Image Source

As I spent my one hour online in observation of my activities I was shocked to imagine my life before the pre-digital era. In my time I played League of Legends, practiced my typing, watched YouTube videos, and most importantly I talked with my best friend and my boyfriend. When I thought about how I would do this in a pre-digital era I realized that I couldn’t and this woke me up to how big of a role media has had in my life. My best friends who I talk to and play online games with is name Josh but the problem is that my friend Josh lives all the way in LA. If I didn’t have digital media I would only be able to contact him through mail, who knows how long that would take; I doubt we would be close friends like we are today. And even worse I have a long distance relationship with someone who lives in Canada but frequently travels to Korea and Thailand. Without digital media I would have no other prospects other then the men in my regional New York area.

Although I will admit that it is not like it would be completely impossible to complete these activities but the matter is that it wouldn’t be the same. In the pre-digital era people still communicated, played games together, watched theater, typed, and found love. This did not change but the way in which these activities have been able to had an impact on us is really what has changed.

After seeing the personal effect that digital media has had on my life personally I would like to argue that it has brought positive effects to our society. Digital media has brought people together in more ways than one.

Would You have a Long Distance Relationship?

With the digital age expanding our range of communications through the internet people now have the chance of find love from practically anywhere in the world. Long distance relationships are hard but they are strong relationships, that teach people the value to be with a loved one. In a study done by Statistic Brain in May of 2016, 10% of marriages within the Unites States comes from long distance relationships. Without the digital media these marriages would have never happened. I wouldn’t have a boyfriend (gasp)! For this reason digitization has improved our human activity and made it possible for people to interact and communicate. Couldry quotes Marcel Proust’s book In Search of Lost Time saying “I felt more clearly the illusoriness in the appearance of the most tender proximity, and at what distance we may be from the persons we love at the moment it seems that we have only to stretch out our hands to seize and hold them. A real presence, perhaps, that voice that seemed so near – in actual separation!” (page 5). Here it talks about the effects that the telephone has played in our lives without it we could not feel close to the people that are actually far from us.

       Yesterday night before I went to bed I decided to check the Facebook and saw that my old friend from Georgia was online. So, I decided to talk to her for a while since we don’t have that much time because of the college and a time difference. While talking to her and waiting for her response I scroll down to Facebook page itself and saw some pictures, videos, and news that my friends and the official pages that I liked posted.

       I liked couple of pictures of my friends and left couple of comments too. After finishing my conversation with my friend I also checked my Instagram page, liked couple of pictures/photos there too and then I went to one of my favorite site YouTube just to see what was new there. So suddenly I saw videos called “Top 10 Rules For Success”. And I got interested in it and watched couple of them. For example: Sylvester Stallone’s Top 10 Rules of Success, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s, Jackie Chan’s, Bruce Lee’s  and so on. Basically, it is 10-12 mins video that summarizes  and gives bullet points of famous person’s rules for success.
The videos were very motivational; I love these types of videos that makes you rethink your life, your actions and motivates you. So it was nice to hear their stories, how they struggled and how they got to the place where are they now. After that I went to bed, feeling positive and motivated.

Video Credit: Evan Carmichael    

      In pre-digital era it would have been much difficult to do things that I did. It would have been impossible to communicate with others across the world and to use internet to go to any social media and see the pictures, videos and news there.
Back in those days there was no digital software, not to mention the internet. It would’ve been impossible to watch videos on YouTube and listen to celebrities’ stories and advice; it would’ve been impossible to watch the videos period. If I wanted to hear these persons’ motivational speeches, I would’ve had to go see them speak in person. Back then you could’ve seen the pictures in your friend’s home.

      My experience shows how computerization has a positive afford because it makes physical location no longer a barrier to connectivity. In my case when I talked to my friend in Georgia from the U.S. This is a positive effect of becoming post-geographical network society that the author, Adrian Athique talks about on page 16 of Digital Histories.
However, there is a negative effect of it also. Nick Couldry calls it a Digital Divide which is a high barrier to information access for people not already connected. For example people in rural areas or in undeveloped countries, or even simply just people who cannot afford much leisure time. Athique also mentions this problem, he says about network society “It is not a utopia, since it is marked by new forms division.” (pp17) By this he means the divisions between people with connectivity and people without it.

      I recognized that I also do what Couldry calls “Massification” “Whereby most online activity converges around rather fewer sites than we would first expect.” (pp 19) For example I spent an hour online and I only visited three sites. Another example of “massification” is the fact that people spend more than 50 minutes a day on Facebook including messenger according to business insider.

Here’s how much time do people spend on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger every day.    by Jillian D’Onfro

 

---

Questions:
1. How could we remove the barrier that keeps people from becoming connected?

2. Do you think there will be less and less face-to-face communication in 20 years? What about 40 years?

During my hour of online activity, I realized that I had used a variety of platforms and apps to either get work done, entertain myself, or to communicate with other people. Whether it was through Facebook, Instagram, or the online web, I was able to access all such platforms through my phone. Although there were some activities that I could’ve done without digital media, a majority of the tasks I had completed in the hour were done because of my access to digital media. The convenience provided to the user by digital media is one that entices and urges the user to come back time and time again. With digital media as a tool to access several different channels of productivity, it can also be a powerful tool in losing yourself to counter-productivity. It ultimately boils down to the habits you create in regards to this powerful tool called Digital media.

Although there are several activities that computerization and digitization can not yet execute/replicate, it has improved human activities in many ways. From a personal stance, I witnessed the vast improvements it has made in enabling people to communicate during my hour of online activity. While I was scrolling through Instagram, I noticed my mother was also on her phone doing her first video call with my grandmother, living in Mexico, who she hasn’t seen in person for over 20 years. Although my mother wasn’t able to physically hug her mother or give her kisses on the cheek, the implementation of computerization and digitization into our daily lives has facilitated their ways of communicating with each other from across the world. After finally seeing her mother for the first time over the last 20 years, this simple yet meaningful activity of doing a video chat adds sentimental value over just a simple phone call.

Within that same hour, I also witnessed the negative consequences of using digital media, as I had suddenly ended up watching a dancing dog on youtube;a video that held no educational or self-improving content. Despite the convenience and several benefits that come with digital media, one can often find that their attention span has diminished over its extended use. In this Forbes article, Kiisel highlights real life situations in which people of all ages can relate too. If you too are an vid user of digital media, you can often find yourself distracted with something completely irrelevant to the task you originally had at hand. It is important to note that although digital media can be a powerful tool/outlet for your work/thoughts, the way in which you choose to use your media is important too, as Couldry stated “Habits of use are crucial, and habit is more than just a repetition: any habit is stabilized through multiple practices that construct new ways of living, whether in the home or in everyday culture more generally” (17).

(the video:)

In essence, digital media brings both positive and negative effects to our society. It is ultimately how you use digital media that will shape your positive/negative experiences. It has revolutionized the way we as a society do things and has created cultures in such a short amount of time that they are evolving and changing just as quickly as they are being integrated. With that in mind, as well as the exchange my mother had via video phone call, I want to ask these questions:

1.) How will the rising cultures in digital media affect the generation gaps between families?

and

2) How have these different generations adapted to the rise in use of digital media?

This past hour spent online was one of my more productive uses of the Internet and my time. I used some of it to participate in a discussion board activity for my psychology class, scroll through my Instagram, watch Snapchat’s and read Facebook posts. I found myself unable to concentrate on my homework at to counteract my boredom I took to social media. I never post much instead spending most of my time watching everyone else’s posts. I liked a couple pictures on Instagram, looked through the popular page, grew tiresome, closed the tab and opened Snapchat. I watched the few recent posts on Snapchat and moved on to Facebook. After watching a few Insider food videos and reading one of their travel articles, I had gotten my social media fix and went back to my psychology homework.

In a pre-digital era, the activities I did in the past hour would definitely not happen in the same context. The discussion board posts I worked on were a way of engaging in with my classmates and discussing material for an online class. In a pre-digital era, there would be no online classes and instead I would be having these conversations face-to-face, in a traditional classroom. As far as turning to social media as a way to salvage my boredom, I probably would have been reading a book or talking to a friend. The things that I managed to do in one hour via the Internet would have taken much more time and energy from me had a computer and Wi-Fi not be at my disposal.

Both Couldry and Athique say that computerization and digitization improve our lives by making them more convenient. Couldry states, more people are now multi-tasking between multiple media; … the ability to communicate socially and with loved ones across multiple platforms is becoming basic for many, rich and poor (p. 19).” He also goes on to talk about the iPhone and how we have the ability to switch through apps and the Internet making us more connected to everything within one device. People are communicating differently and with a wider range of people that they were unable to do before. Similarly, Athique says, “digitization has already done much to ensure that the ways in which we study and play, in which we work (or avoid work) are markedly different different from the experiences of the generations that preceded us (p. 18).” Athique’s statement directly applies to how I spent my one hour online. I relied on the internet to study/do my work, but at the same time and on the same device, used it to not do my work.

Digitization and computerization have created new social practices for people to indulge in through the many digital devices available. The quality of relationships has changed as we spend more time having conversations over the Internet than we do face-to-face. Athique comments that even though computerization is a symbol of ultra-modernity, it is also a symbol of anxiety, dependence and obsolescence (p. 18). Athique’s critique of computerization stands depending on the circumstance. Like anything in life the Internet is best used in moderation. Balance is key. Over indulging in social media by using it as an escape for your real life does not have positive effects. But if social media is used to network, create new relationships and stay in contact with loved ones far away, then it will improve our human activity in a good way. The Internet has a way of making or breaking us, but the plus side it we have control over which one it does.

An article titled, “Technology in Moderation,” ties back to the idea that though the Internet improves our lives by make it easier for us to do things, it is important for us as consumers to really ask ourselves if it is beneficial in the long run. The article goes on to discuss how technology is moving at rapid speeds and humans are not able to adapt as quickly as new things are being created. This probes the questions:

• Is saturating ourselves in the ever-growing technology industry making us lose the very things that make us human? Is technology going to take over our lives in ways we have yet to comprehend?

• If technology is supposed to improve our world connectivity, is it really doing this through our screen? Are we missing out on the better things of life?

After long days in the office being on my feet with you in my belly, I often find myself sitting in your nursey thinking about the world your father and I are bringing you into.  Yesterday, your Aunt Melissa had called me on her way home from work and during that time we spent most of it taking about work about how impossible it is for us to make it professional without the use of media.  You’re probably going to be too young to understand the concept of media when you read these journals I have wrote for you, but soon enough you’ll be thrown into the influence of media and will understand.

Your Aunt Melissa and I started out talking about our work day.  It’s been tough for your Aunt, especially during the winter months, to make it as a female in the automotive industry on her own.  She has Grandpa Roop to help her get small jobs with BMW and Mercedes but she wants to make it on her own without any help.  So as a surprise Uncle Jessie and I have been working on surprised with a logo that he used to create a website for Aunt Melissa to promote her qualifications and her skills because every opportunity your Aunt has can be the make or break in her career.  I can’t barely imagine the thought of what you’ll have to go through to promote yourself in whatever job occupation you decide to do.

Image Source

While your Uncle is still programming the website, your Aunt, as usual, wasted no time in marketing herself.  As I was scrolling though Facebook and Instagram (just because I am your mother doesn’t mean I can’t have social media Aaliyah) I noticed multiple posts made by your Aunt showcasing her work.  It’s ironic how social media networks such as Facebook operate because when I was roaming through your Aunt’s profile, other Automotive companies and associated companies Aunt Melissa had worked at came up through advertisements.

Image Source

It’s amazing how Facebook tracks and Instagram tracks their users interest and revert those interests back to the users.  As I was listening to your Aunt complain about local traffic on her way home, I decide to click on a few of the advertisement so see what the competition was like for your Aunt.  Now, there’s something that I would hope to see change.  But as it turns out, based on those other companies posts and picture/video uploads, they’re not doing exceptionally better at promoting and marketing themselves.  I remember my days in high school when Grandpa Roop had automotive fundraisers and he would assign his students homework and extra credit to physically go out to local automotive shops and promote the event.  Though this way of promoting yourself takes a lot more time, compared to what we’re doing for Aunt Melissa, it’s as effective if the person who goes out promoting is educated and can respond to client’s questions.  The main goal of promoting and marketing yourself and/or an event is to get as much expose as you can possibly; no matter which way in the future you decide to do to help market yourself, the fact that you have to promote yourself will probably never change in the digital age.  The means of doing so will evolve for when it’s your time.

Computerization and digitalization will continue to improve human activity drastically.  Why?  Because the human race as a whole has a constant want of something to make their lives easier, especially those who live in New York City or any city for that matter.  For example, me writing journals to you using my laptop as opposed to writing the journals by hand.  Both computerization and digitalization has made this process more convenient for me for two reasons.  One, based on Couldry’s thoughts on “The digital revolution and its uncertainties,” computerization infrastructure makes writing journals on a laptop easily transferable in the sense that I can give you my laptop when you’re at an age I find appropriate for you to understand these journals for you to read on your own time.  This almost implies “… early printers were nomads who physically transported their technology about with them…” (Couldry 9).  And two, digitalization has helped minimize the physical storage space notepads would use.

As for, negative consequences and effects of computerization and digitalization they devalue human interactions as well as continuously set standards of what society sees as acceptable and normal.  According to Athique, “… the era of new media has brought … a language of its own … –some dense names of things, some summarize new concepts or proclaim new problems, and some facilitate new codes of communication and new ways of talking to each other” (15).  For example, if I had taken the opportunity to sit with you and read you my journals, we would be able to have a special mother-daughter bond that’s incomparable to me handing you my laptop to read what I have written to you; it “despecializes” the whole purpose in writing these journals.

Questions

1. Computer engineers and programmers today are feeling the pressure of coming up with the latest “digital revolution.”  What do you think they have in store for us in about 10 years?
2. What do you think is the next evolution of social media such as Facebook, and Snapchat?

It seems like my hour journey on the internet was just five minutes ago. I am pretty sure we all sometimes get so absorbed on the net that we loose track of time, maybe that is because laptops and cellphones are our new television and digital social device. It keeps us entertained and busy. The internet to me is, a never ending digital quest of a common man in search of a question.

In my case the question was, what camera should I buy?

First I searched on google, the difference between Nikon and Canon. Then I searched and narrowed my decision to the different models that fit my budget. Of course I clicked on a google AD site, on top of all searches, which now will display camera advertising on my computer for a while. Also viewed some youtube review videos. While I was in search, my friend called me about some limited edition sneakers that were releasing soon, so then I put him on speaker and had a mini phone meeting about sharing information on how and where it might be releasing, while reading some sneaker/fashion Blogs.

In the pre-digital era, to find a camera fit for me, I would have to go to a store and ask an expert on the differences between cameras. Due to the digital era we can now obtain and find answers to our question in minutes from different inputs from professionals on the web/blogs. One activity that still remains the same from pre-digital era to now is the delivery process of a product. From planning to delivery, we still need the assistance of humans today.

Computerization and digitization has brought both negative and positive consequences. One positive side to it is that is delivers media much faster than print. “even if massively faster than, the print revolution” (Couldry, 10). Faster spread of media allows it to deliver information to more people which leads to a more informed and educated group of people in society. One negative aspect of digitization is its ability to store information and track user activity. This leads to private information being shared with others. But one question I have is, do we really have a choice not to use the internet in this period of time?

While online for an hour of my time, I did the following:

-Spoke on the phone with my best friend

-Listened to music on YouTube

-Went through my newsfeed on Facebook and Instagram

-Looked for an apartment

The way we do things has definitely changed in our digital age. All the activities I did within that hour would have been done differently in another era.

Before phones were created you would have to send someone a handwritten letter to communicate with them, which would take days, even weeks, depending on how far away that person is. It is amazing that with just a phone, we are able to dial someone’s number and contact them, or better yet: even see them through video chat. With social media and technologies like cell phones, computers, etc, proximity is not an obstacle for most of us anymore.

There have been many inventions before listening to music online, like the record player, CD player, etc. Listening to music online though is the most convenient. You can listen to anything you desire, you just have to type in the name of the song and artist–incredible.

I go through my newsfeed on Facebook and Instagram like if it’s the morning paper. I read, skim, skip, and so forth.  This activity definitely only occurs during a digital era. Before digital times, there was no way of getting to know someone or know what is going on with them without communicating with them or someone else, now you don’t have to. With Facebook and Instagram we can see the posts of friends and strangers with just a click. Social media brings people together.

I have been apartment hunting, and during that hour I did so online. Online is the best way now to find an apartment because you can see photos, know the details about the place, and know the area it is located as well. Before, you would just see signs around or look at the housing section of the newspaper, which is less productive because there are minimal details and no photos.

——————————————————————

Below, I have added a YouTube video. This magnificent video talks about many different things, but at some points, it does focus on the effect technology has had on human kind. It gets me thinking about all the things that technology has changed, which leads to the question of whether the changes are positive or negative

Have we become disconnected? Has technology along with media changed what we see as important? These questions can sway us to open our eyes to the possible negative side effects of technology/media.

Adrian Athique made me consider the questions above further with his statement/s: “In their youth, the baby boomers also became particularly enraptured by the transformation of popular culture that took place as they were growing up. With the massive expansion of the cultural marketplace and the rising purchase power of ordinary people, pop music, film, fashion, art and television were all newly accessible was taking place. These developments, by their very nature, touched those in all walks of life, but it was the youth demographic in the educated classes that came to demonstrate (quite literally) their impatience to take up the reins of steering the information age” (pg. 9 of Ch. 1). Technology is changing us. My generation grew up with the best of both worlds in a way, we had a childhood with little to no new media/advanced technology, and then as we grew to become teenagers and young adults, we saw the advancement of cell phones, computers, etc. The children now are so wrapped up in their tablets and phones; they do not have the same experience I had. Is that good or bad though? It goes back to how you use technology.

A question that arose in my head due to Nick Couldry’s statement/s: “There is no agreed starting point for answering the question: what is it to live ethically with, and through media? And yet the fact that our lives are supersaturated with media makes it increasingly difficult to be satisfied with an ethics that is not, in part, an ethics of media” (pg. 28), is if the changing of media platforms and the changes taking place in the era with new media are molded around the need to protect the environment? If we use more digital then we use less paper. However, we still waste resources on digital media, like electricity for example.

 

Digital media, technology, etc bring us both good and bad things. Like stated in an interesting article published at Dartmouth University, computers can improve anything, but at the same time come along with fallacies and failures. I agree. The question is not if media and technology is positive OR negative,  because it’s both. The question should be, is it more positive or more negative?

Do the positive aspects of technology and new media overpower the negative or do the negative overpower the positive?

We  have so much information at our disposal, but we many times do not use it how or as much as we should. However, I am a believer that technology has improved our lives for the better, but to a certain extent. That statement highly depends on how we use technology and how it affects the environment. We have come far with technology; the inventions are great and helpful, but human kind tends to never be satisfied. Our ambition (or greed) is probably one of the main contributions to why we have come so far, but we sometimes try to take things too far. We start trying to create and mess with things that should maybe not be messed with—It sometimes seems as if we are playing God on a planet that was not meant to have one.

With our creations of technologies and our ambition (or greed) to always have more, are we trying to play God?

 

Our responsibility is to try to make our use of technology and the media as positive as it can be, and if possible, the efforts of human kind should be in advancement toward cutting out the negative aspects of technology as much as we can, which we have done so already with some of our creations.

 

 

After class at 5:25pm, I was heading to Chipotle getting excited about the combination of chicken, salsa, corns, and guacamole. I was checking all the Chipotle chains around my college through Yelp app, today I chose the one at Union Square. Having a seat in there, I was looking at all posts in Instagram while crunching lettuce. Then I got a notification from Facebook that my friend tagged me on the brief video about the movie called “the King” which we saw last night. Then back to Instagram, my friend was on live taking all the videos of what she was having for dinner in K-town. Then my friend Chris texted me to see if I was still enjoying Chipotle. Of course, I took a picture of my lovely Chipotle to show him. I looked at all the photos and hit likes on my interests such as some models wearing nice outfits, and the mouthwatering food photos. After that, switched to Facebook and I started to hit likes on every interesting event going on in NYC, such as central park ice festival, rooftop party, cherry blossom festival, and quiet clubbing. Then I got a notification that someone requested to be a friend on my Instagram, but I didn’t accept right away because I know the guy was at my roommate’s birthday party but we hadn’t talked to each other so much at that night. I got an email from equinox saying they would like to inform me about the promotion that I requested. I had totally forgotten that I had signed up for information after seeing the promotion advertised on Facebook.

 

I realized how I am so addicted to digital media. I am constantly on social media whatever I do, except during the class when phones are prohibited. I chat, phone call, check emails, do Instagram and Facebook, and watch Korean drams through my IPad. These activities definitely occur only with the existence of digital media. I imagined what my life would look like if all the digital media are gone, then my life would be just reading books and maybe I will force myself to try to do some work out.

As stated in the reading, computerization makes the most of complex tasks into efficiency and reduces human errors. The development has also spread to domestic environment that women could use the time they had used in domestic tasks in the paid workforce. Since then, the acceleration of technological revolution finally gave a birth to “Internet” that led to globalization. People could communicate and share all the information and thoughts through digital media all around the world. As Castells mentioned, the interconnections so called “the nodes” in the network society are the real or the virtual places where information converge (Couldry 16).”

However, since the computerized society has arisen, those who are outside of the information age have to rapidly adapt to all of the pressures of mobility, and constantly shifting patterns of connectivity. Otherwise they would remain in social isolation and material destitution(Couldry 17). In addition to this, the first development of computational machines led to the development of military applications such as missiles and atomic bomb.

With that being said, the development of technologies improved human’s life in speed, convenience, and abundance of information; however, it also causes the maladaptation to society and the more developed but brutal military weapons.

 

1. What are the professions that will disappear in the future because of the development of these technologies? Or Are there any jobs that you miss that have already become obsolete or been replaced?

 

2. If you could develop one machine or technology, what would it be, and why?