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 It might be my own narrow experience with the internet, but it seemed their text was already outdated.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 It seems like any textbook discussing the internet that actually gets to print is going to be already outdated, which is sort of unfortunate.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.

First post (Late, oh no!)

Taking a day off from the internet and my phone was beyond just a challenge or an exercise, it actually cost me money, which wasn't too much of a thrill. Not only do I take classes online, I also work as a freelancer with my only contact with my employers coming through email and the web. So, when I took the day off from the communications world (including my iPhone), it was a relaxing day spent a little more connected to my family than I usually have the opportunity to be, but I felt a constant feeling that something was going to go wrong, between keeping up with my classes or something with work (I have several clients, so the workload isn't necessarily tied to Monday through Friday). We went to a movie together as a family, cooked together, and played games until the kids had to go bed, but I knew that the next morning when I went back to my phone, there was going to be a lot of email and probably a few phone calls and text messages even to deal with, starting Monday morning in a bit of a crunch. Little did I know or expect that there would be nearly a dozen voicemails from friends, family and predictably, one of my employers leaving several messages asking if I could do a rush job for him. I feel like I've developed a reputation as someone who works quickly and is nearly always available (after all, without a regular salary, I'm generally willing to take whatever income is offered to me), but this Sunday, I was away from both my email (which I check every few minutes or so) and my phone (since our family only uses cell phones these days). I didn't have a specific pointperson to tell that I was taking the day off, and stupidly, I had forgotten to leave some sort of away message on my phone and email. It turned out my boss could still use my help the next day, but I still felt like I had damaged my reputation a bit. Probably not a big deal in the long run, but I really felt that a forced day away from the internet wasn't the sort of thing I can really afford these days when I don't really have "vacation days".

So, what did I learn from a day off the internet? What I learned was that I don't know if I have that luxury these days. The economy these days has eliminated the sort of work that means a desk job that lasts from nine to five, so I'm stuck staring at my iPhone during my waking hours waiting for work to appear or even more accurately, trying to track down work. School only compounds that problem, which just makes for a life desperately tied to the internet, for better or worse. Maybe someday I'll find a more stable job and hopefully graduate from college, so I can free myself a bit from the entanglement from the world of the web. For now, however, I'm stuck.