be shocking. (So, maybe technology does change us.)

Say no to Theory. Say yes to Layman.

First off, lets be honest, I hated this article. I hate reading theoretical articles. All I really read is "blah, blah, blah, let's use big words to sound smart, blah, I totally know what I'm talking about, blah". I started reading this article like a week ago. I feel like theorists are too far left field. Theorists are Communist. They try to sound and seem like they're in control. Now with that aside, I'll try to write a post on her paper.

Dean’s main focus in the article is that ICTs, our globally networked communication structures, aren’t exactly helping in bringing radical change to neo-liberal capitalism.  Actually, they’re hindering. “The proliferation, distribution, acceleration, and intensification of communicative access and opportunity,” Dean writes, “far from enhancing democratic governance or resistance, results in precisely the opposite, the post political formation of communicative capitalism” (53).

We can point to plenty of examples where ICTs were key in mobilizing large amounts of people, several in a remarkably short amount of time.  Just look to recent movements, organized in large part through Twitter, like #Shoutyourabortion. While we shouldn't downplay or just shy away from understanding these occurrences, we also shouldn't lump them into a big pile and validate them.

Dean’s argument is structured around the debunking of fantasies/fallacies, two of which I’ll outline.

The Fantasy of Abundance
Lots and lots of stuff (opinions,stats, etc.) on the net equals Democratic potential. Phrased differently, what’s important is not that messages are being understood and responded to, as much as the fact that they contribute to the constantly enlarging steam of content.  For Dean, messages lose their specificity in communicative capitalism; stripped of their singularity, they simply become part of a massive data flow.

The Fantasy of Participation
A key point here is that the Net displaces political activity.  Struggles of everyday life are moved to a virtual sphere. Because we feel like posting a blog (like this one) is participation, political energy is redirected, or perhaps distracted, away from “real” organizing.  We feel like we’re participating, but it’s a protected space, containable, predictable, etc.

So I guess I did understand her, but I didn't enjoy a bit of it. Going back to my Twitter example #Shoutyourabortion, it's really just a fantasy of participation. How many of those women would actually speak publicly about how they're proud of their abortion. I would fancy that most of them wouldn't. But within the sphere of the Net, it's a protected space and containable. And let's be honest, how many of their comments were actually seen by others? It was more of the mass quantity of responses that were seen. Not their individual responses. The fantasy of abundance and participation. Why couldn't she say this is Layman Term's? Like I just did. Theorists need a lesson on Layman Terms but they won't. They get attention by not speaking in simplistic terms. BLAH!

Narrative for the Naive

I could respond to Dean's article with one sentence: The government will do what ever it wants, regardless of the means we use to try to communicate with it. However, this blog post has to be approximately 700 words, not one sentence.

I had a lot of issue with the article. Dean mentioned that "The proliferation, distribution, acceleration and intensification of communicative access and opportunity far from enhancing democratic governance or resistance, results in precisely the opposite - the post-political formation of communicative capitalism" (53). Years and years ago in a psychology class, my teacher showed us a graph. On one side of the graph was the amount of ice cream eaten. The other side represented the number of murders. The graph showed a positive correlation. The more ice cream we eat, the more murders are committed. The point of the exercise is to show us that just because two phenomena were demonstrated together didn't mean that they had any direct relation to each other. That's what this whole article felt like to me. Just because two items are represented together doesn't mean they should be. In the above quote, Dean places two items next to each other - "communicative access and opportunity" and "communicative capitalism" - and declares one the result of the other. While the two ideas coexist rather well, it feels a little off to me. Just because they have a positive correlation, does it really mean they are related?

Now, I'm going to pick apart his thesis: "First, I take up the fantasy of abundance and discuss the ways this fantasy results in a shift in the basic unity of communication from the message to the contribution" (54). The government does what it wants to do. In government offices, there are researchers. One of the jobs of these researchers is to look at the contribution to messages that are put out by the public. So, while the government might choose to do whatever they want based on their "superior intelligence" and better access to secret information, the size of certain messages put out by the public don't just become another bit of white noise. From what I can tell, Dean targets electronic forms of communication as being unable and the cause of the problem. However, earlier in the article Dean tells about a demonstration of 250,000 people OUTSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE against the Iraq war. How is the government supposed to pretend to not know about that, even if it didn't make it into mainstream news? They knew that people weren't in support of the war, not just the people in cyberspace. They did what they thought was best regardless.

Surprisingly, I do actually agree with Dean on the second part of her thesis: "Second, I address the fantasy of activity or participation. I argue that this fantasy is materialized through technology fetishism" (54), but only to a certain degree. I do believe that there are people who see the internet as a way to be heard. It's very easy for them to get their voices out there. However, it is only the naive who cling to that hope for very long. Because of all the white noise on the internet, it's very hard to become a recognized voice. I, as an unrecognized voice, know this fact. I've been blogging for years, mostly story stuff, and have had very few people jump on the Melanie bandwagon. Those who did outside of friends and family probably fell off a few years ago. Despite the work and ranting I put into this post, probably less than 10 people will ever read it.

The final part of Dean's thesis states: "Finally, I consider the fantasy of wholeness that relies on and produces a global both imaginary and Real. I argue that this fantasy prevents the emergence of a clear division between friend and enemy, resulting instead in the more dangerous and profound figuring of the other as a threat to be destroyed. My goal in providing this account of communicative capitalism is to explain why in an age celebrated for its communications there is no response" (54). I'm going to examine the first part of this closing argument. It goes back to what I was saying in the previous paragraph about naivety. There is a reason there is such a distrust of politics these days growing in the US (and across the globe?). We've recognized what Dean declares when she says "In the United States today...there is a significant disconnect between politics circulating as content and official politics" (53). We don't believe anymore that the "voice of the people" is being accepted by official politics no matter how much we rant online.

KISS the CSS

Keeping things simple and neat, that is what I like. There are two ways of using CSS in your web page. One way, I would call the messy way, is to use internal CSS in your page. This will work and as mentioned in the book, not widely used. A better way is to use an external style sheet for CSS.

I can only imagine what a web site from a large organization, take ESPN for example, would look like if they only used the internal method for styling their web pages. The end user may never notice, that is true, but I sure would not want to be the new hire that has to rework that web page, ouch. Keeping the CSS separate allows for easy style editing and portability between different web page projects. The good old cut, copy, and paste has become the best tool for working with CSS.

After reading these last few chapters I can now begin to see where web pages start to become interesting. Boarders, margins, padding, and CSS. Now my web page will not be so plain. Simple html that we have learned will only get you so far. If I am creating something that it's sole purpose is to be seen, then I need to use and learn the tools and techniques to make my creation the best it can be. Also using these methods of creating a web page will prove that you do know something and not just how to point and click your way through a web design program.

I am all about keeping things simple, yes, but also I like to prove that I have some sort of skills too. Understanding these last few chapters will help to build those skills. I would like to be one of the "many authors..."as the author, Jon Dukett describes.

Damned if you do...Damned if you don't.

“On the other hand are institutional politics, the day-to-day activities of bureaucracies, lawmakers, judges and the apparatuses of the police and national security states. These components of the political system seem to run independently of the politics that circulates as

content” (65).

This quote says everything I have been saying about politics for the last five years. We can squawk all we want, but what the authorities say goes, regardless of what the public thinks. The invasion of Iraq is a perfect example of how politicians ignore what the people say, and instead vote for what they want, or what will make them the most money over time. The administration will do as it sees fit and ignore what everyone else thinks simply because it can, however, they can only do what they want because we as a people have allowed it.

If I flip through the news channels, I find that they are all telling the same story, but it is slightly different depending on what network I am watching. That is a problem for me; the conflicting information makes it hard to make my own judgments about the world events and conflicts because I do not know what, or who, to believe any more.

Take Obama Care as an example. The Senate Republicans voted against Obama Care because they knew it was a bad deal. Unfortunately, for everyone in the United States, the Democrats dominated the House at the time the vote. The Obama Care bill was approved by a margin of 10 Democratic votes because they were only concerned with themselves and they know they can afford it. The People did not want Obama Care because we knew it was a bad deal and would screw the Middle Class (which is has), but the President of the United States (like the child he is) threated to use his executive power to pass the bill anyway.

What kind of man whines until he gets his way? The way Obama has acted to get his way is disgusting, just disgusting. The internet has only made things worse, too. World Wide access to other countries is a bad thing if we want to keep our information private. I have several friends who have shut off their Facebooks because they have gotten far too involved in online life. Yes, I said ONLINE LIFE. You can be anyone you want to be online, and that can be dangerous not only for you, but for everyone around you. Things get twisted and sullied online. It is almost like life has become a virtual, life-long game of Telephone where everyone hates everyone and cannot have a discussion any more.

We are all jacked into the internet all the time. Here I am again writing a blog...on the internet instead of turning in a paper assignment. I am somewhat of a self-proclaimed tree-hugger, so I appreciate not killing trees. However, the production of energy to run the servers for the internet, the servers for the Blogger.com website, and everything else electronic we have in the world is also not helping the environment in any way but saving trees. Some electric plants, like the one in Laughlin, NV, put out chemicals so hard that if you park within a mile of them the chemicals will peel the paint off your car. The more energy we need, the more electric plants will be built, and I do not agree with the side effects of too many power plants. Trees can be grown, but the ozone cannot be repaired, so I think we need to work toward more green energy sources. However, guess what? My opinions come from examining others research...mostly on the internet.

 I feel like everything has gone digital and I can’t get a physical copy of anything without having to either pay far too much for it, or scour the internet for what I want. The internet has made us lazy and taken the fun out of shopping, too. Granted, the majority of people get frustrated and just leave when they cannot find what they want, but I usually do not because I enjoy seeing all of the new stuff stores have without being glued to a computer screen to do it. The whole point of stores is to get you out of the house and off your ass. Let me tell you a secret...shopping is a great way to stay active and get your walking in for the day. Sitting at our computers looking for things we want is dangerous for our health. That is why I left a lucrative position at a call center, the job was killing me and no job is worth my life.

How to Kill a Writing World

I found the Google article immensely interesting, but in an abstract way. It was an article about how nobody can read articles anymore. It's actually genius rhetorically speaking. It makes readers think "Oh yeah? I'll show you! I'll read the whole article." My mind drifted the whole time reading this because I was thinking about implications and personal examples to match the text. Normally, I would think, "It's awesome that I'm thinking about the implications!" However, I had to keep dragging myself back to the text. My mind didn't want to keep reading. It wanted to take a different thought train. That, proves the validity of the article itself. I couldn't focus on the article. I could only focus around the article.

One of my bigger thought trains took off from left the station on page four. To quote briefly "Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand." It took off completely in the next paragraph when it brought in a writer.

In that first quoted paragraph, I, all of a sudden, wasn't comprehending the text anymore. I started, instead, seeing all these weird symbols bunched together to form "words." All the while, I had a narration going on in my head. This narration somehow sprung into being by my witness of the bunched symbols. AND, I understood it all.

The second paragraph that launched the train was a little more productive. Prior in the article, it mentioned how reading was changing, and how difficult it was for the writer to get through "War and Peace" (at least hypothetically). This was from a reader/writer having difficultly reading for any extended length of time. As a writer myself, I couldn't help be mourn the audiences my books will never have because of this decline in the ability to sit and read novels. This took my train to the station known as Audiobooks. I thought "People can still access my books in an audio format." Then my own experiences came into play.

I'm an ardent reader. As a Creative Writing emphasis, how could I be anything but. I finish at least two books a week. I'm already at one finish this week and it's only Tuesday. Be that as it may, it means I'm always looking for the next book. I can't luxuriate in the one, whatever it be, that I'm currently reading. I'm always watching for when I can start the next one. I've worked in a warehouse for years. Because of that, I've become a connoisseur of audio books. While my train was stopped at the Audiobooks station, I realized how often I check the time remaining on my audiobooks. I had the realization I just described prior in this paragraph. I'm always looking to see when I finish. I don't enjoy the journey because I'm too busy looking ahead.

So, as the attention span for reading decreases, I can foresee a corresponding correlation in the attention span for those who've developed the taste for audiobooks. It's a no win scenario. My hypothetical future audience will continue to dwindle unless I turn to screenplays . . .

The paragraph about the writer, Friedrich Nietzsche, really brought home my own limitations for reaching readers by making me reflect on my own writing. Then I had a scarier thought. How is the decreasing attention span going to personally impact my writing? I could clearly see in my mind all of the unfinished stories and ideas hanging out on the desktop. I have very few finished pieces. I think it's time to stop worrying about my shrinking audience and worry about my ability to stay with a piece long enough to finish. How many other writers are out there like me? How much writing, as a society, are we going to lose because the upcoming and, according to the article, current generation of writers can't focus long enough to finish their masterpieces?

Calling someone stupid is mean....but sometimes necessary.

I couldn't even get past page 2 of the article before I had something to blog about this week. I can't help but agree 100% with Carr already. Why? Because I put the piece down to blog about it before I finished page 2. My thought process is this: I have this assignment to do for class, so I started reading the piece for the blog. Before I even get to page 3 I feel compelled to put the piece down and write my blog because I experience the same thing EVERY DAY. What Carr describes in the first two pages of the piece has already happened to me (3). I am going to read the rest of the piece, but I can already tell you that he is correct because of what has just happened: I put down the reading, which isn't arduous or hard to read, and I turned my attention to the electronic medium by which we submit our assignments because writing a blog is now far more entertaining that reading is for me.

I don't think it is necessarily Google that is making us stupid. I think the ease of accessing the Web for information is making us inattentive and lazy. I am not A.D.D, but the overload of information that I receive on the Web is making me that way. My attention span in very short unless I've turned off everything in the house, including the modem, and sit down to work on homework. If I don't alienate myself from the tech in my home, I will get distracted and not finish my assignments and reading for school because entertainment is just a click away.

Our instructors are constantly having to repeat themselves in class as well. A lot of things for classes at UVU are "on the course website". We have to access our school work on the Web, and it's so hard to concentrate when your bookmarks are looking at you and with just one click you can be doing something far more interesting than writing your research paper...or reading about HTML & CSS for class. We want to actually do something with what we're reading, so we get a blog going and play with everything we have learned. Before we know it, it's midnight and we have done nothing for school.

The internet is a HUGE distraction from our daily lives. Marriages deteriorate because of social media addiction, communication is almost purely electronic because of smart phones and the internet and the world is SO impersonal because people don't care about what's going on in front of them. I think the internet has caused a huge gap between generations as well because parents no longer know how to communicate with their children face-to-face, so instead they Facebook stalk their kid and the relationship just gets worse. It is necessary to unplug at every opportunity you have, or you'll end up sucked in like the main character of Tron. We need to consciously think about what we're doing, because face-to-face communication is dying due to the Internet.

Point taken: Google is making me stupid

Is Google making me stupid? Before reading the articles my answer to the question was no. But now after reading both articles, I have changed my answer to yes. Yes, Google is personally making me stupid. How? Well, to begin with, let's discuss the wonderful app called Trivia Crack. Trivia Crack is addicting. Why? Well, because I want to feel smart and win my opponent. It’s my mission in life as soon as I open that stupid app. So, when I start to lose to the opponent, I pull up Google on my browser. Yes, I willing admit that I cheat at Trivia Crack. As soon as the question pops up on my cell, I type the question into my browser and Ta Da! I have the answer. I don't even have to click on any links. It's just right there for the taking. By the time I win the round, I have absolutely no recollection of the questions or answers. Why? Because I looked at them for maybe a few seconds and then deleted them. Google is making me stupid. 

Last semester, I started an upper division English course on Theory and Ethics. My teacher surprised me when she said that she preferred us to not use our tablets or eReaders for her course. I was quite frankly appalled. I mean, she was maybe in her late thirty's. She clearly knew how to use a computer and she didn't want me to use technology in her class? What the hell?! But I actually understand why now.  Carr says it best in his article (pg.9), "The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own as associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking."

My teacher actually understood something that I didn't. Reading her difficult course material on paper would only benefit me. I would be able to enter into a deep reading stage. I wouldn't be tempted to be distracted. I would be able to not only focus on the material but I would foster an environment to make associations and create understanding of the material. That material was really difficult. I disliked it very much. Worst part? I have to start the class all over again. (I dropped out that semester because I shattered my leg). But at least I won't put up a fit about not using my eReader next time! She actually had the right idea to begin with. 

Another observation that I made while reading these articles was that I now understand why I get so distracted. I have a hard time focusing. I used to think I was a multitasker, but I don't think that's true anymore. I also understand why reading has become more difficult for me. For my YA Lit class this semester, I have to read 3000 pages total. 3000! I haven't read that much in a LONG time. I used to LOVE reading when I was younger. I always had several books in my backpack. I used to spend hours inside just reading. I even would read out loud and use different voices for the characters. I was deep reading and didn't realize it. Then, when college came around, I was forced to read so much material that I started my skimming skills. I have become really good at skim. Which isn't good at all. I actually struggled the first page of this article. I kept thinking about doing other things. I also checked my phone several times. I now feel stupid. Point taken Carr: Google is making me stupid.

Grandparents vs Me

The fact that we have so many new possibilities with communication, is really fascinating. If my grandparents were still alive, they would probably be amazed by the kinds of technologies I use on a daily/weekly basis. Even though they were born in the same century as me, our lives are completely different. Here are some comparisons and let the games begin.

Round 1: Books/articles/magazines

Grandparents: When my grandfather passed away in 2003, I remember having to help my parents clear out their house. It literally took us a year. There was that much shit in there. But what I found most boggling was the amount of books and magazines we had to dispose of! I think my grandparents had every National Geographic and Readers' Digest ever printed. I couldn't believe that so much paper went to waste. I also was flabbergasted by the number of books in that house too. It was freaking library!

Me: In my bedroom I have a total of zero magazines, zero articles, and maybe two dozen books on my bookshelf. That's it. But I read hundereds of textbooks, novels, magazines and articles every year. How is this possible? The blessed thing we call the internet. I have read this year alone about 28 books. All of them were rented through the library or purchased on Amazon. What's even better? The books rented through the library were eBooks. I haven't set foot in a city library since I was seventeen years old. I do everything online.

Round 2: Communicating long distance

Grandparents: My grandmother would tell me stories of when she was living out of state. How she would have to wait for the post to arrive to know what was going on in her families lives. If she was lucky, she could receive a telegram. A telegram was the fastest form of communication for her when she was my age!

Me: When I go on vacations out of state, I am able to instantly connect with family and friends through various ways. I talk to my parents via telephone calls, I text my sister, I snapchat my friends, and facebook my adventures. I have a best friend that lives in California. We stay in contact by texting, voice calls, and most frequently we "hangout" via Skype.
Once, beofre my grandmother passed, I was caring for her. My best friend wanted to chat. So we started Skyping. As a side note: My grandmother couldn't quite grasp that Jean was real. That it wasn't a recording. She thought I was talking to a movie on my laptop. The questions my grandma asked were hilarious.
I also love that I am able to send my bestfriend links for my wedding planning via text and email. It's amazing.

Round 3: The Results

Alright who has it better? My grandparents, or me? I would vote me. But I am biased. My grandma, before she passed still didn't understand a lot of things about new media. She couldn't grasp the concepts. (Side note: she did have Alzheimer's too). One of my favorite memories about my grandma was when we went to go and see the movie The Chronicles of Narnia. At the end of the movie, my grandma randomly expressed this. "Kari, I still think its just so amazing that they were able to have that lion work alongside those little kids." I responded laughing, "Grandma, did you notice that the lion was talking to the kids?" She answered, "I was curious how that was possible too...." She couldn't grasp the concept of CGI. Yet it's nothing new to me. Its so crazy!

I wouldn't change most of the things that new media brings to my life. I love the convenience and fun that it allows me.

The Price of a Picture

I mentioned how overuse of eBooks changed my experience with physical books. Now when physical books, it has become annoying to me to switch tasks to look up a definition. However, there is another "problem" that arises from switching to eBooks exclusively over the physical. I've noticed, in the past, that so many things about physical books changes our relationship with the story. These things include stuff like the font size. I've realized that these representations of words impact how I relate and accept the story. If the font is smaller, it's almost creates a block between me and the characters. In other words, I noticed a direct correlation associated with the size of the font and how much I enjoy the book itself. Sure there can be outliers, but it doesn't change my personal statistics. You also have the flip side of too large of words. If the words are too big, you end up flipping more pages. That changes your ability to forget that you aren't part of the story. There is a happy medium with text size.

When going digital, all of these rhetorical choices are cancelled out. On my phone, I can control the size of the text. Here, the relationship with page turning comes more into play. If I were to increase the size to my hypothetical happy medium size associated with physical books, I have to turn the pages way more often which interrupts the continuity of the story.  I have to decrease the text size and a new happy medium is found. However, with digital books, personal choices made by the publishers - text size, fonts, page color - are transferred to me. I can now experience all digital books the same way, which I wasn't allowed to do before. Now every book, so far as it is formulated correctly, can be any person's happy medium. So, is this really a problem putting the aesthetic choices into the hands of the common people?

Recently, I read an article about dying art of photography and how modern picture snapping impacts our memory of events. In this day and age, it is so easy to capture pictures. This seems like it should be a good thing. Now, we can capture all of those precious moments of and with our families and loved ones. Every single one. We can also delete them in an instant if we don't like how it was framed. How many great pictures are we really losing? In the article. The article talked about our brains ability to download (my word choice) information. It can only process so much at once. This means, in recent years with the rapid development of photography and the social stigma to constantly share these "precious" pictures with others. This is great in some respects, now we can better experience and follow the lives of those we care about, even if we can't be with them all of time. However, there is one person who misses out on the memory parade in this picture passing game. According to the article, this person is the person taking the pictures.

Since the brain can only process so much at once, the nature of memory has changed.Once upon a time, a mother would see her child doing something silly and imprint that into her memory. She would record the experience. Now, instead of the mother taking a moment to remember the experience, her brain is too busy thinking, I need a picture of this. She then pulls out her phone and takes a picture to "aid" her recall of the memory. That is good because she will need the aid. Instead of making a memory of the child, she is now making a memory about taking a picture. And what if the picture isn't quite right. The mother deletes it and continues her focus on getting the right picture instead of on her child. Is the price of "sharing" a moment too high for the damage it does to the memory?

There's more than one type of interface?!?

Human-Computer-Interface

"Calm down, it will be okay." - Pep

Interfacing with a computer was scary the first time...of course that was 25 years ago, and computers have since become part of our daily lives. Almost as if they have become more friendly and inviting, unlike Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey who traps his creator Dave within the space station with his creepy line, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave" (yeah, I know I'm old). Today, if my computer doesn't boot up as fast as it is supposed to I get a little antsy and start worrying something is wrong with it, almost like it is my child; when it does boot up I check it for viruses and run all of the programs that are designed to keep my computer safe while it's hooked to the internet.

The way we interface with computers has also changed. Almost every one of us has a smart phone in our pocket, purse or man-bag (as my husband puts it). We all carry around mini-computers every day and are not scared of them. In fact, most of us depend on them for everything. I use my phone to keep up with life, the weather, the news, school and many other things. Hell, it even wakes me up in the morning!

We also read differently on our mini-devices. We don't turn a page, or shake the phone to change pages (unless directed). Instead we scroll down the pages on our screen much like Manovich acknowledges when he says "scrolling through the contents of a computer or World Wide Web page has more in common with unrolling [a scroll] than turning the pages of a modern book" (84). This metaphor struck me because I am a Rhet/Comp major and it reminds me of the great Aristotle and his predecessors Socrates and Plato, the father and grandfathers of Rhetoric (respectively). 

The scroll went out (physically) a very long time ago, however it was one of the easiest ways to read because one could just unroll it and read as he went. The scroll has made a MAJOR comeback because of computers, they're just electronic now instead of being written on papyrus and rolled up for safe-keeping. Hard drives are (or were the last time I saw the inside of one) like a miniature brain and every time we close a document the hard drive rolls it up and puts it away just as you would a scroll. 

Music ownership and manipulation is another thing that has been changed drastically by computers and the internet. I hate buying electronic versions of things because: 

• What if your computer crashes?
• What if you forget your computer?
• What if you LOSE your computer??

I NEVER use iTunes (or allow anything Apple in my house for that matter). Windows Media Player is where it's at for the albums I have burned to my hard drive. The one good thing about having your music backed up on the computer is that you have a back up if you break/lose your mp3 player or the CD itself. I hate not having physical things. I can get almost all of my text books online, but I don't want to because I like having an actual book. You can't write in the margins or highlight with a downloaded book without some painstaking maneuvers and running out your ink and paper for your printer. Sharing something with someone from iTunes is pretty much impossible if you let it be the primary music player on your computer. Sharing music among friends and family is not piracy because you're not making any money off of the artists work without their consent, but iTunes takes that way too seriously.

All in all the technological revolution has helped the world become more than just a place we live, we are all connected in one way or another.

Life and Death of Our Fondest Memories

The other day I found out how impersonal the internet and social media can be. These two great advances in the the modern age are supposed to connect people. Instead it has driven us further apart than ever before. In years past there were things called a Sunday drive. Families would climb into the family station wagon and take a drive to grandma's house, just to say "hi". It took real effort and intent to communicate along distances. A simple phone call, a heart felt hand written letter, even a causal wave from across the drive way, these were the ways people used to communicate with other people. Today we pick and choose who we befriend, who we want to be associated with, and even when (if at all)  we send a message back. To make a reference to Start Trek Voyager, it seems that society has traded in their humanity and become drones to society.

In the Star Trek universe the drones are the mindless Borg species. Each Borg, a former free thinking individual, has been altered to serve a collective and a single Queen. When modern technology is used for the right purposes it has great benefits. Research of all kinds, medical, scientific, mathematical, and so on can be done. This research has had a great benefit to society. Like the collective mind of the Borg, the internet has allowed for free thinking and a faster and smoother transfer of knowledge, this is good. The downfall of all this free flowing knowledge is the fact that some people have become so dependent on this mechanism for communication that they have forgotten or never learned how to properly communicate outside the digital realm of technology. Like a Borg who has become disconnected form the collective, some people today are lost and hopeless with out their technology.

The mindless use of technology is not limited to communication. The way we take picture now has changed. Gone are the days of thumbing through photo pages and albums and sending them off to family. Today we snap pictures with our phones and there they sit for ever. We may even post them to Facebook and expect others to look at our cute baby pictures of our kids. That is the intention but not always the case. The other day I talked to my aunt for the first time in a several years. We talked for while and mentioned pictures. I told her that I posted some to Facebook, and there the problem is. My aunt and I both seldom use Facebook and so posting pictures there is pointless.  Also taking digital pictures has added an extra step to ever seeing the pictures. Using an old 110 camera we were forced to develop the film if we wanted to see the pictures. That was it, snap the picture and develop the film. Now we snap the picture maybe even edit along the way ( which also takes away from the originality of the subject) and the picture sits in memory until we decided to look at it again. Only this time we can look at the picture on a monitor or LCD screen. We still have the ability to order prints of the pictures, but do we.

The look and feel of an actual developed picture always reminds me of times spent with my grandmother. She was the keeper of family photos. Every time I would walk into her house there would be a stack of photo prints on the table. Those were enjoyable days, now lost in time.

Ease of Access, It's an Addiction...

            I think I'm just across the boarder, age wise, is relationships with the internet. I don't ever remember not having it. Even back when it existed as dial-up, I still had that access to instant info. That, I feel is the greatest result of the internet: the ease of accessibility to information. This has led to a connection of ideas across a global scale. In "The Ancient Engineers" by L. Sprague De Camp, it says

A rough idea of the percentage of inventors among modern Americans can be obtained from the statistics of the United States Patent Office. The Patent Office issues about 40,000 patents every year. So we can estimate that the mid-twentieth-century American population of 180,000,000 people produced one patentable invention each year for every 4,500 citizens (de Camp 5).

This means, the more people that can connect, the more inventions can be shared. The internet is the key to make that happen.

            Having always had access to the internet, I very much rely on it. Google is my best friend. Whenever I'm curious about anything, it's so easy to ask a simple question and receive and answer. More and more, Google is improving their experience by making those simple answers the first thing that comes up in the search. I go online over and over throughout the day. Without a WiFi connection, I feel so lost.

            The internet is more durable the books in some degree, at least to my knowledge. "When travelers passed through the city of Alexandria, the king took any books they had to build up this library. He had copies of the books made to give back to the previous owners. The king wanted a universal library, containing all the books of the world. The contents of the library filled several rooms and was estimated to have three quarters of a million books. Many of these books were fragile and accidently destroyed. A greater number of them were burned in fires. Very few survived to today" (de Camp 136). All of that collected knowledge went up in smoke. 

One of the problems I do have with the internet come as a result of my personal change in relation to reality because of technology. My sense of reality started fraying when I began reading e-books. With e-books and an internet connection, it allowed for instantaneous definitions for words. More and more, I started using this feature. Now, when I'm reading physical books, if I come across I word I'd enjoy a greater understanding of, my mind goes through the mental process of looking up the word as if it were reading an e-book. Mentally, I'll long-click the word and the definition will bubble out before my eyes. I have to remind myself that you can't do that in the real world.

My second skew of reality came out of the accessibility of audiobooks due to the internet availability on mobile devices. If I ever miss something, it is so easy to rewind 30 seconds and pick up the thread again. I've found myself mentally trying to do that in classes. Sometimes, if I miss something, I almost start looking for the rewind button. Reality doesn't stop for mind train. I feel like this example is also transferable to watching shows through the internet. We no longer have to pay as much attention. Training ourselves like that interferes with our interactions with the real world.

As technology and the internet progress, you have to start to wonder, what is the "real" world? And how will that definition keep changing?

There's an app for that: B.O.B

The most positive change that the internet has brought to our culture and everyday life is that it has allowed us to become global. Before the internet, telephones and satellites, we were limited to communicating within our "bubble". Or just depend on snail mail. But now, we can communicate with others almost anywhere in the world instantly!
It's allowed for us to travel and see the world. Or if you're lazy, you can Google Earth almost anywhere. But I also feel that the internet has caused for more global issues too. Because we are so easily connected, we get into each other's issues more easily. We wouldn't be involved in so many war's and international affairs if the internet didn't exist. So that's the downside to being so global. (People just need to get along really though).

Another reason that I love the internet, is that it has made my life more simple. Everything I need can be found on the internet. Got a question? Just verbally say it by first adding, "Hey Siri", or "Ok Google" and you'll have a little voice answer your question instantly. I asked Siri earlier tonight where the closest Mexican restaurant was located. She not only told me several options (with ratings) but the internet connection allows for me to access GPS and I can get directions instantly too. AWESOME! When I first got my iPod touch, I would have to search directions before I left and had to take screen shots for reference. So I revel with the fact that I can instantly access GPS guidance anytime. I also frequently ask Siri what flights/planes are flying overhead..... don't ask me why. But I think its amazing and I love doing it.


The internet also allows for me to have a personal assistant in my hands. I honestly can't function without my smart phone. Which is more than slightly, pathetic; I know. But because of the internet, everything I need is in just ONE place. There's literally an app for everything. My life is organized and handled because of the apps available. Examples for me personally are: calendar, reminders, checklists, flashlight, calculator, white pages, contacts, television, shopping, news, games, scriptures, books, banking, dictionaries, Pinterest, menstrual calendar (lol), all of my bills, and also my sleeping app.


As a side note: I was really bored and was browsing the App Store the other night and came across a personal vibrator app. I couldn't believe it! It was hilarious. And comments provided, explained how to successfully use it! (Just stick your phone in a zip lock bag first!) So I guess if you're really desperate, you can have B.O.B. on your phone too. (Which most of the comments were provided by frantic teenage girls. Asking how to delete the purchase! lol)


Working graves, I use my phone and the internet to keep me awake and entertained. (Don't tattle but I'm even using it right now to right this post). The internet is such a vital part of my life. I don't actually have to go to the library to study like my parents had to. I can do it ANYWHERE I damn well please. I love the internet. LOVE IT! But then when you talk to my fiancé, he struggles with it. It fuels his addiction. So I guess the point of this paragraph is that you have to be careful with the internet. If you abuse it, you can lose everything that is actually important in your life. Like everything else, use it in moderation and be cautious. If you do, you'll probably love it just like me!

The Internet: It's a Love-Hate Relationship

Disclaimer: I hate the internet, but am fully immersed in it most of the time because I have to be. 
(Don't you hate people who use colors you can't see?)

     The internet has helped the world advance technologically and has helped connect the different parts of the world to each other. One can't help but love the internet for all of its conveniences, but we also can't help but hate it for its conveniences at the same time.

      I love the conveniences that the internet has brought to the world. We can be globally connected with the click of a button, and pretty much anywhere the internet is available. Doctors don't have to wait weeks for results from labs because they're all uploaded to them, storing information is much easier and computers help the environment (to a point). All those things are great, but the one thing that I can't stand is being constantly connected. There's never a moments peace.
 
      I am of the very first dial-up modem generation (I remember when AOL went online), so the constant connections that Broadband, Cable and DSL internet gave us are great because we can now use the Land Line without dropping the computer off the face of the internet (ha!).

      However, I don't know about you, but calling my house to check my messages was the highlight of my day if my family was out of town. I couldn't help but be excited to know if my boyfriend had called, or if that return call my mom was waiting for came from the doctor. The answering machine is now a relic that most of the millennials don't know existed, much less how to work one, but I really miss mine.

      I miss my answering machine, and I hate my cellular telephone, because it is REQUIRED to be jacked into the internet or it won't work. People can ALWAYS reach me, and they get extremely offended if I don't answer them immediately. WHY IS IT SUCH A BIG DEAL IF I DON'T ANSWER YOU IMMEDIATELY?!? THE WORLD IS NOT GOING TO END! These are the things I yell at the stupid brick in my pocket when it constantly buzzes with the immediate "OMG" or "LMAO" that has just arrived.

      I always think, "I have my own life and I'll get back to you when I feel like it," then the damn thing buzzes again because everyone knows I have one, and they're too persistent because that stupid picture of their cat just can't wait for a response that will most likely be "LOL" or "LMAO".

      Hell, I'm sitting on my bed with my laptop that is constantly hooked to the INTERNET, listening to Hulu on my "Smart" television which is hooked to the INTERNET. I can't submit assignments to my instructors without this piece of tech, much less write this REQUIRED electronic blog for Peppers class without the INTERNET. Without the INTERNET I can't look at my assignments for Peppers class because they are on a WEB PAGE. News broadcasters cannot do their jobs without the INTERNET because everything they do is broadcast over it now.

     When I go on vacation for the UEA holiday, I will have this piece of tech with me, and did not book any rooms that do not have free Wi-Fi, because the successful completion of my college degree DEPENDS on being able to submit and complete assignments over this thing called "The Internet". Vacations aren't un-plugged and private any more because of the INTERNET.

     The major negative thing the internet has caused is this constant connectivity. Everyone wants everything right now, and there is no patience involved any more. The world has become very selfish with regards to time because of the INTERNET. If I didn't have to have my Galaxy Note 3 to keep me connected to all the vital parts of my life that have gone digital, I definitely wouldn't. You'd all have to send me a letter, on paper, in an envelope, with a stamp on it.

    Do you even know how to do that?

The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly of the Internet

The internet has proven to be both a positive and negative influence on society in general. As big as the internet has grown to be there are still individuals that shy away from this technology. These people embrace the idea that life existed just fine before the internet and life will still be fine with out it. The use of technology is a personal preference, take the Amish as an example. Groups such as the Amish go day by day in the midst of technology all around yet they manage to survive with out it. It may be true that we can survive with out the use of technology and the internet, but what would we be missing. What has the internet offered that is the greatest benefit to modern society. I believe the greatest benefit is also the greatest curse. This benefit would have to be the instantaneous sharing of knowledge. 

I believe it was said in the book 1984, "Knowledge is power." When addressed to the internet this is very true. Power and knowledge are two powerful tools that have been used to create and destroy. In times past these tools took time to work and now with the internet these tools are harnessed on a global scale with close to instant results. 

Recently the people in the Middle East used the power of Twitter and similar social media to spread their ideas of government and social reforms. The internet allowed groups of protesters to organize, something that may have been difficult to do in their countries with out the use of the internet. Closer to home, the internet has helped politicians win major elections. In the past, politicians would have to travel all across the country to gain supporters, now the traveling is done via the internet. Elections are won and lost on a localized level. Gone are the days of broad campaigning, now a simple Twitter or blog post is all it takes to spread  political rhetoric. 

The internet can be a very positive tool for everyday use. Just like life, the internet parallels both the dark side and light side of humanity. A lot of good has come about with the use of the internet and equally a lot of bad has come about also. 

The internet has become a pool of empty promises and false sense of security. What you may do in the privacy of your own home really is not all that private. Take a simple messaging app such as Snap Chat. It was promised or thought to be true that any images sent via Snap Chat would be destroyed and no evidence of those images would remain. This was proven wrong. The images may have been removed form the servers of Snap Chat but through devious intentions of others the images remain stored on external devices and stored in other media. 

The recent revelations about the Ashley Madison web site is another good example of the evil of the internet. People, mostly men, seeking or just curious about affairs were violated by hackers. This event shows two sides that demonstrate the maliciousness of the internet; people seeking acts of infidelity and those people willing to tarnish the reputations of others all in the name of justice.

I believe the internet is like the wild west. The west was founded on good intentions. It was a gateway for many groups of people seeking refuge and a new life. Like all good things there must be some sort of opposition. With the influx of new people, the wild west, and new ideas and innovations, the internet, organized and unorganized crime grew. Hackers, identity thieves,corporate espionage, and international spying have all been given a new avenue to do their dirty work. This is the dark side of the internet.

Manovich Chapter One: But what does it mean?!?

What is New Media?

             According to Manovich, new media consists of everything that can be viewed (but not necessarily manipulated) on a computer (43). The things viewed on the computer can (and usually do) have a print counter part, however the print counter part is not considered new media because it is no longer in its digital form. For example, this blog is published in digital form so it is considered New Media. Even though the blog is currently in digital form and is considered New Media, if we were to print it and pass it out to the class, the blog would lose its New Media smell and become old news before its time.

How Media Became New

Computers have been around a lot longer than I knew they had been. The first "computer" was a loom that functioned with punched-out index cards, and took its commands from the patterns on them. This machine came about because mass media was starting to pick up, and a way to mass produce papers was needed because typesetting on a printing press was a nightmare. After the new printer came the first mode of movies when pictures were put into motion. Electric tabulating machines started to pop up around the late 1800's and  they were a life-saver for everyone who had to calculate numbers by hand. In fact, the machines became so popular that the Tabulating Machine company evolved into IBM in 1924. Once computers took hold, everything was translated into ones and zeros and put onto computers.

The Five Principles

1. Numerical Representation:
            Everything that has been turned into data is represented by 1's and 0's that are reassembled on the screen to show us what we've clicked on, or opened up. The pictures and other things stored in numerical sequences are described using mathematical functions. All things stored in "data format" can be changed, and all changes are made with algorithms. 

2. Modularity: 
            Everything can be changed or manipulated and what we see on the computer screen is made up of pixels. Pixels are the one's and zero's, or the code, that make up what we're looking at. Coding became mainstream in the 1970's, when computers started to become more popular. Coding exists in every element of our technological world including our phones, TVs, game systems, cars, appliances with digital screens and many, many other electronic things in our lives.

3. Automation:    
           There are two types of automation, low-level and high level. Low-level automation consists of things created by the user on a computer from scratch while using a template or other things that already exist in the system. High-level automation consists of things the computer can do or make, but the computer needs to have some understanding of what it is making or doing. High-level automation is becoming very popular and ever-more useful in the world, and is driving the development of A.I. (artificial intelligence).

4. Variability:
            Everything on a computer can be manipulated or changed, you just have to know how to do it. All content on computers is capable of changing, that is why viruses work, or should I say destroy? Viruses take one piece of the code and either change its algorithms to do something they're not suppose to, or destroy them completely. Humans can change the algorithms themselves as well, that is what our class is teaching us how to do.

5. Transcoding:
            Transcoding is the translation of soemthing from one form to another. Manovich mentions that transcoding could have unintended consequences in the long run. He says that the cultural layer of New Media may be compromised by the technological means it is delivered, or translated, by because the computers' logic will override the logic of media either here or there within the code. Misunderstanding will eventually run amuck because we are losing part of the media's meaning by translating it into a sterile algorithm. Computers and software are constantly evolving, and that is where older things may get lost in translation.




           

01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01101101 01100101 01100100 01101001 01100001

Numerical Representation: Everything we see on a computer actually exists as a string of numbers in a numerical representation. So, in order for other forms of media to be accessed via a computer, they too must be translated into this numerical code. This happens by a process called digitization. Just as our bodies are made up of cells (and furthermore, strands of DNA), working together for the function of the whole, these informative number strings build up the images we can see on computers.

Modularity: The idea of modularity stems from the idea that new media is made up of a lot of different facets that can work independent from each other. This is comparable to an outfit. The combination of tops and bottoms we wear are endless. Each article functions by itself. It can be added, edited, or deleted altogether. But, each item is self-sufficient, separate from the rest of the outfit. The combination of the different articles is up to the wearer which can be very good or very bad based on personal preference.

Automation: More and more, automatic processes have come into play when media and media access come into question. Lots of media exists, and one of the big automatic computer processes in development right now is a better retrieval method of the media materials. Some people might start to freak out if they think things being and becoming automatic. They shouldn't. I for one, am very glad I don't constantly have to remind my heart to beat or my lungs to breathe. It would get annoying really fast. Automation is just the next step in allowing us to become the lazy creatures we want to be. Bring it on New Media.

Variability: This is the idea the experience we choose to have through computers can be very personalized. Whether the experience is automatic - choosing the ads we see of the quality of our experience based on the speed of our connection - or self controlled - changing your profile pictures or managing your profile period - it varies depending on who is having it. This ability to be changeable is variability. This is comparable to our memories. Our memories are created and stored on strings of proteins. Each time we recall a memory, we reassemble the proteins. During this reassembly, the memory changes depending on our mood or suggestions offered by another party. Because of that, our memories, just like our new media experiences, are variable.

Cultural Transcoding: The language of computers is radically different from the one we use to talk to each other. It's developing crazy different structures that we can't hardly recognize as "language" at all. Transcoding is our process of translating our access to knowledge and language into a code the computer can process. The only example I can think of would be the one I've already kind of explored. The language barrier. It's impossible to translate meanings across languages word for word and have the meaning remain intact. Try logically explaining the phrase "lucked out" to someone learning English. You can't.

In Conclusion: I think the most powerful principle demonstrating our "cultural undergoing of computerization" rests in the realm of automation. The computers are starting to read our minds based on some Google search months ago. For example, a few months ago I searched for the premiere date of the new season of one of my must see shows. I just got a new phone, powered by Android, and it happily tells me whenever a new episode of the show is playing that night. It knew. I'm not talking conspiracies, but the ability of the computers offer such variability automatically is crazy amazing. As the computers do more and more things for us automatically, we're going to get more and more lazy.