The Android mobile phone platform is taking off. Google says it's activating 200,000 Android phones each day. That's a lot of phones. Android's being called "the kind of smash hit that techies dream about". Latest reports say the Android is shifting the balance of power back to Silicon Valley and credit it with seriously upping the stakes in the fight between Android's owners Google and Apple.
And the first Android-based tablets are due out this year.
Writing in Newsweek, Daniel Lyons suggests we're now at the point where we can say the PC is being displaced by smartphones and tablets. Which is amazing when you consider how long it took to get from the mainframe to the PC.
Researchers are estimating there will be 5 billion mobile phones in service by next year. There's only 7 billion people in the world, so that suggests a pretty high penetration of mobiles on all continents, including Africa (maybe Negroponte should be aiming at "One Tablet per Child").
Within a decade, it's estimated that the technology will be so cheap that all those billions of phones will be smart phones - which really does make the notion of One Tablet per Child realistic.
Maybe Andy Rubin will take over from Steve Jobs as the coolest geek on the planet. Possibly his smartest move was using open-source software. He argues that using open-source means an "accelerated form of evolution", meaning every company that uses the software (eg Motorola, Samsung) contributes to its development, unlike a closed system like Apple.
Everybody's suing everybody else of course - Microsoft is suing Android, Apple is suing phonemaker HTC, Oracle's suing Google - which as Lyons says proves everybody is taking Android very seriously.
Leaving the final word to a Harvard researcher: "I can't imagine anything since the spinning jenny that will so profoundly change the lives of people..." Maybe he's right.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Is Google making us stupid?
This morning as I was sitting down at the breakfast table and layed out in front of me was the 'Neurological Foundation of New Zealand's News letter, and the headlining article was exactly this, 'Is Google making us stupid?'
The article is based around a review of an article of the same name written by Nicolas Carr two years ago, talking about the effects of the Internet on our brains, being a Neurological magazine it is focused on the physical affects.
Well according to the article the jury is out. Some claim we are now super human since we don't have to memorize trivial stuff therefore allowing us to use our brain for some other higher powers. Others stress that the internet is turning us into lazy couch potatoes with short attention spans.
However Colin Blakemore, a neurobiologist from the University of Oxford points out that these scholars who say that we are going to regress are only referring to the uneducated masses and that they don't mind taking advantage of the benefits that the internet has had on their own research. (Kind of like a double standard I have learned to accept from the educational elite...)
According to this article being literate changes the way our brain works, so why then couldn't knowing how to work a computer for internet surfing too have an affect? As we use different parts of our brains differently it changes the default connections. Naomi Alderman adds that this difference between what we know and what we choose to do with this knowledge is what makes us human.
I love how she puts it. 'Time was when we didn't need to be reminded to read. Well, time was when we didn't need to be encouraged to cook. That time's gone. None the less, cook. And read. We can decide to change our own brains - that's the most astonishing thing of all." My default these days tends to be browsing the internet, but I am going to take the advice of Alderman and go read a book.
The article is based around a review of an article of the same name written by Nicolas Carr two years ago, talking about the effects of the Internet on our brains, being a Neurological magazine it is focused on the physical affects.
Well according to the article the jury is out. Some claim we are now super human since we don't have to memorize trivial stuff therefore allowing us to use our brain for some other higher powers. Others stress that the internet is turning us into lazy couch potatoes with short attention spans.
However Colin Blakemore, a neurobiologist from the University of Oxford points out that these scholars who say that we are going to regress are only referring to the uneducated masses and that they don't mind taking advantage of the benefits that the internet has had on their own research. (Kind of like a double standard I have learned to accept from the educational elite...)
According to this article being literate changes the way our brain works, so why then couldn't knowing how to work a computer for internet surfing too have an affect? As we use different parts of our brains differently it changes the default connections. Naomi Alderman adds that this difference between what we know and what we choose to do with this knowledge is what makes us human.
I love how she puts it. 'Time was when we didn't need to be reminded to read. Well, time was when we didn't need to be encouraged to cook. That time's gone. None the less, cook. And read. We can decide to change our own brains - that's the most astonishing thing of all." My default these days tends to be browsing the internet, but I am going to take the advice of Alderman and go read a book.
Piracy....how?
Let’s face it; there is no real way of controlling this so-called problem of piracy. I’m sure everyone has at least one stereotyped geeky friend who likes to download stuff and, not to mention, carries around a 1 terabyte external storage device in their backpack. How many do I know? Well, let’s just say, I would have to grow some extra fingers on both hands.
Am I ashamed or disappointed in them? No, of course not. But, I’m also not condoning to the wider population either. As far as I know, not a single one of them sells their downloaded material (unlike those dodgy people you see on shows like Target selling from behind a counter of a store). And many of these geeky friends admit in the end that it’s better to go and watch in the movie in cinemas or buy/hire out the DVD of a movie or television series.
What about all the music that is being downloaded then? I think it’s hilarious that there is an outrage over downloading music. If I wanted, I could go down to the local library, issue out a recent released CD from a band I’m interested in for $1, go home and play it on my laptop, burn a disc for myself, add other songs from other bands, and give it to a friend to keep. Not only have I ripped off the band, music companies etc, I have also saved my money whilst gaining some love and appreciation from a fellow peer who did not have to go out of their way to buy their own copy of music when someone they knew had one anyway. For me personally, I don’t like to rip off our Kiwi bands because I have this supposed New Zealand identity I want to uphold and support.
How can anyone control this type of ‘sharing-is-caring’ mentality? For one, I think it can only benefit bands with their music becoming somewhat viral (even used on personally made YouTube videos, which can also bring up questions of copyright) and spreading their image across spaces. I mean, isn’t that how The Beatles became famous in the U.S.? Everyone technically heard them before they saw them.
And let’s be honest, the middle-man is really the one being ripped off here. Radiohead removed the middleman altogether and decided to sell their new album In Rainbows over the internet, with fans paying whatever they felt it was worth – from nothing to £100. It has been called high-risk by critics, but I fail to see how it can be when you are reaching out to a new breed of fans. What did the music industry hierarchy expect when new media technology progressed to what it is now and what it will be?
Am I ashamed or disappointed in them? No, of course not. But, I’m also not condoning to the wider population either. As far as I know, not a single one of them sells their downloaded material (unlike those dodgy people you see on shows like Target selling from behind a counter of a store). And many of these geeky friends admit in the end that it’s better to go and watch in the movie in cinemas or buy/hire out the DVD of a movie or television series.
What about all the music that is being downloaded then? I think it’s hilarious that there is an outrage over downloading music. If I wanted, I could go down to the local library, issue out a recent released CD from a band I’m interested in for $1, go home and play it on my laptop, burn a disc for myself, add other songs from other bands, and give it to a friend to keep. Not only have I ripped off the band, music companies etc, I have also saved my money whilst gaining some love and appreciation from a fellow peer who did not have to go out of their way to buy their own copy of music when someone they knew had one anyway. For me personally, I don’t like to rip off our Kiwi bands because I have this supposed New Zealand identity I want to uphold and support.
How can anyone control this type of ‘sharing-is-caring’ mentality? For one, I think it can only benefit bands with their music becoming somewhat viral (even used on personally made YouTube videos, which can also bring up questions of copyright) and spreading their image across spaces. I mean, isn’t that how The Beatles became famous in the U.S.? Everyone technically heard them before they saw them.
And let’s be honest, the middle-man is really the one being ripped off here. Radiohead removed the middleman altogether and decided to sell their new album In Rainbows over the internet, with fans paying whatever they felt it was worth – from nothing to £100. It has been called high-risk by critics, but I fail to see how it can be when you are reaching out to a new breed of fans. What did the music industry hierarchy expect when new media technology progressed to what it is now and what it will be?
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Einstein's Infinite Playlist (Or the Theory of Facebook Relativity)
Einstein's Theory of Relativity posits that time passes more slowly the closer you are to the centre of a massive object. Replace the word 'massive' with 'dull' and it also describes half the classes we've all invariably taken at some point. This means that classes with fat lecturers are going to be extremely boring.
Einstein would have been fascinated with our current technological state. The world has seemingly been kicked into ever-higher gears over the last few years. All new stuff is speedier than the last lot of... stuff. Small dense things like iPhones seem to suck all our time into them, just like a black hole. Steve Jobs sticks everything but the kitchen sink into a post-it sized lump and calls a press conference to announce his latest masterpiece that will revolutionise the way we live. Though in saying that I'm sure he'll put in a kitchen sink app in the iPhone 5.
The thing is, the faster technology gets, the more impatient the world seems to become. We are hungry for speed! It has affected our perception of time. Having movie take 2 hours to download seems like a vast expanse of time bridged only by the little green progress bar that taunts you with its inching green evil. Ahem. Rationally speaking the speed should be irrelevant - the movie will download eventually. But I want it all, and I want it now!
Queen reference? Sweet.
Every new generation of laptops, cell phones, toasters, whatever, all promise to be faster! And they are. Why have a perfectly good toaster that makes your bread crunchy and brown in 30 seconds when you can have the new iToast from Apple that does it in 25 seconds AND you can play Tetris while you wait! Our perception of the toasting would be altered and those extra 5 seconds with the old toaster would turn into an unbuttered Hell. Everything gets faster and the more technology we use, the slower everything else seems to get. Right?
So Adam, I hear you say, what is your point? And what's Einstein got to do with this?
What Einstein basically said is that the faster you go, the slower everything else seems relative to you. This is a social application of that theory but I'm sure you get the idea.
Speed does not necessarily denote a better product or experience. You will not fit more into your day simply because your new phone can do more stuff, more quickly. You will not become more efficient because your processor is 8 Ghz instead of just 4. Faster processors do have their place, I agree. Perception of time is not altered solely by technology. It is also a social thing and always has been. But technology is an important factor. Faster stuff has meant that society as a whole has seemingly sped up, and social conventions have changed. In the 21st century, faster must mean better. Digital must be better than analogue. We must all do more with our time and still make it for coffee at 4.30! Lies! An old-fashioned mix CD you make from scratch will always be more romantic than simply assembling a playlist and saying to your lover: "Hey download these." Efficiency does not a relationship make.
Perception of time changes as we age. But I wonder if the evolution of our perception will be different to that of previous generations because we grew up in a more rapidly changing world?
Before I confuse myself any further, I will end with an amusing factoid.
The humble pigeon would die of boredom while watching the Matrix. Not because Keanu Reeves has less acting talent than Megan Fox, but because pigeons perceive the world at a much higher frame-rate, so to speak. So while we see a continual moving image, the pigeon would see a slide show. Thus Einstein's Theory of Relativity is embodied by the common pigeon. And that's what he has to do with it all.
Feel free to comment! Maybe you'll make more sense of it than I have.
Banksy and MBW
I think one of the most frustrating arguments to date surrounding the Internet and new technology is the hyper sensitivity of copyright. Now don't get me wrong I agree to a certain extent that works should be copyrighted so that people can not profit off the blood, sweat and creative genius of others. But where do you draw the line??
Is using the hype generated by something to promote your own product a bad thing? If so then why hasn't programmes like 'The Vampire Diaries' been taken off the air for riding on the back of the 'Twilight' saga? Am I missing a link? Do they pay Twilight royalties? and then does 'Twilight' pay 'Count Dracula'? Not only does this bother me, but where is the line drawn between folktale and Disney? I mean its not like Walt Disney came up with the Cinderella story. They just have conceptualized the story and spread it to every corner of the world in such a way you kind of can't imagine her without her blonde hair up in a bun and blue dress. Is this our fault if we then draw on this image when retelling this Grim brothers tale? If you saturate the world with your message you kind of have to expect someone to draw from it.
It is more easy than ever to copy someones work, and sure I don't think that it is fair that people make money from the act of copying someone else... But sometimes you have to realise this is going to happen and you might as well appreciate that side of humanity. I mean we are creatures of Fashion.
This brings me to the title of this Post, 'Banksy and Mr BrainWash. For those of you who have not heard this hilarious tale, it is the basis of a film I highly recommend to anyone. 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' (2010)
This film is a massive ironic critique on the acceptance of street art (which started as a counter culture) into popular/art culture. Banksy does this through the fictional character of Mr Brain Wash. Well actually we don't really know if hes fictional or not. He is set up to be real in the film, but there are plenty of skeptics out there. But regardless people are paying up to 200,000 USD for his works, which are basically ripped off Banksy paintings. The film follows this over the top French man as he firstly learns about, and then becomes a 'street artist' by copying ideas, techniques and even subject matter from all the people he knows. Instead of working his way through the unpopular stages of his creativity which all the other graffiti artists we are introduced to do, he simply copies other work. I like to think of this as a little running commentary of today's society. We all copy rip and burn each others things. the best of us make manage to create a new spin on an old story, while others are content with enjoying someone else's creative labour. Banksy seems to realise that you can't really separate the good from the bad, perhaps we should all take a page out of his book.... If we are too strict about copyright laws then we leave no space for people to build on old ideas.
Is using the hype generated by something to promote your own product a bad thing? If so then why hasn't programmes like 'The Vampire Diaries' been taken off the air for riding on the back of the 'Twilight' saga? Am I missing a link? Do they pay Twilight royalties? and then does 'Twilight' pay 'Count Dracula'? Not only does this bother me, but where is the line drawn between folktale and Disney? I mean its not like Walt Disney came up with the Cinderella story. They just have conceptualized the story and spread it to every corner of the world in such a way you kind of can't imagine her without her blonde hair up in a bun and blue dress. Is this our fault if we then draw on this image when retelling this Grim brothers tale? If you saturate the world with your message you kind of have to expect someone to draw from it.
It is more easy than ever to copy someones work, and sure I don't think that it is fair that people make money from the act of copying someone else... But sometimes you have to realise this is going to happen and you might as well appreciate that side of humanity. I mean we are creatures of Fashion.
This brings me to the title of this Post, 'Banksy and Mr BrainWash. For those of you who have not heard this hilarious tale, it is the basis of a film I highly recommend to anyone. 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' (2010)
This film is a massive ironic critique on the acceptance of street art (which started as a counter culture) into popular/art culture. Banksy does this through the fictional character of Mr Brain Wash. Well actually we don't really know if hes fictional or not. He is set up to be real in the film, but there are plenty of skeptics out there. But regardless people are paying up to 200,000 USD for his works, which are basically ripped off Banksy paintings. The film follows this over the top French man as he firstly learns about, and then becomes a 'street artist' by copying ideas, techniques and even subject matter from all the people he knows. Instead of working his way through the unpopular stages of his creativity which all the other graffiti artists we are introduced to do, he simply copies other work. I like to think of this as a little running commentary of today's society. We all copy rip and burn each others things. the best of us make manage to create a new spin on an old story, while others are content with enjoying someone else's creative labour. Banksy seems to realise that you can't really separate the good from the bad, perhaps we should all take a page out of his book.... If we are too strict about copyright laws then we leave no space for people to build on old ideas.
Land of the Long White Fibre-optic Cable
Auckland is famous for a sprawling transportation network that every government seems determined to add to in order to solve the car-clog crisis. If John Key has his way, the entire nation will sport a jolly nice shiny new fibre-optic-cable-to-your-door communications network. And then we'll all have internet so fast our desktops will burst into flames. Cue fireextinguisher.exe
But will this really improve things? Who will use all that data? Does New Zealand need to be the Land of Milk, Honey and Bit-torrents?
I am a high-data user. I can personally chomp through 30GB of data in a fortnight. 60 in a month if I'm particularly bad. I've seen the American advertisements. for 100GB per month. Relatively cheap too. Personally I am in favour of high data caps. But in our society it would be like having a Ferrari with only 1 km of straight road nearby. Nice to have and shiny too, but you simply never use it. Those in favour of high speed, high data internet say it will benefit all New Zealanders and open up technological avenues that we otherwise never conceived of. Rubbish, says I. Unless you are particularly data-heavy, playing a lot of MMO's, downloading movies and endless YouTube clips and everything else at www.etc.com, having internet so fast that it makes the download box explode won't be of much benefit to you.
Prioritised download plans is an idea that our wonderful lecturer posited. You would pay for certain kinds of data to be prioritised and thus they would download quickly. So, for example, you could pay for a Movies Package and those files such as avi, mpg, mp4 etc, would all download at top speed whereas surfing TradeMe would be comparatively pedestrian. High-speed internet would allow for more dynamic pricing schemes and (God willing) cheaper internet access.
There is a point where the speed and amount of data available would become irrelevant. It would be effectively limitless data at nigh-instantaneous speeds. I think what we want is more fast data. And I think what we need is high media download speeds.
I want my movie downloaded in under 20 minutes. But I don't give a toss about how fast Facebook loads.
But will this really improve things? Who will use all that data? Does New Zealand need to be the Land of Milk, Honey and Bit-torrents?
I am a high-data user. I can personally chomp through 30GB of data in a fortnight. 60 in a month if I'm particularly bad. I've seen the American advertisements. for 100GB per month. Relatively cheap too. Personally I am in favour of high data caps. But in our society it would be like having a Ferrari with only 1 km of straight road nearby. Nice to have and shiny too, but you simply never use it. Those in favour of high speed, high data internet say it will benefit all New Zealanders and open up technological avenues that we otherwise never conceived of. Rubbish, says I. Unless you are particularly data-heavy, playing a lot of MMO's, downloading movies and endless YouTube clips and everything else at www.etc.com, having internet so fast that it makes the download box explode won't be of much benefit to you.
Prioritised download plans is an idea that our wonderful lecturer posited. You would pay for certain kinds of data to be prioritised and thus they would download quickly. So, for example, you could pay for a Movies Package and those files such as avi, mpg, mp4 etc, would all download at top speed whereas surfing TradeMe would be comparatively pedestrian. High-speed internet would allow for more dynamic pricing schemes and (God willing) cheaper internet access.
There is a point where the speed and amount of data available would become irrelevant. It would be effectively limitless data at nigh-instantaneous speeds. I think what we want is more fast data. And I think what we need is high media download speeds.
I want my movie downloaded in under 20 minutes. But I don't give a toss about how fast Facebook loads.
Stepping out of the wasteland
Another Technodream last night.
This time I was floating amongst a scenic picture of a forest and looking to my left and right there were different versions of me floating passively through the perfect scenic space. My other self’s skin was in fluid motion each working as human monitors for different webpage’s that I had associated identities for. An adolescent version of myself skin pulsed with every heartbeat, etched upon him was my bebo account from my school days. There was another version of me who was a walking YouTube, his face was the video and below him was moving text being typed onto his skin all written by my hand - the comments I have made on that seductive site. Across from Mr YouTube was a banal version of myself, a boring sad eyed, boy with my plain facebook profile running down the length of his torso. Every tagged photo of myself tattooed into his limbs in all there miserable glory. There was MySpace me, stumble me and trademe me. The leader of technological doppelgangers was a body that was perpetually sinking into itself. Covered in new tabs where all my secret wanderings into the world of the web were being explored. His eyes reflected the darkness of my pursuits…the consequences of curious fingers.
Suddenly the background was right clicked, the mouse pointer moved mercilessly towards the properties option and within an instant I and my selves were trapped in the maze of a Windows 95 screensaver bumbling along hitting walls turning with ease only to encounter another wall we were trapped.
In my last dream, the lord of the internet asked me why pursue when I am technology too? Well it would seem that my reliance on technology has resided due to the fact that by an act of what I can only describe as sub-conscious intent I knocked over a glass of water on to my parasitic laptop rendering it useless.
There was no withdrawal period and the world outside the laptop screen has never been so rich in beauty.
Aldous Huxley in Brave New World Revisited quotes Dr Enrich Fromm who argues that "Our Contemporary Western society in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress , is increasingly less conductive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason, and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness and with despair hidden under a frantic drive for work and so called pleasure...Let us beware if defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life, which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting."
Within tutorials for 314, no one has celebrated the technology we are studying. For example we all have admitted to the secret shame of our facebook faux pas and reasons for joining. Mine was to fulfil my voyeuristic tendencies - and I was not alone. Not one of us put up there hand in defence of facebook and proclaimed there love for the site and how great it was. Instead the general mood was one of unacknowledged resentment that pestered our feet like the incoming high tide as we walked along the beaches of denial. Every one of us admitted to the general anxieties that facebook created. We have created this new society on what is and physically indefinable medium and within that society there are conditioned unarticulated codes of conduct that we feel we must adhere too undermining our intuitions of the internet. We perceive the internet to be a free space of unparallel exploration one where there are no consequences and for those of whom to choose it, one can be as naughty as they like. We feel that we shouldn’t have to conform or to have our actions monitored and then put on display, yet, as the internet is developing we have less and less freedom to act privately.
Huxley describes the city as a place where the paramount feelings of the inhabitants are ones of worthlessness and isolation as our relationships to other people are defined by what we do and our objective function in life is aid the construction of a happy society. The internet on first glance offers us a chance to escape from these pressures. It is entertainment that we can control. It is personal and we can sketch ourselves in whatever fashion we like onto various webpage’s and sites. However, the internet is an urban being, a vast city of information where our indents are the equivalent of a single second story window amongst an endless world of complex high-rises. If you can reach meme status for a while you may be a billboard or piece of public art but eventually you will fade out as the attention of the masses is focused onto another something.
The roots of our fascination with stardom and celebrity are easily traceable as our life becomes more and more urbanised. We feel lost and insignificant, just one of billions amongst the ever increasing population of the world. Seeking relief we flee to our computer and partake in the world of the internet where we seek to establish ourselves in this new and promising virtual world. Yet, we have ruined our chances of becoming recognised as we have overpopulated the internet and reduced it to a new society that once your laptop gets wet, seems insignificant and petty.
Why does it seem so? Aside from the anxieties that are tied to our commitment to the establishment of a new online society and those feelings of guilt as we pursue and investigate that which we should not, the internet is a relatively unrewarding medium of which little benefits arise in comparison to the significant and ever increasing time we spend in front of our glowing monitors.
There is no hard work with the internet everything is made so easy that consequently nothing has any value. I consume music over the internet like a gluttonous piglet hell-bent on devouring more than I possibly can as I have but one life and over a lifetime of music. I do not cherish these songs I look at them as instances of minute pleasure amongst a sea of indifference. I do not wait for TV shows to come to me, I watch them in bed for hours and hours digesting whole seasons on rainy and sunny afternoons. There is no feeling of joy as the ads stop and the show continues as there are no ads. There are no conversations to be had either, generally I watch alone and the world outside is rendered voiceless as I sit with headphones on eyes glued to screen in front of me. I no longer have to look hard for obscure one of a kind items that mean the world to me as I sought so hard to find them amongst hours of shopping, I go online type down specific properties of the items I want buy them and then they arrive. Since my laptop has been down the memories of the webpage’s that I frequented have been thrown into the fire. I can’t remember my favourite sites and what that tells me is that in the context of my life they were and are completely insignificant. Sometimes it is better to work for the things you want. There is truth in this, a little bit of pain amplifies the sweetness of your endeavours, rewards remain rewards not moments watered down by their ease and frequency. Unlike the thousands of songs that populated my iTunes, the records that I own that I can smell and feel that I have to maintain and look after, that I have to flip halfway through the listening process are cherished possessions that I truly love. In the technological world we are lacking the ability to emotionally connect to the digital bodies of entertainment that inhabit this lacklustre space.
Nothing that comes from the internet is special anymore because of this we consume and consume hoping to find the thing will be. As a result, the investment of ourselves into the internet is neither a special or significant act. Just like there are thousands of funny as YouTube videos there are thousands beyond thousands of you. It is within our biological nature to be unique but the world of the internet is forcing us to conform to set regulations that force us to perform in certain ways depending on whatever identity or website we are prescribing too. Everything in a sense has been done and we are just copies of copies of some hybridised untraceable identity that we all base our internet identities upon. As the feeling of resentment rises we are slowing drowning in a culture of judgement. Bullies feel insecure and to remedy their own introspective scrutiny they hassle those they deem weaker. The internet allows us all to be bullies, and judge others as we make up for our insecurities. We are just one window in a land of a billion skyscrapers.
Our generation’s ability to empathise with others has also been reduced, but to some relief this is not our fault. As postmodern poets we live in a fragmented society where information is fat and unhealthy with no substantial value. Information is like fast food - easily obtainable. Consequently news is being reduced to that of a meme, it occurs, its partially considered then it’s gone and real tragedies are but blips of entertainment amongst a plethora of other attention seeking media texts. We are lacking a connection with the real and we continue to delve deeper into a world where we forget that people are people not the event we connect them too or the YouTube video that we watched.
Because as we invest more time in branding ourselves, we are creating a framework where one can only perceive of us as our internet pages and the humanity that is inherent to all of us is being reduced due to the parameters of a frequently changing innately insignificant world that is neither rewarding nor relevant.
Like my dream selves my contribution to the internet has already been forgotten. My facebook page is a grave that no one visits and my internet self remains in a walled maze to which there is no escape. The attention seeking intentions that led me to the walled wasteland perhaps have ends that could free me, but, do I want to be freed? In the end I will be tethered to a weight and dropped into the deep dark waters of the internet ocean where I will blink and drown till I am forgotten.
This time I was floating amongst a scenic picture of a forest and looking to my left and right there were different versions of me floating passively through the perfect scenic space. My other self’s skin was in fluid motion each working as human monitors for different webpage’s that I had associated identities for. An adolescent version of myself skin pulsed with every heartbeat, etched upon him was my bebo account from my school days. There was another version of me who was a walking YouTube, his face was the video and below him was moving text being typed onto his skin all written by my hand - the comments I have made on that seductive site. Across from Mr YouTube was a banal version of myself, a boring sad eyed, boy with my plain facebook profile running down the length of his torso. Every tagged photo of myself tattooed into his limbs in all there miserable glory. There was MySpace me, stumble me and trademe me. The leader of technological doppelgangers was a body that was perpetually sinking into itself. Covered in new tabs where all my secret wanderings into the world of the web were being explored. His eyes reflected the darkness of my pursuits…the consequences of curious fingers.
Suddenly the background was right clicked, the mouse pointer moved mercilessly towards the properties option and within an instant I and my selves were trapped in the maze of a Windows 95 screensaver bumbling along hitting walls turning with ease only to encounter another wall we were trapped.
In my last dream, the lord of the internet asked me why pursue when I am technology too? Well it would seem that my reliance on technology has resided due to the fact that by an act of what I can only describe as sub-conscious intent I knocked over a glass of water on to my parasitic laptop rendering it useless.
There was no withdrawal period and the world outside the laptop screen has never been so rich in beauty.
Aldous Huxley in Brave New World Revisited quotes Dr Enrich Fromm who argues that "Our Contemporary Western society in spite of its material, intellectual and political progress , is increasingly less conductive to mental health, and tends to undermine the inner security, happiness, reason, and the capacity for love in the individual; it tends to turn him into an automaton who pays for his human failure with increasing mental sickness and with despair hidden under a frantic drive for work and so called pleasure...Let us beware if defining mental hygiene as the prevention of symptoms. Symptoms as such are not our enemy, but our friend; where there are symptoms there is conflict, and conflict always indicates that the forces of life, which strive for integration and happiness are still fighting."
Within tutorials for 314, no one has celebrated the technology we are studying. For example we all have admitted to the secret shame of our facebook faux pas and reasons for joining. Mine was to fulfil my voyeuristic tendencies - and I was not alone. Not one of us put up there hand in defence of facebook and proclaimed there love for the site and how great it was. Instead the general mood was one of unacknowledged resentment that pestered our feet like the incoming high tide as we walked along the beaches of denial. Every one of us admitted to the general anxieties that facebook created. We have created this new society on what is and physically indefinable medium and within that society there are conditioned unarticulated codes of conduct that we feel we must adhere too undermining our intuitions of the internet. We perceive the internet to be a free space of unparallel exploration one where there are no consequences and for those of whom to choose it, one can be as naughty as they like. We feel that we shouldn’t have to conform or to have our actions monitored and then put on display, yet, as the internet is developing we have less and less freedom to act privately.
Huxley describes the city as a place where the paramount feelings of the inhabitants are ones of worthlessness and isolation as our relationships to other people are defined by what we do and our objective function in life is aid the construction of a happy society. The internet on first glance offers us a chance to escape from these pressures. It is entertainment that we can control. It is personal and we can sketch ourselves in whatever fashion we like onto various webpage’s and sites. However, the internet is an urban being, a vast city of information where our indents are the equivalent of a single second story window amongst an endless world of complex high-rises. If you can reach meme status for a while you may be a billboard or piece of public art but eventually you will fade out as the attention of the masses is focused onto another something.
The roots of our fascination with stardom and celebrity are easily traceable as our life becomes more and more urbanised. We feel lost and insignificant, just one of billions amongst the ever increasing population of the world. Seeking relief we flee to our computer and partake in the world of the internet where we seek to establish ourselves in this new and promising virtual world. Yet, we have ruined our chances of becoming recognised as we have overpopulated the internet and reduced it to a new society that once your laptop gets wet, seems insignificant and petty.
Why does it seem so? Aside from the anxieties that are tied to our commitment to the establishment of a new online society and those feelings of guilt as we pursue and investigate that which we should not, the internet is a relatively unrewarding medium of which little benefits arise in comparison to the significant and ever increasing time we spend in front of our glowing monitors.
There is no hard work with the internet everything is made so easy that consequently nothing has any value. I consume music over the internet like a gluttonous piglet hell-bent on devouring more than I possibly can as I have but one life and over a lifetime of music. I do not cherish these songs I look at them as instances of minute pleasure amongst a sea of indifference. I do not wait for TV shows to come to me, I watch them in bed for hours and hours digesting whole seasons on rainy and sunny afternoons. There is no feeling of joy as the ads stop and the show continues as there are no ads. There are no conversations to be had either, generally I watch alone and the world outside is rendered voiceless as I sit with headphones on eyes glued to screen in front of me. I no longer have to look hard for obscure one of a kind items that mean the world to me as I sought so hard to find them amongst hours of shopping, I go online type down specific properties of the items I want buy them and then they arrive. Since my laptop has been down the memories of the webpage’s that I frequented have been thrown into the fire. I can’t remember my favourite sites and what that tells me is that in the context of my life they were and are completely insignificant. Sometimes it is better to work for the things you want. There is truth in this, a little bit of pain amplifies the sweetness of your endeavours, rewards remain rewards not moments watered down by their ease and frequency. Unlike the thousands of songs that populated my iTunes, the records that I own that I can smell and feel that I have to maintain and look after, that I have to flip halfway through the listening process are cherished possessions that I truly love. In the technological world we are lacking the ability to emotionally connect to the digital bodies of entertainment that inhabit this lacklustre space.
Nothing that comes from the internet is special anymore because of this we consume and consume hoping to find the thing will be. As a result, the investment of ourselves into the internet is neither a special or significant act. Just like there are thousands of funny as YouTube videos there are thousands beyond thousands of you. It is within our biological nature to be unique but the world of the internet is forcing us to conform to set regulations that force us to perform in certain ways depending on whatever identity or website we are prescribing too. Everything in a sense has been done and we are just copies of copies of some hybridised untraceable identity that we all base our internet identities upon. As the feeling of resentment rises we are slowing drowning in a culture of judgement. Bullies feel insecure and to remedy their own introspective scrutiny they hassle those they deem weaker. The internet allows us all to be bullies, and judge others as we make up for our insecurities. We are just one window in a land of a billion skyscrapers.
Our generation’s ability to empathise with others has also been reduced, but to some relief this is not our fault. As postmodern poets we live in a fragmented society where information is fat and unhealthy with no substantial value. Information is like fast food - easily obtainable. Consequently news is being reduced to that of a meme, it occurs, its partially considered then it’s gone and real tragedies are but blips of entertainment amongst a plethora of other attention seeking media texts. We are lacking a connection with the real and we continue to delve deeper into a world where we forget that people are people not the event we connect them too or the YouTube video that we watched.
Because as we invest more time in branding ourselves, we are creating a framework where one can only perceive of us as our internet pages and the humanity that is inherent to all of us is being reduced due to the parameters of a frequently changing innately insignificant world that is neither rewarding nor relevant.
Like my dream selves my contribution to the internet has already been forgotten. My facebook page is a grave that no one visits and my internet self remains in a walled maze to which there is no escape. The attention seeking intentions that led me to the walled wasteland perhaps have ends that could free me, but, do I want to be freed? In the end I will be tethered to a weight and dropped into the deep dark waters of the internet ocean where I will blink and drown till I am forgotten.
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