reading Decolonizing The University by Marie Battiste made me reflect on the power of language and how it can be seen as a threat to manipulative takeover. when the Europeans first encountered the indigenous people, they realized the native people had a fully developed language. this was seen as a problem as it made it harder for the Europeans to convert the people to their thinking.  although the indigenous peoples language is less dominate, they could potentially catch on to the Europeans manipulative ways. this article proved to me that someone that is illiterate can be easily manipulated and sabotaged. the power of language translates to a power of freedom. one gains a differenti understanding of life and in this case the Europeans seen this

In this weeks post i will explain my reaction to the claim that technology is an extension of man. i believe this quote is intriguing because to me it seems as if the development of technology is equivalent to the development /evolution of man. written word can be seen as technology as it allowed humans to take their thoughts from their mind and put it on paper or stone for others to see. as humans progressed, technology advanced as well. the radio allowed voice to be transmitted across the country to large masses. this development helped spread live voices to hundreds of people which would typically reach a few amount of people. film allowed man to express their philosophy and imagination in a creative way to the masses. in my opinion this creation helped humans become more mindful and insightful to new ideas. thoughts that people wouldn’t typically have were expressed in film changing perceptions of different topics and concepts. in modern times our smartphones are seen as our daily tracker. our phones keep track of when we wake up(alarms), our schedule, important dates, connects us to those we need. to me smartphones show our social evolution. before phone, man had to manually write down important information, be mindful of our own schedule, and relationships. phones keep track of all of these things easily, making life in a way more convenient. on one hand we are more prepared for our daily lives. But, our reliance of phones to keep track of our affairs is making lazy.

for this weeks post i will talk about  “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin. in this article the author talks about authenticity and art. while reading this article, i began to recall all the museums and art shows i went too, wondering if all the pieces i seen were legit work or just copied. when we are told work is an original piece we rarely think it could be a phony or altered in any way. as i get older i begin to see that claims of authenticity are accepted by those who are naive to art. in my production class i begin to see how ones perception can be manipulated by editors to give viewers a set perspective. although it is presented as authentic, the alterations made to the work make it less than real. we are constantly surrounded by so called authentic work but without proper digging and inspecting of a pieces history, we must stay skeptical to its authenticity.

I went the weekend without a phone. I figured I’d do my blog post on that considering we discuss how technology is our life and the way we utilize it. Not having a phone was actually super refreshing. I didn’t feel like I needed to stay in contact with the world. Although It was also an inconvenience. my money from work was on an APP ! So not having a phone I couldn’t transfer money from the app to my bank account because the website doesn’t allow you to do that. Only through the app. I was broke during the weekend ! That’s the worst. When I was going to work, I needed to see what time the trains came, That was also an inconvenience because I was late to work due to train delays over the weekend. I also needed a map to get to a certain destination over the course of the weekend and because I didn’t have a phone in my hand, I had to figure out other ways to get to where I had to go. The worst part of all, I literally could’t listen to music. That made me the saddest.

 

That’s how my weekend went with out my phone.

I feel like my media log is kind of embarrassing because I didn’t know that I spent an average of basically 7 hours a day on my phone. Looking through the breakdown of all the data of my screen time I feel like it’s clear that I’m literally addicted to my phone. I spend the most time on my phone using Instagram. I actually don’t even post much on Instagram I literally just scroll, double tap, scroll, click on a profile, read the comments on a blog, the cycle repeats and I spend an average of 3 hours a day on Instagram doing  that. Also sometimes I hashtag things and follow profiles of websites I shop on. For example, besides scrolling and looking at comments or pictures, I hashtag things that I might want to buy to see better angles of it, people using it and stuff like that to help me make my final decision. The text messaging app I spent an average of almost 7 hours because I get text messages all day long and I got 644 messages last week. The Safari app I mostly use to look something up really quickly, sign on blackboard, online shopping and stuff like that. I actually used Safari more than usual because I’ve been scouting for Christmas presents early and trying to see if I can catch sales.  Even though I feel that my media log is ridiculous and to be using my phone so much is absurd, it does serve as a past time like if I’m bored, waiting on a train, riding in a car etc. It’s just so convenient that almost everything I feel that I need is in this one device and it keeps me occupied. The saddest part of this whole analysis is that even though I’m aware of how much I use my phone I probably won’t make a conscious effort to cut down.

This week i chose to read Marshall McLuhan “Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man” he talks about how technology makes it impossible for people to stay aloof. The idea that any invention or technology is an extension of human sensory organs and constitutes a new medium of interaction with the environment. I agree that technology is an extension of a human because of how we use it and make it apart of daily lives. We use technology to interact for us even if we are aloof in a way.

After reading “Is Google Making Us Stupid” by Nicholas Carr, I would have to agree with the topic of the article. To an extent yes it does as well as any form of technology. The creation of technology is to make our lives more efficient and putting less effort into everyday tasks. Such as spoon and fork, they may be simple in design and do not require electricity but they are still a form of tech. Google which is an online search engine formed in 1998 which is used to look up information online.

Google is commonly used throughout the day by millions of people to search up terms, people, addresses, songs, and much more info. Google is definitely useful during the modern times even I use it multiple times a day. But the problem is people rely on Google too much which takes the work out of looking up particular info. It is also shortening our attention span and our sense of patience. Because of the ease of access, Google has given its users, we expect info to come in a snap of a finger or however as fast your internet connection is. Technology does provide a ease of access to its user that’s why it was created but at a risk of making us more lazy and possible limiting our cognitive functions.

The article mentioned that because of Google people nowadays are less willing to read long articles or books. I agree with this statement, I do not read books often unless it is for class. Also, I have not read a book from back to front for entertainment since high school. I do feel insecure because it because I am a college student. I also know many students my age that does not read that often for entertainment.

For this week’s blog post, I am choosing to respond to “Missed Connections”. I enjoyed reading this article because it highlighted issues that I feel are important to speak about and bring attention to. The internet is beneficial and helpful in many ways, and with the same amount, extremely dangerous. The power of a search engine is magnificent and can educate many people on all sots of things. Unfourtatuntaley, the education isn’t so well placed and unfairly so. In this article we see how putting a woman of odor into a search engine to learn about culture, heritage, history etc, but instead of that coming up first and foremost, pornagrophy related sites and articles come up. The problem is, that the internet hows the ability and power to teach so much, and it is placed in such a terrible way. We need to do better. We need to improve the machines to us, before it overcomes, as with any device. We need to be so cautious with what we allow to be seen and how it affects us an future generations, and this article highlights one example. I took from this reading how crucial it is to be on top of ourselves with technology. To say it even better, the video we watched in class the other day, the subjegation to technology, screams exactly what I am trying to say.