Imitation or Reality?
Podcast:
This podcast explores the idea of real versus imaginary. I use Longo's article to discuss how technology often imitates reality. However, I ask if the imitation is enough to fill our need for human connections and interaction. Is this technology adding to our lives or fragmenting who we are?
Move Your Body by texasradiofish is licensed under a Attribution Noncommercial (3.0).
(14 votes)
Comments
Organics!
While I've never seen the film you reference, I think it's interesting to consider the idea of meeting "organically." While I don't believe he ever makes explicit this notion, Blythe's reading about ecologies and agency would seem to put an interesting new twist on our perception of organic. Because while the interrelations between people in institutions (be it a university classroom, a company, or even a coffee shop) might appear to be organic, they are mediated by the technology of any given institution.
Of course, this doesn't necessarily change considerations if "virtual" interactions are more or less productive than "real" interactions; rather it suggests that we must remember that nearly ALL human interaction is in some form technologically mediated. Going all Strong Defense for a moment - we've simply jusiprudentially decided that we place more priority on "meatspace" interaction than virtual interaction. This doesn't necessarily make it good or bad, but it is a rhetorically based construction.
Going back to meeting organically then, I think that we can see from Blythe's article that all possible ways of meeting are mediated by institutions which present "a collection of bricks and mortar, written documents, personnel... designed to enable people... to accomplish certain tasks" (175). The question then becomes slightly simpler: since we see 'real' connections as also technologically mediated, we can then ask simply "What advantages/disadvantages does a virtual interaction provide that a real interaction does not." From this framework, we can begin to tease out the advantages and disadvantages of all modes of technological interaction, potentially generally enhancing all interpersonal relation through playing each technology (that of the coffee shop, that of the city park, and that of facebook) to its strengths for our own affects.
Thanks for a great podcast and while I haven't answered the final question, I hope I've at least shed some light on it!
-Peter
What do we imagine?
Great Podcast! I thoroughly enjoyed it. You bring up some engaging questions. Longo asks if this human-machine culture can “satisfy our need to connect with other people?” I do not think it can. We will not be completely satisfied by human-machine connections but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Our “real” connections are technologically-mediated, as Peter points out, as well. You ask “Is the imaginary becoming part of the real world?” I don’t think connections over the internet were ever part of the imaginary. When I think of imaginary, I think of fantasy, such as Hogwarts; whereas, the computers we use are not made out of ethereal but concrete materials—they were constructed by people and never escaped the real world. In this way, I never understood why academia is considered separate from the real world. This separation highlights the ways in which people create hierarchies out of their encounters. You claim that He’s Just Not that Into You shows that “people do not meet organically anymore, it is all about the technology.” This reveals the assumptions that people have about what is and is not technology. This makes me wonder “what would organic, non-technological meetings look like?” You bring up a great point that people are usually distracted by gadgets: “They always have their cell phones out. There’s always a T.V. on in the background trying to distract them.” I found this particularly interesting because it links back to Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants. The T.V. is trying to distract them, but just trying doesn’t make the T.V. successful. I really appreciated your question, “Are these virtual communities… fragmenting our identity and our sense of community or are they adding to it?” I think they are doing both.
You raise a good point. Even
You raise a good point. Even language is a technology we have constructed to communicate, so the idea of meeting "organically" is very much part of the hierarchal structure that people have assigned to technology. In the movie, she was talking about meeting a guy face-to-face; however, people don't really consider language a technology anymore. They have internalized it to the point they think it's a part of them. (I say "they," but I do it too!)
Also, I agree with you that technology is fragmenting our identity, while adding to it. It seems like it is breaking us apart, yet we are built back up and reformed to a point. (Though I believe it is a continuous process of fragmentation and reformation that is occuring. In a sense, we are never "whole," and yet we are.) \
Thank you for your feedback!!
Christa Weaver
I agree with you: Facebook,
I agree with you: Facebook, Sims, and other online technologies are indeed fragmenting ourselves. But, the question should be, when does technology, or anything exterior to ourselves, not fragment us? I would argue never; technology is always re-constructing our identities. So, to add go with your point, are virtual communities fragmenting our communities? Of course! They are not only fragmenting them, but they’re re-defining what a community is; thus, no longer can we think of a community as simply two people speaking face to face, but we have to expand our notion of community altogether. Can we, as you ask, see this as reality? Well, first, I would argue that the word “reality” isn’t so cut and dry: If these technologies generate how we perceive our world, then I think that we have to see that Facebook et all are part of our reality. Yet, this is all depending upon how you define reality. Blake and Locke have drastically different views – I tend to be more Blakean.
But I think the question that you are really after is: is this good or bad? Well, that is a big question, one that I don’t think there is an answer to. I think that, on the one hand, you are right to suggest that online technologies have strayed us – in some sense – from face to face communication. However, on the other hand, online technologies have opened us to a myriad of different experiences, many of which have benefited humanity, that would not have been otherwise possible. (Look at how Match.com has changed the dating world.)
From the articles that we have read, I have agreed with some, and disagreed with others; I think that with some ideas you can make an argument as to why they are benefiting humanity, and others that may not be the best idea. But, of course, my greatest argument has come not from the technologies themselves, but from how individuals have utilized those technologies.
I think that you are right to ask some of these questions; however, I think that it would perhaps be more beneficial to start to examine how technologies interact with our everyday lives, and, by extension, see them as part of our everyday lives and ourselves. Whether it is good or bad, I think, shouldn’t be the real question: the question ought to be: how it affects us, what is it doing, and where is it going.
Fragmentation
Thanks for your podcast! You raised some great questions and started a great conversation.
I'd like to jump in on this issue of fragmentation -- you ask whether technologies are fragmenting our sense of community or adding to it, and Michael and Steve address this question as well. I am especially intrigued by Longo's critique of the "Human+Machine Community," a community that theorists tend to idealize as inclusive, democratic, and able to transcend differences of race, class, and culture. Longo argues that, though admirable, this vision is false. In fact such a naive vision "masks mechanisms for inclusion and exclusion" (151). She notes that "this idea of a universal community--and the desire for an all-inclusive community -- is as illogical as it is compelling" (151). In order to have community at all, some people have to be excluded, or the community loses its meaning. "Without...boundaries," she writes, "the community ceases to exist" (152).
So that leads us back to the question about fragmentation. I would address the issue in the same way Peter did (up a few posts -- thanks, Peter!), considering that it's not "up to" the technology itself to determine good vs. bad; instead, we have to look more closely at the way the humans and technologies interact in context (Strong Defense). If we follow up on that, we can see that all communities require fragmentation to exist at all. That is, something needs to get broken up or broken off in order to form its own culture, a culture which by definition needs to exclude people who do not fit its criteria. So I think the next question is this: how do certain technologies change the way exclusion forms communities? Perhaps in Lancaster, PA, a group of people is a community due to the physical proximity of their homes, and people are excluded from that community due to the distance of their homes from that particular neighborhood. On Wikipedia, however, people who submit edits in standard, academic English (even if about "non-academic" topics) and with a reference to another source are going to get their words posted; they will be a part of the Wikipedia community. People who do not employ standard or academic language, however, will be excluded from the process of knowledge-making. In this case, people are excluded from the community of knowledge-making due to their inability to write in a certain, privileged style. There is fragmentation in both the Lancaster community and the Wikipedia community: the difference is on what basis the community forms. What sorts of communities do different technologies privilege?
I of course cannot answer that because the answer would go on for ever and ever. But it's certainly worth remembering Longo when we think of who gets included or excluded from different "fragmentary" communities online.