With the amount of freedom that we have from the second we open our laptops the adventures become limitless when the internet takes control. My one hour of online surfing turned into a hour and half of online surfing. Next thing you know that hour and half turned into two hours of online surfing before realizing I had an assignment to work on and that I had more tabs open then my Mac can handle. From browsing on various social media networks, jumping from different websites as I was “online window shopping,” to getting reeled in by the latest Trump headline… I noticed one thing in particular. I was getting nothing done.
With every click that I was making I constantly would be introduced to new information to the point where I would subconsciously forget about something that I read earlier in my online browsing. Now do not get me wrong, I am all in for a digital revolution and finding new ways to better the digital landscape. But everything that I was doing I could have done in the pre-digital era and be more productive for that matter. For example, I was scrolling through a travel Instagram page and as I was looking at some of the remarkable photos it gave me a temporary feel good feeling of that one day I can visit all of these places. But soon after I was done looking at the page I was on to the next site and that feel good feeling was distracted by whatever I was looking at next. I believe in the pre-digital era you would have a better chance of physically taking steps in your life to one day reach that dream travel destination and have less of a distraction following you. As opposed to falling into the temptations of Instagram and briefly living “that moment” through someone else’s pictures.
Grabbing hold and taking action in life is the only way to get from your point A to your point B. I believe there are activities that have changed in our digital age and that is simply to physically be active! You have to learn and adapt to your digital resources and expect what the tradeoffs are from being online and actually taking advantage of what the world has to offer.
Computerization can improve human activity tremendously. Computerization allows the automation of things like factories for example to operate self sufficiently through the help of robots. Cutting costs of labor, speeding up efficiency, and being able to manage your warehouse appropriately to the current environment that your company is in. As for digitization you can look above at my Instagram experience. Digitization was the start of this social media giant condensing millions of photos into one social app. Giving people the ultimate freedom of browsing and eventually finding themselves in situations like myself. (Because I am not the only one).
Athique explains that computerization leads to what he calls ‘collaborative competition.’ “The information society describes the push towards computerized automation and the network society grapples with its consequences.” (Source: Athique; Digital Media and Society: pg. 17) What Anthique is saying from this is that as each society advances in technology there is always going to be the trait of feeling to need more and the need to be the best. This of course brings the good and the bad to the table. The good being the technological revolutionary advances we discover along the way and the bad being the consequences shown from sometimes rushing or over looking the process of computerization and digitization. A good example of this is the Space Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
According to Couldry “Many commentators in the academy and industry believe that whole sectors of public and professional life are being radically transformed by the information revolution.” (Couldry; Digital Media and Social Theory; Pg. 10) Based off his readings Couldry suggests that digital media revolution brings both positives and negatives to society. You can see the positive from the evolution of the print industry allowing multiple works to be printed and available to many individual readers. Along with the start of the negative with the rapid expansion of tv media in the middle east and the government applying censorship to the growing market.
Questions to ask: What can you do to be active? How can we better predict the consequences that are to follow with digital revolution?
I agree with you blog post since I can relate to that “feel-good” feeling you talked about in your post. I have personally felt inspired when i am looking at a photo on the internet to do things that I haven’t thought of doing before, however that suddenly vanishes 2 seconds later after I switch tabs and find out that Levi’s is having a 30% sale on all their items. You bring up in interesting point in comparing productivity in pre-digital and current-digital eras. I think productivity is an issue that can be tackled by many people by taking a step back and thinking about the proper ways that one can use this digital environment to better both themselves and their situations.
It’s amazing the affect of the Internet has over us. Like you said, we have a specific intention for going on to the Internet but we often find ourselves spending hours roaming from one website and topic of interest to the next until we realize how much time has passed since you’ve been in a “browsing coma.” I’ve recently spent an hour of my time initially going online to complete this homework assignment when I found myself wondering off to the other tabs I have open; once this process stops, there’s no controlling myself unfortunately. In the end, the Internet is our addiction and we’re only becoming more and more addicted as the technologies and computerization changes.