After reviewing the Internet logs of my classmates and my own, I became kind of confused about what the definitive purpose of the Internet is. In many instances, I saw the Internet contributing to real world life: weather reports, homework, sport updates, directions, answering random questions asked by random brothers. In this case, I saw the Internet as making life present itself at a closer and more personal reach to us. This link of various sources around the world seemed to serve as a servant to humans, lending a helping hand to its dominant creator. This comforted me. I felt like technology was a completing piece of the definitive, whole world, but then I looked again. This direct movement from computer to outer world began to become skewed. I saw logs like, checked Facebook, checked Gmail, searched Youtube, and computer dead. It was as if this Internet was a pet that we checked on and took care of, even mourning its mortality. I felt less comfortable. We created something that seems to now be creating us. Instead of using a computer to move out to the world, I found that people are using the world to go deeper in to this web of energy. This realization brought me to an interesting hypothesis: Do we become the tools to our tools? In other words, do our objectives only beget other deeper or shallower objectives? It is definitely comforting to think that I control the dialogue between humanity and technology. Nevertheless, I think there might be more truth in thinking of the tools we create not just being support for our life, but also taking a life of their own. At times, we can be unwillingly controlled by our machines, like flies to light bulbs.
I like the point your making, but it sounds a bit far-fetched...I don't think we have to worry about Skynet (terminator reference-google will tell you what I mean) just yet.
ReplyDeleteYou liken the Internet to a pet that we check on. Scarier would be if we're the Internet's pet and it checks on us. Even scarier than Skynet, maybe.
ReplyDeleteI thought about this in class the other day. I don't think Facebook is owned by the government, but there has to be some sort of "government facebook team" sort of thing going on.
ReplyDeleteCheck it: http://www.thefader.com/2009/02/17/is-facebook-run-by-our-government/
Don't controlled by machines,I love this sentence. We are now controlled by many things except our nature and heart.
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