I feel like an old guy now (and my students say that 41 is old), as I am more thoughtful of which technologies I will adopt and incorporate in my life. I wonder if it's due to Kevin Kelly and his insistence on the nearly autonomous state, and possibly ominous tone of a 'technocratic' life. I know that I have modified the usage of Technocratic, but in some instances we are fully reliant on technological tools (most specifically electronic ones) and many of our systems would fail with the failure of one or more of these tools.
In my class discussion, I was forced to think about the technological tools which I CHOOSE to use and those I MUST use for the completion of my work, for pleasure, for survival and so on. I benefited greatly by recognizing how reliant I am on the technological tools in my life, but it also gave me a clearer view of what I could do without or do with less of.
It also made me recognize that I am not fully invested in the technology that is available to me. A simple case in point is this blog. It is difficult for me to 'blog' (and I am bothered to even use the term as a verb -- it removes my precious verb "write" -- I don't physically place myself in front of the computer very often, so should I try a different method? Would I be more willing to 'blog' if I didn't need to sit down? If I didn't need to be alone when I was writing? If it were more directly a social action for me?
Likewise, I think that I have failed to take full advantage of the vast amount of information available to me. I can quickly find reliable information on nearly any topic I wish. Millions of others are posting blogs, news articles, songs, videos and other packets of information each minute and I could access them if I needed.
My reluctance here is the question of the filter. No matter the method I use to search for that information on the network, I must rely on some application or service to deliver that information to me. Just as with television news, I only see what is delivered to my screen. While that may sound bad, it is not as I would be inundated, or more likely overwhelmed, with the articles and web pages containing information. Without a search engine, I could not even find the sites containing the information I need, let alone weed out the irrelevant sites.
While Google and Google Reader are effective tools, am I becoming too reliant on them as they feed me never-ending streams of data, snippets and information? Am I even able to keep up with the readings since I spend so little time in front of the computer each day?
Wait...I think that I just gave Google applications a sense of political power. I am reliant on its search parameters to deliver relevant material while filtering irrelevant material from my steam of information. I have no understanding of the coding and algorithms used to make this work, yet I am satisfied that Google has done what is best for me. (Interesting ... with all my use of Google, I still HATE to call the process of an online inquiry into a topic "Google-ing it."
ReplyDeleteBy the way....I tried a different method to write my previous blog. I wrote it last night on the laptop in MS Word and then pasted it over this afternoon since I was away from a Wi-Fi access point....not sure how much I liked that....