Losing Mental Sharpness?

                With all the technological advances and the increasing complexities of them, it becomes harder and harder for us to understand what is behind the user interface. When people drive their automobiles, for instance, the great vast majority of them do not know the intricate and yet complex processes that are behind that interface that allow for the vehicle to thrust itself forwards or backwards. The computer interface is another highly complex system that also the great vast majority of the people do not understand the complexities behind its interface as well. Therefore, it is clear that the gap between the complexities of newer technologies and what user does not know about the system has been growing very rapidly. Now that these new technologies have found their way into the social realm of society, creating what Lev Manovich calls, in his work entitled New Media from Borges to HTML (pg. 16), “cybercultures”, it is becoming some sort of a crutch to the people who depend on this interplay between technology and the social realm. It is this very dependency on technology for social means and the dependency on every other form of new technologies that will inevitably bring with it unintended consequences. Is our technology becoming so complex that it will in the long run be too much for us to be able to handle? Especially in situations when such technologies begin to breakdown on us or be used in ill-mannered ways by other people in which they were not intended by the creator(s) to be used?

                In addition, these crutches that newer technologies are giving us are also perpetuating an environment where people being to lose, what I feel, are important skills. Take for instance the word processor and how it is making people forget how to spell, choose the correct words when attempting to say something and also making it easier to forget proper syntax. Texting on cell phones has also perpetuated this same sort of phenomenon because people write in shorthand very often in order to more efficiently communicate their ideas and thoughts with somebody else (e.g. instead of typing in people you replace it with ppl). This makes it easier for ppl…oops, I mean “people” lol…to not have to remember certain things and it keeps their minds less and less sharp in those respects. But because we do not have that burden of having to remember such things, such as spelling, syntax and many other things as well, does open up new room for storing other forms of memory. Such forms of memory might be more vital to keep sharp in terms of adapting one’s self into this ever-so-growing cyber world. Whether the amount of problems solved by new technologies outweighs the number of problems it creates is still very questionable. So if you read this blog, please comment and give me your thoughts on the subject.      

Escaping Reality

Although the internet has served humankind in terms sharing information, storing human knowledge indefinitely, and facilitated our lives in many other aspects, it has also given rise to many unintended consequences. I was surfing through the internet on virtual worlds and came across an article that really disturbed me. So it turns out that there was a Korean couple that very addicted to a virtual reality game called Prius Online. Because of this addiction, the couple would spend long hours playing in this fantasy world completely forgetting about everything in their external world: the real world. The couple had a young baby girl whom they completely forgot to feed one time because they were just so invested in this virtual world and she died of starvation. It is really sad for me to hear that anybody would that to their own child. You can read more of the story by clicking here. I also, in the same article, read about two other disturbing occurrences. One was about a 22-year-old man who killed his own mother simply because she would continuously nag at him for playing too many games and spending too much time on them as well. The other occurrence was about a boy who went into cardiac arrest and died because he played StarCraft for so long. From personal experience and from my peers experiences I know that a lot of websites, such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and many others as well, are very addicting websites. And it is this theme of internet and virtual reality addiction that I would like to bring into question. Since the internet is already revolutionizing the way we communicate with each other effectively affecting and changing the way we perceive and interpret the world around us, how will that affect us morally? A lot of us invest great amounts of time and energy to such virtual realities in order to escape from the so-called real world. But how much is too much? Also, as the borderline between what the "virtual" world and what the "real" world becomes ever so thin and hazy to identify, how do we respond to occurrences such as the parent's who let their little girl starve to death? Do we simply blame the parent's and castigate them for such actions? Or should we look at it in a different way and see that we as a society are essentially slowly allowing this system to generate more and more people who are more willing to escape their realities in order to invest the greater amounts of time and energy to such virtual realities? I would like to think that people are smart enough to be able to figure out how much is too much. But the fact of the matter is that we are now having the newer generations being born into this virtual system and to them this is what reality is. Therefore, I believe that future generations are going to have a harder time finding this borderline between what is reality and what is not. And if this system can drive a man to kill his own mother at this day in age, who knows what the future will have in store for us.