"Becoming spies--for our own good" and bad

These two authors explore the possible negative effects of technology on culture and society. Andrejevic’s work focuses on the consequences of an internet culture that allows users to monitor themselves and others by use of a simple search engine or social networking site. Personally, I completely agree with what he’s getting at. By creating a blog, signing up for a Facebook or Twitter account, and even being included in a story in the local newspaper, people are allowing themselves (maybe unknowingly) to be searchable entities on the web. Despite the “privacy settings” available on some of these websites, the information is still present on the web, and someone, somewhere, has access to it. I recently discovered Twitter’s scary privacy policy, which caused me enough anxiety to close my account after doing a quick Google search of myself:

Our Services are primarily designed to help you share information with the world. Most of the information you provide to us is information you are asking us to make public. This includes not only the messages you Tweet and the metadata provided with Tweets, such as when you Tweeted, but also the lists you create, the people you follow, the Tweets you mark as favorites or Retweet and many other bits of information. Our default is almost always to make the information you provide public but we generally give you settings to make the information more private if you want. Your public information is broadly and instantly disseminated. For example, your public Tweets are searchable by many search engines and are immediately delivered via SMS and our APIs to a wide range of users and services. You should be careful about all information that will be made public by Twitter, not just your Tweets. (http://twitter.com/privacy, emphasis added)

As Andrejevic says, “...forms of monitoring that might once have been considered borderline stalking have become commonplace and routine—a fact with implications not just for the ways in which we represented ourselves to one another, but also for shifting expectations regarding privacy and surveillance” (228). I know that a great people use Facebook like this - as a tool for finding out information about a person before they meet them, and consequently judge them based solely on what is viewable on their profile. Barney talks about the possible effects of surveillance on workers in his piece, stating “Close surveillance stifles independent effort by promoting excessive conformance to norms established by higher-level authorities” (163). I can relate to both of these author’s points of view about the negative impact surveillance and technology can have on individuals. Barney talks about how democracy calls for all citizens to have access to new technology. It seems the more connected we become, the more control and access we grant to corporations, the government, and any curious individual.

Trippi, Lurie, and Kelly: Optimistic Viewpoints of the Internet Age

All three of these writers converge on a similar idea: the internet gives people power. Power to deconstruct, in Lurie’s opinion, power to interact in Kelly’s, and power to engage in Trippi’s. Lurie goes so far as to state that “the most powerful and pervasive source of moral relativism [is] the Web. Technology undermines traditional belief systems even as it creates a belief in a kind of heavenly paradise, a kind of Technopia.” The internet allows users to delve into creative processes, explore and research ideas, and express beliefs. And as Kelly points out, most of the information out there has been created by the users. In reality, we’re helping each other learn/explore/understand by compiling a giant web of information, largely by ourselves. The internet, as these writers see it, is definitely optimistic. Trippi states wholeheartedly that the internet connects us all, and “collective power is our greatest wealth” (205). With a technological tool as pervasive and accessible as the Internet, possibilities seem nearly endless. Kelly and Lurie point to innovations such as hyperlinks, that expand information on one source to multiple, opening the eyes of users to different viewpoints and perhaps, as Lurie and Trippi argue, a liberal, well-informed mindset.

Not only could the internet be influencing our views, it also is remembering everything that we put into it, creating what Kelly calls “the Machine”. He states, “The more we teach this megacomputer, the more it will assume responsibility for our knowing. It will become our memory. Then it will become our identity. In 2015 many people, when divorced from the Machine, won't feel like themselves - as if they'd had a lobotomy.” I feel like this is already occurring, long before the world of 2015 Kelly is creating. The iPhone, Blackberry, or Android phones can readily be seen as extensions of this Machine. These devices can behave like a phone, hold personal and business-related information (photos, memos, music, e-mail, contacts, the list goes on...), all while being connected to the Web, allowing posting on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc., as well as simple informational inquiry. It seems that more and more people (myself included) honestly rely on these technological devices, and treat them like extensions of themselves. Without these devices that allow for increased connectivity to the outside world, I believe that people feel as Kelly suggests—not themselves, and maybe in very extreme cases, “as if they’d had a lobotomy.”

Modern Media and Freedom of Expression

I think that this idea is encapsulated in Gilder’s work when he says, “Rather than exalting mass culture, the telecomputer will enhance individualism. Rather than cultivating passivity, the telecomputer will promote creativity. Instead of a master-slave architecture, the telecomputer will have an interactive architecture in which every receiver can function as a processor and transmitter of video images and other information. The telecomputer will usher in a new culture compatible with the immense powers of today’s ascendant technology. Perhaps most important, the telecomputer will enrich and strengthen democracy and capitalism all around the world” (18). It’s true that the computer/internet has allowed for a fluidity in areas of free speech and creative expression. Through websites such as youtube and vimeo (and countless others), anyone can create a video and share it with the world and be recognized for how good or terribly bad (as in the case of Rebecca Black’s Friday video) it is. This blog speaks to the idea that modern media is freeing, in that I can pretty much say whatever I want here. As Negroponte points out, “increasingly, the tools to work with and the toys to play with will be the same. There will be a more common palette for love and duty, for self-expression and group work”. Again this idea that the computer will allow users to explore multiple dimensions of themselves in one place, satisfying their desires to work and to have fun. What Barlow discusses also touches on this freedom of expression that comes with the internet and personal computers. He says, “digital technology is...erasing the legal jurisdictions of the physical world, and replacing them with the unbounded and perhaps permanently lawless seas of Cyberspace”. Is this a bad thing? I don’t believe so. I think this endless exchange of ideas will do exactly what Gilder believes it will, “strengthen democracy and capitalism all around the world”, by allowing a freedom of speech in a very public arena that cannot help but spread ideas (18).