Growing Dependency

Presentation1

• Thesis: As technology develops, we become more dependent on each other and less self-sufficient, which ultimately benefits us by fostering a society of cooperation and collaboration.

• Claim: Our brains are changing to adapt to technology. Once we get used to technology, it changes us. Once our society adapts to technological change, it is not easy to just go back to the old ways. We get used to technology, hence we get used to our new inter-dependent lifestyle. If we get used to telling time from clocks, for example, that it how our brains will start to measure and anticipate time, and consequently we will have to rely on and collaborate with others to produce these new time-telling devices. (Backed by Carr)

• Claim: The world is being recreated. We are leaving our older methods behind in exchange for new technologies. These new technologies are connecting us and reshaping our society and culture. As we come to depend on these technologies, we also come to depend on those who help us produce them. Our society- and even our world- is becoming a “global village” where everyone is connected and everyone contributes to a greater goal. (Backed by McLuhan)

Hey guys! The citations and explanations for my two additional sources can be found in the “sources” page as sub-pages of the following:

• Second source: McLuhan
• Third source: Case

Click on the citation below the text you see on those pages.

I want to explore how advanced technology makes us more dependent on each other and less self-sufficient than we used to be, forcing our society to become more collaborative and inter-connected. I plan to describe how advanced technology and its complexity requires us to rely on one other and work together to produce it. I will use examples of older methods vs. modern day methods to show how new technology is more complex and specialized, and thus requires dependence on others and collaboration. Ultimately, I will argue that these individual and societal changes brought about by technological advancements are ultimately good because they enable- and even force- us to become a collective, collaborative society that is conducive to even further advancements. I think this is a good topic for this assignment because it explores the issue of the digital age and its affects on individuals and society. Also, my topic uses “The Shallows” as  jumping-off point; I plan on using Carr’s discussion of neuroplasticity to explain how technological changes affect us and become deeply-rooted into our behavior.

I imagine my thesis to be something along these lines: increased dependence on technology, which results in increased dependence others and less self-sufficiency, ultimately benefits us because it forces us to become a more inter-connected, collaborative, and cooperative society.

I imagine my paper to begin with my thesis and continue with a brief explanation of how technology becomes more complex as it progresses and how that affects our independence. I plan on using an example (possibly transportation) to compare and contrast how things used to be and how they are now, showing that now we are less independent. I imagine I will use Carr’s book to show how this increased dependency imprints itself on society and becomes part of our way of life (neuroplasticity, brain changes). I also plan on using Amber Case and McLuhan to support my claim that technology is connecting us as a society. Finally, I will present a counter-argument and conclude.

This is just the beginning, so I’m sure there will be some changes and adjustments along the way.

Toyota Website

This is a link to Toyota’s Children’s Web Site. This website is a cute, interactive website that shows children how cars are made. I know we’re not children, but I do think this website provides a very basic and illustrative insight into how specialized and complex the car-making process is. There are so many steps to making a car – stamping, wielding, painting, making the engine, assembling the car, inspecting the car, transporting the car, and selling the car- and there are so many different people and experts involved in each step of the way. It’s hard to say that one singular person knows how to or is able to produce a car on his own. This means that every person in need of a car, which includes most people, must rely on others and cooperate with others to produce and acquire a car; it was not this complex for a person to acquire a horse and wagon in the olden days. This website complements my curiosity of how we are becoming more inter-dependent and less self-sufficient as technology progresses and becomes more complex.

Here are the two quotes from The Shallows and my subsequent thoughts.

Quote #1:  “Although…. formed” (P.34).

Quote #2: “What the map did for space…. measurement” (P. 41-43).

In the first quote, Nicholas Carr discusses how technology actually alters our brain activity; as we practice certain activities and behaviors, our brains re-wire to accommodate these new practices. The second quote provides an in-depth example of this phenomenon. Carr discusses the evolution of methods of time telling and how these methods changed the way our brains are wired. In earlier times, people would tell time from sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, and the position of the sun in the sky, and thus their brains would perceive time as a continuous cyclical flow. They didn’t break up the day into units of time, because that is not how they were trained to experience time. However, when mechanical clocks were invented, people started to experience time as “a series of units of equal duration.” Time was no longer experienced as cyclical and continuous; instead, it was experienced as standardized and fragmented. As we got used to this new technology and experience of time, our brains actually started to re-wire themselves to accommodate these changes.

This idea got me thinking about some other effects technological advancements have on us. According to Carr’s lesson on the history or clocks, it is clear that the process of telling time today is more complex than it was in earlier times. In earlier times, all one needed to do to tell the time was gaze up at the sky and approximate the time based on the position of the sun. As things got more advanced, people would determine the time based on sundials or hourglasses, both still primitive and simple processes that the average person can do on his own from start to finish. Now, however, we tell time from mechanical or digital clocks, both more complex processes than earlier ones that the average person cannot carry out on his own from start to finish. In other words, advanced technology is produced through specialized, multistep processes that the average person cannot claim to be able to do from start to finish; how many of us can say we know how to build a mechanical or digital clock?

What does this mean for us? We live in a world where it’s no longer acceptable to approximate time using simple, pre-tech methods because our brains have become used to this new, standardized way of telling time.  This means that now we can no longer rely on ourselves to tell time; instead, we have to rely on others- the people who produce and distribute mechanical and digital clocks. We become less self-sufficient and are forced to rely more on others. I think that the same holds true for many other advancements in technology. Our brains are no longer programmed to use outdated methods for doing basic things, like travelling and writing letters, so we turn to newer methods. But these newer methods are more complex than older methods, so we must rely on others to produce and distribute these technologies for us.