After deciding to read “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr, I completely agree with what he is saying. Smartphones and social media has made it incredibly difficult to focus on actual print because we have the connectivity to instant news sites and update interactions with our friends and family. I’m a person who’s always on social media, I find myself paying attention for a short amount of time before I attempt to take a glance at my phone. Carr says “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” This quote sticks out to me because it can relate to society as a whole. Older civilizations had to be more proficient in their words because that was the only possible way to communicate. As society and technology progressed alike, various communications progressed. That progression lead to more advanced ways to communicate, ultimately making us more lazy.
Anthony Sierra Week #7 Blog Post
Computer Lib, written by Theodor Nelson, accurately highlights the importance of understanding how important computers truly are to society. Nelson offers his own perspective, acknowledges that we need to become more knowledgeable of how a computer actually works. On page 304, Nelson states “Knowledge is power and so it tends to be hoarded.” This quote stands out to me because it highlights how knowledge is valuable in society. People could become marginalized between each other. Those who posses the most knowledge could heavily control what is being displayed on the computers, that would ultimately lead to future generations being born with manipulated computer competency.
Anthony Sierra Week #4 Blog Post
For this week I decided to reflect on James Carey’s “Communication as Culture.” Throughout this reading one quote in particular stood out with me, and that quote is ”Models of communication are, then, not merely representations of communication: templates that guide, unavailing or not, concrete processes of human interaction, mass and interpersonal” (Carey, 25). The reason why this quote resonates with me because we need to understand the different channels of communication. These channels could be different relationships between people, as well as art and science.
Anthony Sierra Week #3 Blog Post
I chose to reflect on Marie Battiste’s “Print Culture and Decolonizing the University: Indigenizing the page: Part 1”. What stood out to me throughout this reading was how indigenous people of the Americas had already created their own of of communication and language such as symbols that had more than one meaning. Much to my prior knowledge, European settlers came to the Americas and destroyed all the ways Native Americans communicated with each other and implemented their own system. These Native Americans were forced into a religion and forced into a new way of living. After reading this, this made me take a step back and ask myself, were would society be today if these Native Americans were able to continue their own ways of communication, instead of being conquered by the Europeans.
Anthony Sierra Week #1 Blog Post
For this week’s blog I chose to reflect on Italo Calvino’s Cybernetics and Ghosts. There was one post that truly caught my eye, and that’s when Italo Calvino states, “The immobile world that surrounded tribal man, strewn with signs of the fleeting correspondences between words and things, came to life in the voice of the storyteller, spun out into the flow of a spoken narrative within which each word acquired new values and transmitted them to the ideas and images they defined” (page. 5). This quote vividly stands out to me because society attributes different meanings to one word. For example, we inner city New Yorkers may have different slang terminology than another region in the country. Words and phrases have multiple meanings and the difference could create a barrier when trying to communicate.
Week 2 TingFung Chu- Orality and Literacy
For week 2, I choose the Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong. This article reminds the moment on the first day of the course. We discussed the meaning of Orality and literacy. Why we had to write something down? Why did we need to record something about our life to let people know? According to Walter Ong description that Orality is the culture reflects on the nature of sound itself as sound. All sensation takes place in time, but the sound has a special relationship to time unlike that of the other field that registers in human sensation. In particular, oral culture is the restriction of words to sound to determines not the only mode of expression but also though process. Thus, we speak is because we send our own message to the other to express ourselves. However, sometimes if we speak something that is no meaningful word, that might make confused to the other people. I personally think we should speak out the word depending on the appropriate moment.
Week 9 TingFung- “What is Visualization”
Week 9 TingFung- “What is Visualization by Manovich Lev
We enjoy seeing the new things that open our vision, expanding the perspective to the society or the world, just as when we see the bright color, we are naturally attracted by that color because our basic instinct sends the message to us that is somehow beautiful for us, so we want to keep looking at it. This is to make something visualized. Also, visualization is a way of communication that beneficial for us to analyzing and interpreting in different aspects. According to the journal “What is Visualization” by Manovich Lev, he explains the visualizations is the signature method as a fundamental level for research, studies, and exhibition practicing in various disciplines. “Direct visualizations method will be particularly important for humanities, media studies and cultural institutions which now are just beginning to discoverer the use of visualization, but which eventually may adopt it as a basic tool for research, teaching, and exhibition of cultural artifacts. Humanists always focused on analyzing and interpreting details of the cultural texts, be they poems, paintings, music compositions, architecture, or, more recently, computer games, generative artworks, and interactive environments. This is one of the key differences between humanities and sciences – at least, as they were practiced until now.”. As Manovich mentions, analyzing in detail is helpful to people work different arena, either in art or sciences is important for us to real thins carefully. Therefore, I gather the different cities in a website want to display the photo to inspire people perspective.
Manovich, Lev. “What Is Visualization?” Paj:The Journal of the Initiative for Digital Humanities, Media, and Culture, vol. 2, no. 1, Dec. 2010. journals.tdl.org, https://journals.tdl.org/paj/index.php/paj/article/view/19.
Week 7 TingFung Chu- The Coming of the Microcomputer
Week 7 The Coming of the Microcomputer by Brian Winston
What was the first time you use the computer? And how did you feel about it? I remember when the first time I used the computer was like 6 years old, that was the old model with the big and heavy computer monitor. I love to play the flash game which was slow, the internet speed was not going fast. That’s is the memory of first-time using the computer. In the chapter the coming of the microcomputer by Brian Winston, he talks about the early computed model had been used in the military service at the 1950s. The original computer model was modified from the telegraph. To be precise, the concept of the computer is the same as the telegraph.
“It is how they invented the new computer”
Week 11 TingFung Chu I’m an Addict” and Other Sensemaking Devices
Katrin Tiidenberg, “I’m an Addict” and Other Sensemaking Devices
For week 11, I chose “I’m an Addict” and Other sensemaking Devices. Based on the topic we already know that it is talking about how young people rely on social media nowadays. In the article, they explore young people’s social media experiences and how social media make them feel. The research also mentions the focus on the language and opinion on social media. In my opinion, in the current age, technology is the essence of daily life. We watch the news through the i-phone, we chat with friends via Facebook, snapchat, or Instagram. We upload everything that what we are doing in these media, to let people give a like to us in order we are being like. I have realized that I am kind of using social media too much. I keep checking my Instagram to see my friends post every 2-3 minutes, especially when I have work or homework to do, I am easily getting distracted by it. In order to let me focus whenever I have the stuff to do, I delete the Instagram to let me concentrate. It seems a little bit working without it. While I finish the work, I redownload it and keep checking again. Based on my experience, I think we should try to reduce it to using the i phone if it is not necessary. And I think people suppose to talk to each other when hanging out. We suppose to speak or say something to the people, not just looking at the i-phone.
week 10 TingFung Chu Medium is the Massage
For week 10, I chose Medium is the Massage By Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan thinks that technologies are showing the messages itself but not the abstract of communication. In general, we can say that “the medium is the message” is showing in the creative performance in media. The word “Massage,” shows that audiences should feel relaxable, enjoyable from nowadays media. However, McLuhan thinks that the relationship between society and technology are not equal, it will also maintain the age of anxiety. Media is affecting how audiences feel about this world and their point of view — all these changes brought by movies, television, radio.
