Tapscott 2

With the digital age deeply entrenched in our everyday lives, people constantly strive to seek out ways to stand out, be an individual. This is because the digital age on the internet almost everyone is anonymous, and with that, everybody is the same. So to break that thought, technologies today is giving us more ability to create custom designs and customization. Customization is actually a large part of today’s society. Everybody wants to be individuals, especially in our individualistic society such as in the United States, where individual personality stands out far above. We customize our clothing, buy different cases for our phones, we tune and customize just about every aspect of our cars to show our personality, creativity, and most importantly, our individuality. Customization is a part of almost everything in our lives. Our rooms, laptops, PCs, apartments. Everything needs to be customized.

But what about the other side of the coin? If we are so concerned with being an individual, why do we stick to the “norms”? People all buy iPhones because everyone else is also getting them. We all try to live in the same community, dress all similar to each other. There are social norms which be may push but not exceed or we will be seen as outcasts. So even though we try to individualize almost every aspect of our lives, on a macro scale we try to be just like everybody else. This is because we want to belong to something, maybe something that is much bigger than ourselves, a community. So in a sense we try to be both individualistic and at the same time gravitate around the limits or social norms that society lays upon us. Anything that breaks the outer limits of this norm will be seen as very out of place. For example, we all want to look good when we dress. Men all wear formal tuxedos to formal events while women wear dresses. We may all have different designs or colors, but the fact that we all have either tuxes or dresses show that we do want to belong. Although there are people who comfortably step outside these bounds of customization such as the musician Lady Gaga, who wears literally pieces of bacon as her attire to award shows. So the bigger question is: do we seek more to be an individual or do we seek to belong to a community more?

Tapscott 1

The rise of the technology of the computer is astounding. This is also true for the rapid and exponential growth in the ownership of computers. Back in 1983 there was only a small percentage of people whose households owned a computer. This number was only 7%.  In a span of about 20 years this number increased to about 44% of households now have a computer.  This is the same with the rise of the World Wide Web.  In the year 1994 only 35% of schools provided internet access inside their campuses. Now a complete 100% of schools in America provide internet access. That’s right, within a span of about 10-15 years every single school in the United States provides internet access.

Another stunning statistic is that fact that we are the first global generation. With major globalization changes, everyone is connected. This is done with a majority of the credit going into the World Wide Web. The internet has made a net of connectivity around the entire globe and it’s all thanks to this connectivity that we now live. With it can social networks and such where we can keep up to date with our friends and family members no matter where they are on the planet. This is the digital age of technology, where connectivity with anyone and everyone else is the priority. Digital technology is changing how we live. We wake up to surf the web for news and current events whereas before we read the morning newspaper or watch TV. As a matter of fact newspaper sales have diminished so drastically that most newspaper organizations have switched to online formats almost 100% and leaving only a miniscule amount o physical subscription based systems. Online is where we chat, hangout and socialize instead of face to face communication. We can now request movies to be played at our local theatre by voting online. This is creating a sort of online social unity, where anyone and everyone can be a part of a much larger community, an example would be the “like” system on Facebook. In the end, there seems to be no way of knowing where technology would end up because of how fast it is evolving, and all anyone can do is just to try to keep up with it, and hopefully, adapt to it.

Baron 2

In my previous blog entry I stated that people use writing and print to legitimize something, to make something official you sign your name in signature for to show your approval and also to have that as backup because your writing is physically on that piece of paper. But now a new paradigm is coming about and that is that maybe now even something that is physically written down can be untrustworthy. This is an interesting contrast because writing is the norm now to be legitimate information. But when writing was first invented, or still in its infancy, there was an outcry of mistrust with writing. This is shown in many older texts and especially when printing technology was invented, duplication was at another level. And so another level, or an increased level of mistrust in writing and especially print technology was formed. And so the early days of Europe when something was printed it was actually designed to look like illuminated manuscripts to make people have more trust in it. It is a different form of writing and people are slow to adapt to it and to even trust it. They hired artists to design prints that looked like old illuminated texts to make it seem more trustworthy.

This is even the same today as authenticity does not necessarily mean on paper. With today’s technology and its abilities to duplicate, replicate and even change forms is astounding. And so today’s texts are being examined or even produced in multiple layers of anti-duplication techniques. One of the best examples of this is the dollar bill. There are many things on a dollar bill that distinguishes itself from counterfeits. It has multiple layers of information and text to prevent, or hopefully prevent any armature to be able to duplicate that. In this sense, writing is both a gift and a curse. Writing is what makes the dollar bill authentic, but it is also giving a way for counterfeiters.

Baron 1

What stood out to me as interesting is the mention of Socrates mentioning to Phaedrus that writing and the invention of writing will actually make people's memory weaker. They believed that because having the experience firsthand of physically hearing a certain story, and experiencing that information first hand can be much more powerful than something that was written in the past and then delivered as information as one reads it. Socrates also says that writing can be a form of trickery. Because if you talk to someone face to face, you can make them tell the truth and therefore have the power of not receiving lies. This is in contrast to whereas in writing it is more difficult to ascertain its truthfulness because anyone can just writing whatever they want down and be fairly anonymous, in the sense that you have to psychically seek them out to see if their writing is lying or not.

This notion of writing is fake is in dire contrast to today's society where people's word of mouth is less believed to be the truth than something that is physically written down. In today's culture it is hard pressed to find someone who will agree to anything without your personal signature that states that you agree with something. If you only say that you will agree but not write it down, then it is considered illegitimate. Spoken words are much less trusted. This is why in today's society we have laws that are all in written form so that they are concrete. Just from this example one can see how important the technology of writing is to our society and culture today. Writing creates order and organization. This is because it is an unchangeable or arguably difficult to change type of format. This is why a personal signature is so important, because it gives concrete evidence of an agreement or situation, whereas in oral culture, you can say that you give them your word to promise something, but there is no concrete evident to support that.

Achebe 2

Although a number of people see the purpose of music as entertainment, a variety of cultures use the technology of music for more than simply the purpose of entertainment. In many cultures, whether it be in the past or the present, music has been used as a form of communication; more specifically to notify or inform. A number of cultures use drum beats to communicate to their people of approaching danger. Others use these drum beat to communicate directions in working, completion of certain jobs or to maintain uniformity. It is interesting to see the development of music, technologically, to be used as a form of language (communication). A part from music used to communicate, it has also been used to teach or share tales (life lessons) in some cultures.  For example in some cultures, songs are made to tell a story of a hero that passed away in a war; in other words this music keeps his legacy going. Many people have also written music to tell their own life stories, or share their passions and interest. As it can be seen the technology of music has grown to be used for a variety of reasons: communication, stories, and entertainment. When you listen to music today people rarely think about the reasoning behind it.

Achebe 1

Language is not usually thought of as being the most important aspect of a culture. Although it does not come into mind as the initial importance, it is truly imperative in communication from one person to another. Without language, one would not be able to express importance, anger, joy, or other emotions. Technologically without language writing wouldn’t have come into play nor diagrams to get information through.  Language reflects cultures in a variety of ways. In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart the use of language plays a key role in showing the rank of someone or to signify that they are seen as strong or weak. Even today language is used to offend someone or to acknowledge. The use of language also aids in the completion of tasks as well as asking one for help and ensuring that help will be given. Throughout all cultures, language plays a key role in how you communicate with others. Therefore knowing the right techniques and ways of speaking to others is important in evolving the culture and their use of technology. Without the cultures own form of language, there would be no way signaling even the smallest difference of one person from another. There would also be no way of sharing different forms and techniques of getting certain jobs done. Language is the reason of the success or failure of a person or even a full culture. 

Ong 2

Although writing was developed from oral cultures and practices, it does not mean that they cannot go hand in hand. This is because writing that comes after oral cultures can actually affect how the original oral cultures began and functions. Its codes and functions can differ depending on its origins, but the result can also affect how the original is used and functions. This is very prevalent in situations where the original oral culture may only have one way to describe things, or only one dialect. Writing and print can even create  make, and develop new dialects based on its origins because of the way writing works. As we all know know there are many cultures around the world that does not have a written dialect or culture at all. So in this sense they cannot evolve their technology because there is no evolution in their dialects and how they communicate. Many technologies are based on the technology of writing and its techniques, such as paper and the invention of the typewriter. So oral exclusive cultures that did not adapt to this is at a disadvantage because they do not even think to evolve their technology to deal with language because they don't need to. This is very interesting in that writing can actually promote technological development and its further creations.

Ong 1

Oral based cultures and writing based cultures functions on completely different terms. First of all he discusses how oral cultures generally have shorter memory spans. For example, if a person from an oral culture tells a story or an experience, he would have to tell it all the way through and not be interrupted. And if he was interrupted, then he would have to start his story all over again from the very beginning. This is an example of how oral cultures functions differently. Language as a technology began developing because of the need for longer memory spans. This is because of studies that suggest that written cultures have evolved in a sense to have longer memory spans than oral cultures because writing down information helps with remembering information. Also now in written cultures we can record history whereas in oral cultures they would have to pass the stories down orally and only orally from one generation to the next. This means that there can be more room for error in these stories because someone may not remember it 100% correctly. In written cultures recorded history have a sense of permanence and not anyone can make up or change these so easily. Although there are people who at first believed that writing will destroy history, but now that we see that this will actually help it.