Throughout this course we have looked at
how different elements of imaginaries and materiality’s connect with one and
other. These in turn create a set of competencies and affordances largely
enabled by new technologies. These technologies then create a new set of social
circumstances in which we live. An interesting aspect of our information
capitalism is the reliance on the dissemination of knowledge, through
technology. Many communications
theorists believe that with these technologies enabling our life, our reliance
may cause us to lose certain capabilities that were held before technology
worked for us.
I came across this really interesting
article on CTV News about digital “amnesia”. This article described how
technology could actually be eroding our memory due to our reliance on it to
give us information instead of relying on our own memory and recall system.
Digital devices and the Internet are affecting the way we recall information.
The article reminded me of various topics
discussed throughout the semester about our shift to information capital and cognitive
capitalism where the very face of our world has changed due to our
technological advances. With these advances there are of course going to be
changes in the way we as human’s function. Of course many of us think that its
positive for use to rely on technology to store information as using a device
to store certain information that’s not critical gives us space to store more pertinent
information.
When you want to know how to cook
something, gone are the days of memory recall, and here is the time of Googling.
Do you think we rely too much on our technologies for information?
I think that this is exactly what technologies should be used for - providing information at all times. I don't feel that this is a negative. I think that the negative areas of technology are the social aspects such as the addictiveness of social media and the effects technologies have on our relationships. However, I feel that easily accessible information is the main positive behind technologies and mobile devices.
ReplyDeleteI think it may make our memory for certain things less active, but engaging in media usage, creating content, and memorizing how to utilize a variety of mediums is irreplaceable. The internet offers us a wide range of subjects we never had before. Sure, maybe we do not know how to cook banana bread, but I would trade that knowledge for the access to thousands of scholarly journals and information on the global news. Before the internet we relied on television, radio and newspaper for news about world events. Now we have instant access to what is happening world wide. I think society and the media particularly likes creating moral panic around new innovations because of fear or their interests in preserving their companies which do not align with the interests of our generations.
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