Week 4

This week we had Glenn, one of our guest lecturer, take the class because John was unable to be there for this week's class. The class was scheduled for Wednesday like usual, but unfortunately Glenn had been locked out of his house by his children, and was therefore unable to attend the class, so it was rescheduled for the following day.

During this class we discussed the reading for this week 'Painfully Coming to Grips 'With the Medium is the Message', and talked about how technology influenced society. Among other things the television was mentioned and how, even though the radio was around, the television had a bigger impact on families and society. The reason for this massive impact was that the message that was being transmitted was more convincing because people were able to see pictures, they saw proof of what they were being told. Also, watching television takes up more than one sensation, you watch and listen, you're unable to focus on something else because it demands all your attention, you're almost in a state of trance. The radio only needs one of our senses, so we can easily listen to music while cooking or doing homework. Another point mentioned in class was that people were getting used to the radio, it functioned as a background noise in people's daily lives, but did not really affect their family life. The television though did, because at the beginning people used to have it in the kitchen, just like the radio, but since watching television takes all our concentration, it stops us from eating, so the TV was moved into the living room. 

Furthermore the subject of how this technology, if it continues to develop, will change our society, and what impact it will have on us, was being discussed. One example mentioned was that nowadays with the internet, we have a choice of what we want to see rather than being shown selected stuff. In other words we're not bound to the television only, if we don't like what's on the TV we can go to the internet and watch videos on YouTube for example, about things we're interested in. We chose what we want to see, which can be a good thing but it can also be to our disadvantage, because we might end up watching only things we like, instead of seeing the news on the television for example, so we might miss on useful information because we can chose not to watch them anymore. On the other hand television for example shows a lot of commercials, which can be annoying and give you the feeling of being brainwashed, but if you go to the internet and you use 'AD blocker' for example, you won't see annoying ads. But then again, if you watch videos on YouTube for example, the people talking in the videos (You-tubers)  are often sponsored to advertise a new product. If a 'you tubers' content in the videos is about healthy lifestyle for example, and the person keeps mentioning this one product that seems to be amazing, there's a big chance that this 'you tuber' is being paid to promote this product, and does not really tell honest opinions. There was a big argument going on for a while on the internet because a lot of 'you tubers' did not make it clear that they were being sponsored, because technically if a video is being sponsored by someone, it needs to be mentioned in the video description, so that kids that might still be more naive and believe everything they're being told, know that this person in the video is being paid to say nice things about this particular product, and don't go buy it because they believe the 'you tuber' they're watching is giving their honest impression on it. So it doesn't really make a difference in the end, when it comes to being advertised stuff we don't really need, because hidden advertisements are everywhere. I think the important thing is to educate ourselves about this topic, so we can watch advertisements and notice them even though they might not be obvious.

Another point of how technology has impacted our society is communication. An example raised during class was the fact that we're able to meet in second life. Thanks to technology we can meet in a place without having to travel, we just need to log into our computer. But meeting online is different from meeting up in person. We need to modify our behavior because there is no facial expression in Second life, we can't really see emotions, and in some cases the microphones might not work so we have to use the chat to communicate. Another example is that people might not want to use the microphone, or John can't see who is talking so he asks us to type 'y' into the chat if we agree with something he said, so he knows everyone understood his point. I think that in the future people might even communicate less in person than they do now. I think people will get used to the comfort that technology gives us, and that it might have a negative impact on our social behavior. And by that I mean that we might lose the ability to communicate properly, because we're constantly checking our phones, we don't know how to behave in a real situations and are being obsessed with our social media platforms. Furthermore we use shortcuts and emoji's in our texts, but in the end there's no intimacy in such conversations, you can't smell a person's perfume or give them a hug to say hi, you're not even using you're own handwriting, so there's absolutely nothing personal about this kind of communication, which is sad, because that's what communication is about. Getting to know someones real personality.