The hopes and fears of people around technology have shifted during time. Technology has evolved and developed so many ways of communicating more efficiently and in a rapid way. For example e-commerce takes advantage of the convenience of being in one place and being able to do business virtually anywhere. We have got accustomed to all our gadgets that it is hard to imagine what we would do without them. Also, all the new forms of communicating have become a very ordinary part of life. Checking our social media page has become a daily routine, texting as having a conversation with an individual has become a normal part of the day. Checking emails is an ordinary task at work. The fear is that many people see the evil side to technology. Many people see the concern with security, censorship, gender demographics, and online pornography (Herring 2004). It is a concern of what is real and what is not? People start to question the quality of mediated interactions, believing technology takes away from social cues that provide rich meaning. Do we use technology simply because it is there? We have text conversations that are meaningless, but we respond back just for the sake of responding. This habits that we do without thinking have become ordinary with technology.
8 thoughts on “Blog II-Hopes and Fears of Technology”
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I like that you brought up the issue of social cues (facial expression, body language, tone of voice) as a rich part of face-to-face dialogue, but I think that emoticons and other text talk expressions such as LOL and HAHA are meant to bridge the gaps left by lack of social cues to help the receiver understand the tone of the sender’s message. I also think that the “text conversations that are meaningless, but we respond back just for the sake of responding” is further evidence of CMC “slouching toward the ordinary” as those types of exchanges mimic the small talk that often fills our everyday, in-person exchanges.
Text talk expression are easier to fake, than real expressions. You could send me a joke through text or email, and I could respond LOL, without having even moved my face one bit.
I’m with Martha. It’s been plenty of times where my friends would repeat a joke or topic that was previously discussed and you have to fake that it is funny in real life, when it isn’t. I also think that the only way to bridge a gap is to simply pick up the phone. I’ve texted people back for my friends so an entire conversation can be faked.
Very interesting post. While I do generally think of text messaging only in a positive way, you bring up an excellent point about engaging in text conversations that are meaningless. I often recive texts from people who are simply bored and looking for something to do with themselves. Nothing of importance comes out of those “conversations” but I still feel the need to respond. It is becoming a common practice to respond to all texts, so that you don’t look rude or uninterested. After all, you don’t want someone to think you’re angry with them or ignoring them! I often wonder what my text-heavy friends would do if they were unable to use their phones for a day, because it has become such a big part of their daily lives.
Online pornography is a huge problem. Particularly child pornography, because it is illegal and it is harder to catch criminals in cyber space because there are so many walls they can hide behind. There are definitely the bad parts of the internet and this one is probably one of the worst ones.
I think Censorship Is huge and intresting issue with CMC, along with anonymity on the internet. People now have the abilty to create any content they want. Even though there are filters and guidelines to what you can and can not do on the the internet, people are finding ways to bypass the filters and bypass them while remaining their anonymity.
You states that “the fear is that many people see the evil side to technology” would you say this is because the media mostly talks about the bad and not the good. Social cues are missing from technology and just because someone use lol, haha or facial symbol their face at that time may not be saying the same thing. I do believe people do have meaningless conversations and only response back to some people due to habit.
technology now allows us to do more than just communicate with people, like your e-commerce example. We can pay our bills, “like” an instagram picture, message someone on Facebook, see what everyone is talking about on twitter, and write an e-mail. All tasks that COULD and used to not exist. Instead of going to transfer money at the bank, you can do it on your smart phone. Instead of printing out pictures and showing them and talking about them in person, you can take them on your phone (and probably not print them off) and post them on a social media site for everyone to (silently) see. And so on, and so forth. It’s that the adjustment to this process was almost like an overnight thing!