A Journey of Self Reflection: Apple, Google, Facebook in the Eyes of a Fellow Lawrentian

 

 

 

 

          My overall experience throughout the religious studies 245 course of Apple, Google, Facebook was absolutely innovating and revolutionizing to say the least.  This class had a profound impact on my overarching use of technology  as a whole and truly led me to recollect on my own personal level of self-awareness within my current use of digital databases. Three subjects that had the most proficient impact on my overall experience within the class consisted of reading Steve Jobs biography as well as listening to both the TED talk of Sherry Turkle as well as the presentation by Dr. Larry Rosen on the iDisorder. I will forever do my best to strive towards living a hungry, yet foolish lifestyle. As the saying goes, "to be old and wise, one must first be young and stupid." Dr. Larry Rosen and Sherry Turkle both helped me see ways to enhance and change my overall technological use of facebook, my cell phone, and all the other devices maintaining a priority amongst my life. 

  

          Ultimately, each action I take in the future regarding my use of technology will forever be changed by the tremendous impacts this class has had on my life as a whole. I have made a strong and conscious effort to be aware of what I am doing at every moment in time and will continue to take into consideration the effects technology has on the ability to not only impact my life, but too also the lives of all those around me. Both a self-awareness in myself has furthermore allowed me to be constantly alert in seeing what is going on throughout the world-wide and local community around me. In the same way as the video below, Apple, Google, Facebook has taught me to be more concentrated, to be alert, and has expressed to myself the need for me to wake up and smell the roses. I need to become liberated from the things hindering my experience as a human being and produce a more trusting lifestyle of habits via exploring the worlds of digital databases around me. I certainly hope my new found journey through the Twitterverse continues to help me through this process as well.



Thank you for following my journey through Apple, Google, Facebook! :)

The Hive Mind: Cultural Digitization

In his latest book, You are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier emphasizes the effects of the newly emerging “open culture movement” in which ideology is dulling actual technological improvement. In today’s day and age, Lanier expresses how different technology software’s like Facebook, etc. help make us experience the world in particular ways; however, implying whole-heartedly that Facebook has indeed lost the notion of individualism. Overall, Lanier seems to be questioning the notion of the internet culture that has immersed and articulated on the fact that human beings are leaving the personal self and chaining ourselves to this world full of digital databases. Lanier’s idea of the “hive view” consisting in part of ultimately the self and the overall arching expression of the self as being most important, is sincerely being lost and hindered in today’s day in age. This ultimate loss of the notion of the self is largely in part contributing to the notion of aggregation and the mob-like mentality that Lanier truly despises amongst the new open culture movement that has immersed in the recent 21^st century of which can be seen on most social networking cites anyone encounters. However, I completely beg to differ with Lanier's ultimate perspective of who will be the most successful in the future of our world.

After reading chapters 4-8 in Lanier’s book, something that struck me the most as a college student myself, consisted of his reference to the peasants and lords of the clouds. Lanier expressed, “Rule the computing cloud that routes the thoughts of the hive mind, and you’ll be infinitely wealthy” (Lanier, 2010, p. 85) From this statement, he goes on to express that in order to be successful or wealthy today, students need to master the algorithm of turning away from something incredibly profound like the ideological courses of philosophy to instead focus their efforts in trying to develop perhaps something like “programing a hedge fund” (Lanier, 2010, p. 86). In this winner-takes-all society he portrays, as a liberal arts student I was offended in regards to the fact that he thinks the only ones who will be successful are those creative masterminds like Mark Zuckerburg, whose ability to create a profound social networking masterpiece led to the plethora of success he maintains today. As the video below portrays, the benefits of a liberal arts education, in my own personal opinion, are truly important for the student to achieve a well-rounded education and prepares them for a future of success focusing on a multitude of courses introducing them to a plethora of knowledge and areas to explore.

Ultimately, the student with a vast array of knowledge in multiple areas of expertise is going to be a better key to utilize in solving the puzzles of life and the problems that erupt throughout the world versus someone who strictly focuses on one thing, in which that one aspect is all they solely do period. I feel people like this are going to become bored and burn out losing a passion for life and their purpose as a human being. As Steve Job’s once said, we must “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Jobs (a computer prodigy Lanier would suggest to be a prime example of one of the winners who took all in today’s society)  advice to others would be much different than Lanier’s in general. In Jobs commencement speech he instructed the graduating students not to live a life according to other people’s thinking, but to instead have the courage to follow their hearts and true inner intuitions.

 “Staying hungry and foolish means never becoming complacent, to strive and work for what you truly believe in, and to be “foolish” enough not to listen to so-called experts and authorities when it comes to what can and can’t be done” (http://www.wealthlift.com/blog/8-steve-jobs-quotes-life-business/).