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"A Day Without Technology" by Alexandra Haro Song: Last Stand by Jime Cide. https://soundcloud.com/jimecide/last-stand-only-one-2friendz. Licensed CC BY 3.0 ...
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Task 13: We are all Cyborgs
Technology has become a fundamental part of our daily lives. It is said that in nowadays world we are all attached to it and it is even creating us dependence to it. Technology was created to make our life easier or at least a bit less complicated than before. It has developed so many ways to please our necessities in every single subject or task. When talking about communication technologies, it is also said that they were meant to satisfy our communicative strategies and develop technological tools to fulfil them effectively. In this essay it is argued that the new technologies we have are improving our abilities to communicate as they are becoming part of our external body. It means that we cannot live without them. This situation may lead us to a technology-dependent future.
The digital world has brought with it different ways to keep the communication with the rest of people whenever and wherever they are. Social media is one of those. According to Boyd and Ellison (as cited in Papacharissi & Gibson, 2011, p. 76) it is said that social networks are abundant in many ways such as number, diverse and culture and it says that they far-reach the scope and traverse the global expanse. This leads us to wonder if it is possible to live without communication technologies. The answer is probably not. The technology changes and improves by the time. In the past, people used to write and send letters. Now we prefer using the e-mail which does the same for us in a considerable reduced time, and even better, instead of having a telegraph or telephone at home, we have a mobile one giving us the freedom to be everywhere and still maintaining connectivity with the world out there. “Our brains, more than those of any other animal on the planet, are primed to seek and consummate such intimal relations with non-biological resources that we end up as bright and as capable of abstract thought as we are” (Clark, 2003).
It is true that communication technologies’ popularity is affecting us in some different ways. Society has become less active than ever. We do not need to go buy a newspaper anymore because it has been replaced by the television or the news online. As a clear example of some communication technologies’ effects regarding to social media we see Facebook, one of the best and most popular social networks of all the time, which has brought us a different ways to not only communicate but socialize with people from all over the world. Sharing photos, videos and personal facebook status, chatting with people and commenting posts give us an inner feeling of having no space barrier between us.
It is more or less what happens with Foursquare, an application for mobiles and tables that makes us be in touch with our friends and makes us know where they are and what they are doing. While in the past that was not possible. Who needs to spend lots of money on international calls when we can install Skype for free in our phones, pcs or tablets. Now we all feel connected with the same hunger of knowing more about everyone. Instagram, another popular image-based social platform, makes us play with the visual and psychological part of our brains. It is like looking at the mirror, you see yourself but from another angle. All these social networks have become people’s best friends and almost part of their external bodies, especially when talking about young people or young and new generations.
However, from another point of view, some people believe that communication technologies do not need to make us feel dependent of them. We are all still humans as Case (2010) said the self-reflection in this issue is that machines are increasing the way we connect with each other regardless the time or geography. “Even in a networked world, the hunger for consumer goods and information is still taste-dependent and location remains a fairly reliable proxy for taste.” (Morozov, 2010). As it is said above, we are all dependent of technology for almost every single daily task. But it is argued that perhaps we still need that taste of reality. For example visiting someone instead of a call, a direct and face-to-face communication.
Morozov (2010) argues in his journal article that the internet looks like a well-created version of the real world. It is probably because society is looking for something similar to a real world atmosphere to satisfy their necessities. We all live in the age of telecommunications, and it leads us to have the access and manipulate the information we need without limits. It is true that we need physical contact with people, but it is also true that machines are getting to be part of us making that communication even better and stronger. “The mind is just less and less in the head” (Clark, 2003)
As a conclusion, the communication technologies are and will become an important part of ourselves; we will pay even more attention to them because in the future we will expect to have more demand on technological and communicative development. That is why we need to realize that those electronic devices are all part of us, and they are here to help us with our ability to communicate, express and get information from the world out there. We are all cyborgs. We may not need to have a robotic part embedded in our body, but we do have the power to choose the electronic devices to live with. It is and it has always been our choice to become cyborgs.
Reference List
Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morozov, E. (2010). The Internet. Foreign Policy, 179, pp 40
Papacharissi, Z. & Gibson, P. (2011). Fifteen minutes of privacy: privacy, sociality and publicity on social network sites. Springer, pp 75-89.
Case, A. (2010). We are all cyborgs now. Ted.com. https://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now#t-447004
Winter, J. (2014). Here’s Why Instagram Is Even More Depressing than Facebook. Slate Magazine. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/07/instagram_and_self_esteem_why_the_photo_s
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Task 11: Essay Topic
I decided to choose "We are all cyborgs". It's just interesting how technology has improved by the time, especially in the communication field. I wanted to do my investigation about the cause-effect line between the communication technologies and us.
Essay Topic: We are all cyborgs
New Communication Technology has become so embedded in our daily lives that it has now become part of our extended body and improved our ability to communicate.
With the ability to customize and edit our online Facebook profiles for the benefit of controlling the perceptions of ourselves and the perceptions we have on others, are we replacing real face-to-face communication with online communication while being only half ourselves, the selves we have customised our online selves to be? Can Facebook even facilitate healthy and satisfying social interactions or is Facebook truly the new era of communication? Has it improved our ability to communicate effectively? Or should we quit while we're ahead? I chose this essay topic to answer these questions for a more sound understanding of online communication.
Activism or Slacktivism?
In this day of age, activism is getting rarer. Although campaigns, ideologies and problems can come to the attention of the world much quicker than it has in the past, people tend to believe that raising awareness is taking an active part in the solution of said problems. While liking and sharing content can in fact raise awareness, it does not constitute as activism, it is instead known as "Slacktivism". This essay will focus on the infamous Kony 2012 and the more recent ALS Ice bucket challenge, and how, although they can raise global awareness, this form of "activism" rarely results in the solution to the problem, with most campaigns fading out of the public eye over time.
"Activism: The doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means ofachieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc." (Dictionary.com, 2014). This is the definition of activism, note the use of the words vigorous action or involvement. Being an activist involves being passionately engaged with the subject matter, going out of the way to raise awareness and do whatever it takes to fix the problem or obtain the legal rights, for example there are many gay rights activists in taking a risk by going out into the streets to join rallies and protests so that governments around the world introduce the right for citizens of the same gender to marry. Slacktivism: Actions performed via the Internet in support of a political or social cause but regarded as requiring little time or involvement. "Slacktivism is not activism. While slacktivism may raise the awareness of a topic to the public, it doesn't do much else." (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2014). Slacktivism is defined by how little effort it takes from the "slacktivist" in question. Liking, commenting, and sharing videos or statuses on social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr without donating to the cause and/or physically attending a protest or rally, cannot be called effective activism.
The most notable online campaign is the notorious Kony 2012, a perfect example of slacktivism. Kony 2012's video campaign is the most viral video ever (Gregory, 2012). The video was made by "Invisible Children Inc." and outlined the "secret war" that was happening in east and central Africa by "The Lord's Resistance Army" a.k.a LRA (Invisible Children, 2014). The video outlines what the LRA has been doing for the past 30 years and uses the story of a young boy named Jacob. Kony 2012 tugs at the heartstrings and begs for the support of the American people to help spread the word, which it eventually did, seemingly overnight the video became some more than a phenomenon, as of this day, the video has just under one billion views, sitting at around 99,705,903 views. While this campaign raised a staggering amount of awareness of the LRA and its warlord leader; Joseph Kony, it didn't hold up. By the end of 2012 almost everybody had forgotten about the campaign, leading many to believe that those who shared the campaign did it because so many others did, to a large majority the campaign lost most of its meaning just as fast as it gained it. Did we ever catch Kony?
More recent examples of online campaigns haven't quite had the same success as Kony 2012 did, however they did raise awareness for the causes they stood for. The most recent viral awareness raiser is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, where a person pours a bucket of ice cold water over themselves. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord (Alsa.org, 2014). This means that eventually the motor neurons, that give the brain the ability to control muscle movement, die leaving long term sufferers ultimately paralyzed. The Ice Bucket Challenge (IBC) was introduced sometime during 2014 and has become a popular way of raising awareness, even celebrities have recorded their IBC and pledged large quantities of money to ALS research. While this may seem like activism as these people are doing something for this cause, it's still not quite legitimate activism. While celebrities are doing the "challenge", nominating other celebrities and donating money, most people doing this are opting to pour the freezing cold water over themselves rather than pledging money to the cause. This choice makes the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge nothing more than next level slacktivism, where instead of being active towards the cause and donating towards research. Some people nominate who they want to do the ICB and give them a timeframe to complete the challenge, and if this requirement is not met, they must donate, effectively making this a race against time to avoid having to donate. While pouring a bucket of ice over oneself can be taken as a course of action, it does not help ALS researchers in finding a cure for the rare disease.
In conclusion, online activism can fairly effectively increase the awareness of campaigns and causes, however, whether or not action is taken is up to the individual, linking, commenting on and sharing ALS Ice Bucket challenge videos, using the Hashtag Bringbackourgirls, taking "selfies" with no makeup on or changing your Facebook profile picture to a pink equal sign cannot be activism. Activism requires the "Vigorous action" of an individual towards a particular cause. These examples showcase the definition of slacktivism, little effort put into the actions of these "Slacktivist". In short, if the people of today feel as though sharing a status about a rare or deadly illness, pouring ice over themselves or liking a video about a "secret war" in another country, then everyone has become a Slacktivist...
Task 9: KONY 2012
Kony 2012 started as a short film produced by Invisible Children Inc. to catch the attention of the world to stop the leader of the LRA Joseph Kony, a man who is guilty of murders, abductions, sexual slavery and more crimes against children in Uganda, Africa. The purpose of this campaign is to let the world know who Joseph Kony is and what he does with the kids.
In the video we can see the story of Jacob, a boy who was rescued from the government of Kony and taken to be part of the movement to let people realize what is happening in the other part of the world. The purpose was to catch him and arrest him and finally take justice for all the pain he caused.
I think this campaign was a successful one because it could reach all the attention from a big amount of people in different countries all around the world. The movement of this charity campaign counted with posters on the streets, meetings, events, t-shirts, Facebook pages, Twitter hashtags and so on.
I find it interesting how they could reach so much popularity just using social media, posting a video on Youtube and sharing it online they reached around 99 million views and a lot of support from the audience.
Invisible Children, (2014). Invisible Children.
Retrieved from: http://invisiblechildren.com/
CHECK VIDEO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc
Task 8
This survey was such a useful tool to get to know what people really think about social media. We all know that society can’t live without having a public life, that’s why we understand the main purpose of social media. It’s not all about entertainment, as we could have thought, it’s more about finding a way of communicating. 80% of people seem to find it as useful communication tool when they are using their social networks while 20% of the people answered that entertainment was the main use of social networks. None of them answered that social media was for self-development as my target was quite limited.
The favourite social network in my survey was Facebook with 100%, while Twitter and Instagram did not receive any credits.
Talking about how effective social media is as a communication tool, it is shown that 70% of my public use social media between 3 to 7 hours per day. While just 20% of them use internet from 0 to 2 hours and from 8 to more hours a day.
To take in charge, it seems to be close enough what social media means to the society. Communication is a big factor in our lives and it is even better when we can find different ways of communicating.
