Wrapping it all up

The blog project has been interesting for me, alternately not terribly difficult (I did blog professionally for nearly two years, so blogging wasn't an entirely new thing for me), but a challenge in making a connection to both the textbooks and culture in general. At times, I have felt a little vexed by the Postman text which is a little strange, since I really enjoyed one of his other books, Amusing Ourselves To Death. Postman's general thesis is strong, in that we need to remember that technology isn't entirely positive or even simply neutral, but on some occasions, he seems stuck on his paradigm unwilling to accept technology's positive ends. That made making a connection from his ideas to, for example, the week four project of sending an email to one friend and a letter to another, somewhat difficult. Postman was certainly a very bright and influential man, but to some extent, I think Technopoly might be wistful for a day that has already past us by - one where technology could be thwarted in its domination of our society.

The Wood and Smith book was vexing in a different way. It might be my own narrow experience with the internet, but it seemed their text was already outdated. Wood and Smith spend quite a bit of time in their text discussion MUDs, but not as much time discussing Twitter, for example. It seems like any textbook discussing the internet that actually gets to print is going to be already outdated, which is sort of unfortunate. I like actually having a book in my hand, but it seems like when my son is in college (or quite a bit sooner), textbooks will all be on a Kindle, updated daily with new content. There were definitely moments in this class when I was stuck in the midst of several paragraphs about an aspect of technology no one is particularly concerned about anymore that I wished the text was more up to date.

The assignments themselves were fine, although I felt a bit corny on occasion sending a letter to someone or doing the interviews. Still, that wasn't too much trouble. The only assignment I would have preferred to not do entirely would have been the initial abstinence assignment. While I understood the point (how can you realize the depth of technology's influence while still in the midst of it?), at this point and time, it seems like our lives are too connected to extricate ourselves without a significant amount of disruption. I had to take a day off from work, which isn't really anyone's problem but my own, but the assignment actually cost me a smallish amount of money, which was unpleasant.

Otherwise, the class was fun and interesting, but I think new texts might be beneficial, or even, to make the cost of taking the class itself somewhat more affordable, to eliminate specific texts entirely. I would think, and this might be unmerited arrogance, that blogs, magazine articles and newspaper articles all available for free online could take the place of the textbooks. I would imagine that would be a difficult process to assemble an adequate replacement for the textbooks, so that's a problem, but I think that would be the best way to improve the class, if feasible.

Something Completely Different

For some reason, I spent thirty minutes staring at the screen trying to think of what to post here. Not for lack of material, but the opposite. I spend nearly every moment that I'm awake on the internet in one form or another these days, so thinking of a specifically interesting moment that would reflect culturally in some profound manner or that I could connect to the texts this week (especially Postman, who seemed off his rocker a bit in chapters 9 & 10) was a real challenge. The internet is my culture at this point. I spend for more time communicating through Facebook or Google Talk than I do face-to-face. I'm working on a book with people I've never actually met. The person who signs my paycheck and I have met once, for about ten minutes. In a way, thinking about cyberculture issues makes me think of an old joke: Two fish are swimming along when another older fish swims up. The older fish cheerily comments, "The water sure is nice today!", and swims away. One of the original fish looks at the other and says "What's water?"

Partially, that's what makes commenting on cyberspace culture so difficult. Postman is right in one sense on his comments about the social sciences: we're not blessed with the definitives of chemistry or geology, where there are specific laws of motion and matter that govern results, making them reproducible. With cyberspace, there's no particular definition of the playing field, either, as the internet is really an amorphous space changing based on perspective and time. Wood and Smith's book has been frustrating at times because it reflects an internet set in a particular place in time by the restraints of publishing. Should someone even bother to write a physical book about the internet? Shouldn't they just publish an online document that can change by the day? Would a crowd-sourced wiki better reflect the realities of online communication and research?

So, what experience to talk about? I thought one of the most uniquely "online" experiences I had during the quarter was that in this blog last week, I was going through the comments for my previous post realizing there was a comment from a friend of mine from my earliest days on the internet, back in the days when email groups were on the cutting edge of technology. We used to exchange email personally and via the group nearly every day for several years, but lost touch when families and professions started to get in the way. Somehow (he didn't even know how exactly), he stumbled upon this blog and made an effort to re-connect. We exchanged emails this week, catching up on each others lives, and hopefully, we won't let years go by without communicating. Still, he's not someone I've ever met in person, but we know each other well enough to be happy to be in touch with each other again. This seems like a situation unique to the internet age, to me. Sure, I imagine there were penpals who probably reconnected via postcards once or twice, but the nature of networks of information where people have multiple, separate connection points is something new, complicated, and worthy of academic investigation in a class such as this.

The interviews

The process of interviewing three people for this exercise was interesting, although it seemed like the responses were largely what I would have expected based on their age group and the length of time and extent of exposure they have had with the internet. First, I talked to my friend, Jed, who is 33 and works as a network administrator. Understandably, based on his job, he spends nearly all of his waking hours connected to the internet in one manner or another. In fact, our conversation was conducted via the chat mechanism on Facebook. Jed mentioned having trouble recalling life without the internet, since he was first exposed to networked life in high school. Since then, nearly all of his communication, from work interactions to those with friends, family, and even his girlfriend seems to pass via the internet. Still, Jed was unsure if technology has overall been a positive thing in his life. Similar to Neil Postman's concepts in Technopoly, Jed perceives the internet to be a movement, working in both positive and negative ways. In fact, Jed was getting ready to take a vacation the next day, and expressed his wish to leave behind his phone and laptop, but the nature of his work wouldn't allow him to do so.

[Specific to the readings this week, I talked to Jed about the idea of employers spying on the internet use of their employees. Jed mentioned that his current employer is very concerned with where their employees travel on the information superhighway, and that a regular topic in employee performance reviews is history logs from web browsers. Jed felt the unease that his employer could be using the internet to look for his replacement on a job site, while he could be fired for looking for a new place to work on his lunch break. In fact, someone he works with was reprimanded recently for looking at Craigslist on his iPhone during a paid break using the company's secured wifi. Jed on several occasions used the term "Big Brother" to describe the extent that a panopticon has been established at his workplace.]

Next, I talked to my mother-in-law, who is 55. While she is intrigued by the internet and sees it as a gateway to a world of possibilities, she is still uneasy in navigating the internet as a whole, knowing what is trustworthy and how to find exactly what she's looking for. However, to her credit, for someone who didn't have a computer until a few years ago, she found her current job via an internet jobs site and uses email like a pro. She said she primarily uses the internet to accomplish specific tasks, such as her recent job search and her current quest to find a new apartment. She doesn't find much use for the internet casually, although she mentioned wanting to spend more time "looking around and exploring". She said that she wasn't entirely sure how technology has changed the way she lives, although she recognizes how different things are as time goes on. She is envious of those who use the internet with ease, and feels that it's a little late for her to catch up.

Finally, I talked to a woman at my mother-in-law's work (a retirement community), who is 75. I was somewhat surprised by her level of interaction on the internet. She said her primary use of the internet was to keep in touch with her children and grandchildren, although she also uses the internet to keep up with her finances also. She feels fortunate that she lives in an era when she can communicate instantly through Skype, Facebook and email to keep in touch with her family across the country and the world. She still refuses to spend money on the internet, fearing her credit card will be stolen, and is uneasy about privacy issues, but overall, she feels that technology has been a positive influence in her advanced age.

I wonder how these results will differ in five years, ten or twenty.

Joining Up

This exercise was a little strange for me in that I've seemingly joined whatever Internet communities I would be interested in already. When I first started using e-mail extensively in 1994, one of the first ways I began connecting to people on line was through listservs, mostly connected to music groups. Over time, I join, left, and rejoined a seemingly endless number of groups on the Internet, chat rooms I was a regular of or message boards I spent far too much time caring about. These days, I try to avoid as many of these gathering places as possible, mostly just because I'm far more protective of my time these days. I exchange emails with people from back in the day when I was a part of those groups, and I'm connected to a number of Facebook groups that I have varying levels of interaction with, but I was reluctant to get into another interactive fray.

Still, since it's an assignment, I had to do it, so I signed up for a writing group listserv here in Tucson. I thought since I'm working on a book and working on a degree connected to writing, that seems like the most appropriate group to join. The process was simple after finding the group on Yahoo!, send in an email and wait for the administrator to approve my status. Once I received my confirmation via email, I wrote in with an introductory email describing myself a bit. The next day there were a few replies from people welcoming to the group, which was not terribly surprising, and a few people asked follow up questions. Afterwards, I participated in the group's discussions when I had something to contribute. I don't think I'm going to stick around in the group now that I'm no longer obligated to do so (nor did I choose to get in on the in-person meetups the group had), but overall I was welcomed and appreciated (as best as I could tell). Remarkably, there weren't really any disagreements during my time in the group, although the generally genial nature of the people I “met” would lead me to believe that this particular group didn't have too much drama. The interaction was relatively valuable, and I could see where some people might find value in being part of a community of people near them with similar interests and concerns.

What did my time in the group teach me about culture? Not all that much, I suppose. I was trying to think of what Neil Postman would think of the fact that I would join a group of people all within twenty miles of my own home, and with his generally dismal outlook on online interactions, I think he would have found the idea upsetting. Instead of being involved in people's lives intimately through a person-to-person social club or group, I chose (well, chose to because of a class) to interact sporadically on my own schedule, with the ability to check in and out at any time. While there are certainly disadvantages to internet-only interaction, these sorts of groups are (for better or worse) perfect for our overly-busy American culture. While the post-war generation had their social clubs, bowling leagues, etc, time constraints and the end of the simple 9-5 workday have taken away those opportunities. Instead, internet communities offer an opportunity to connect to others with similar interests without sacrificing exceptional amounts of time.

Email vs. The Mail

Oddly, it took me a little while to think of two people to write to. I feel like my days of having “heroes” has diminished somewhat over time, especially after the era of knowing so much about celebrities and other notable people in the internet age. I certainly admire a number of people, but it took some thought to process who I would have something significant to say to. After far too much time sitting on the couch trying to think of someone interesting to write to, I realized I was missing the point a little bit. The people who have been most influential in my life are the ones right around the corner from me...not those who live in the distance, but those who have been there to provide guidance when I needed it.

So, having thought that out, I mailed one of my mentors and emailed the other. I don't know if I'm wise enough to recognize why, but the content and style of the letter and the email were similar, although the letter was a bit shorter, probably because actually using a pen and paper is a little more tiring of an exercise these days. My writing style is almost exclusively tied to the email and web mediums, so while I probably wrote differently back when the postal mail was largely how I communicated (although that was back in high school, so my style has changed a lot since then, for certain), now when I am writing something out, it's likely to resemble how I email and not the reverse.

While the link between this assignment and what I learned from the reading might be a little tenuous (probably my fault), I found it interesting that the people I chose were people I met “in real life”, and not among the hundreds of people I have been introduced to through the internet. I wonder if there's something to be said about the nature of the relationships I've made via the “real world” and the “internet”, but I think it might instead be a matter of age and era. The people I thought of as being most influential to me were older people who adapted to the internet age instead of being formed by the Web. Also, these were people I met prior to college, when I began to embrace the internet more fully. For me, I've never found that sort of therapeutic relationship the chapter mentions online. Instead, those relationships are generally more tied to face to face interaction.

Anyhow, to the responses. The email I sent out was responded to nearly immediately via email, as that person sits in front of a computer all day for work and carries a Blackberry away from work. The letter I sent out obviously had a longer response time, but instead of receiving a letter in return, he called, somewhat concerned and confused by the fact that I had sent him a letter instead of more efficient forms of communication. He chose to return my correspondence by phone, deciding not to email because of his concern. In the end, I realize that the postal letter might be good for legal notices or bills, but it's not the most personal form of communication any longer.

Facebook Ruling The Nation

While there isn't any college class that could convince me to sign up for a Myspace page (and thankfully, it seems the era of Myspace seems largely to be over, sending most people's obnoxious blinking page with music pouring out whether I like it or not over to the junk heap with their Friendster login), I do already have a Facebook page, which I enjoy using, so I'd much rather talk about that.

While I didn't want to sign up for a Facebook page about a year ago (the whole idea of social networking was a little disconcerting to me), it didn't take long for the appeal to sink in after my employer compelled me to sign up. Immediately, I was able to connect to friends I hadn't seen in years, was able to organize events with friends in town quickly, and had an 24/7 outlet to waste time and generally avoid both school and work duties. Although Facebook was simple enough when I signed up, there's even more to distract every day, with an invitation to some new game or group or something in my face every time I sign in. Still, Facebook is largely how I interact with my friends and many of my co-workers, since they're scattered through the country. Facebook is where I learrn about new pregnancies, see pictures of the resulting children, share bargains, organize my soccer team, make plans, etc. It all seems to come together through the one site and the fact that I can reach Facebook through my phone only serves to centralize my online attention further. Much to my wife's chagrin, Facebook is always there, but for me, it's an effective form of communication with convenience on its side.

Now, the question is: how do I present myself on Facebook? While I suppose it could be argued (possibly by a French philosopher) that how we present ourselves is always with a bit of illusion, the person I am on Facebook is largely the same as the way I present myself in real life. If I had managed my friends list somewhat differently, maybe I could have pulled off a grand illusion in which I was a East Coast socialite who vacations in Europe every year, but considering I'm “friends” with my boss, my wife, my best friends, and people who have known me pre-Facebook for a decade or so, there's not much illusion to be had. Who could I possibly fool? It's just not really an option.

I can see where there's a benefit in the internet offering an opportunity for people to try on new personae and consider altering their personality for different situations, but to be frank, at thirty three years old, I feel like it's a little too late for me on that front, as for better or worse, I've settled into a personality that I seem to be stuck with. For me, Facebook is more of an opportunity to enjoy the life I have, the friends I'm fortunate to know, share information, and interact in strange ways with the world around me. That seems to be enough, without having to fashion a mask of some sort.

Week 2 - The Wit and Wisdom of Brad Paisley

First of all, I would have liked to embed the topic of discussion, the Brad Paisley video "Online", on this page, but the parent company of his label BMG doesn't allow embedding of their YouTube videos. This was a source of endless frustration to me during my music blogging days, considering one would imagine the point of putting the video online would be to expose the song and artist as widely as possible, but that doesn't seem to be the plan over at BMG. Well played, giant clueless conglomerate!

Back to the main topic at hand, the video, which can be seen here (if you're interested), approaches humorously a phenomenon that nearly anyone who has had any experience with the Internet is familar with. Long story short: someone on the Internet isn't who they say they are. I'd have to imagine this isn't an entirely new phenomenon (I'm sure there were pen pals out there who engaged in exaggeration, or maybe even telegraphs from hot nineteen year old blondes to lonely gold miners), and for certain the art of the hoax goes back at least as far as Jacob holding wool over his arm to trick his father into delivering the familial blessing to the wrong son, but the hypereality of the Internet does allow for the creation of alternate personae to a much greater extent. While in the Paisley video this is played for laughs (the band geek eventually realizes love was just across the street all along), in real(er) life, the stakes can be much larger, as "trolling" has reached destructive and occasionally fatal height. Several years ago, Jason Fortuny ran a scam on Craigslist drawing in men with a "Casual Encounters" promising a sexual encounter. Fortuny then posted the responses he received on the Internet embarrassing those drawn in by his ruse. More tragically, in the case of Megan Meier, a teenage girl committed suicide after being taunted by an adult neighbor and her friends who created a fake Myspace profile to lure the girl in. There's a very real extent to which no one who you meet on the Internet can be trusted, regardless of the context, which must creep over into the rest of our lives. Who can be trusted when there are multiple playing fields of engagement, all with different rules and standards?

This reminded me of the double edged sword of progress that Neil Postman alludes to in chapters two and three of Technopoly. To the extent that anyone who dares question the overwhelming positive nature of technological advances is dismissed as a "Luddite", our society has by and large decided that all technology is good, all the time, which clearly isn't the case. While a five minute long country music video doesn't begin to address the ramifications of this crisis of identity, what does it mean for society when people can change like chameleons at will, some to have fun, but some with malicious intent? When we have masks for every different forum, do we lose track of who we actually are?