technoculture203-09

The popularity of computer gaming is increasing as a contemporary leisure activity. At this point, I want to ask one thing. Do you think computer gaming is a masculine thing? This is an old argument. Of course there is no doubt that it is always intended as toys for the boys. We have been thought female gamers are not interested in games with a violent content, or with recognizably male themes have been challenged by female gamers themselves. I do not deny computer gaming is a more popular leisure activity for males than females and the violent contents attract male gamers.

But we need to aware that the gendered natures of computer games such as the violent content and generally ‘male’ themes of games might prevent females from identifying with game characters, goals and settings. And the stereotypical and sexualized portrayal of those female characters is another factor explaining the lack of popularity of computer gaming as leisure activity among females. The digital gaming cultures which are gendered identities in games with a masculine and heterosexual player in mind might negate the empowerment of women.

Actually there are many female gamers who have similar game preferences and involvement in gaming as males. What I want to say is that we do not need to have a certain stereotype that there are “GENDERED ACTIVITIES” which make us to have distinction of sex. We just need to reach a better understanding of the real differences between women who prefer more ‘male-oriented’ activities, as well as those who would prefer a more ‘feminine’ flavour.

Read danah boyd's blog entry about a recent study claiming that approx. 40% of tweets are "pointless babble".

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/08/16/twitter_pointle.html

I'm sure many of you will have seen advertising on the web for a free online game called Evony. The premise of the game is to build a medieval empire, or so I've read... I've never played the game myself.

For those that don't know the ads, I have selected a few. They appear in chronological order, documenting the shift from reasonable and relatively representative, to pure lowest common denominator.





There is no lover to save in the game, so this statement is essentially a lie. In my opinion, the ads get more misleading from this point on...





I don't think I have to point out what's wrong with this final ad. Of course, I'm not the only one with objections to this sort of advertising practice. The company behind Evony is now taking legal action against those who have been particularly vocal with their complaints, accusing sites such as The Guardian Online and Bruce On Games of defamation.

I will be very interested in where this leads, as it seems to me that for the most part the defendants have demonstrated more honesty than the plaintiff.


(Thanks to Coding Horror for images and info)

It was mentioned in the lecture (17.08.09) that even through identity we want to be original yet belong to a certain group. With this point I researched within my friends on facebook and these types of identities were able to be seen through the things that they are 'fans' of and through their personal information that was listed. I was able to see that many of my friends could be characterised by the music they were fans of. They showed their way of being different to the mainstream but yet belonged to a group where many other people were also fans.

What I found interesting in Helen Kennedy's reading is the fact we are able decipher one's identity through the comments that are left. Even through my profile and my friends', I'm able to see a little bit of their personalities within it. One friend showed their interest in folk and alternative music through some of the comments they left on others' profiles and through the listing of their personal likes.

Through identity, it lead me to think that many of us portray ourselves with a variety of different personalities to show that we are different but yet, belonging to some certain group. Through these representations, we are able to alter or show ourselves in a certain identity.

Mo9's post, "Technology: A Means or an End?" reminded me of this presentation given by Professor Michael Wesch, who too refers to Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death".

The very first SNS I used was 'Hi5' back in 2005. Then it was 'Bebo' (2006), 'Myspace' (2007), and finally, 'Facebook' which I joined mid last year. It wasn't untill the beginning of this year that I stayed faithful to one site - for some time I was using all three simultaneously. In saying that though, there has always been one SNS site which I used and updated considerably more over the others. I have never used two or more SNS sites to the same frequecy or capacity at the same time.

I stopped using Bebo at the beginning of the year and am now purely Facebook orientated. I definately think there is a stigma of heirachy attached to SNS sites especially in regards to age and 'class' if you will.

Hi5 and Bebo are seemingly aimed at the youth market with their ease of use and fun, bright background themes. MySpace is especially good for the musically inclined yet it is still quite 'young' or 'immature' looking with its personalization capabilities. Because of the sterile and generic look of Facebook, it automatically gives a more sophisticated vibe that assumingly attracts 'mature' young adults hence 'teenyboppers' would find less appealing.


Aestheitcs to me is the most impacting factor. The internet is a very visual medium therefore the first thing that is generally picked up on is what can be immediately seen. I normally categorize or 'class' a SNS site just from veiwing its homepage.

When consumers find a better thing for them then they will move on to that better thing and that alone is a clear display of ranking which SNS does not escape.

I was quite shocked to hear that people nowadays can actually play Ping Pong using just their brain. Looking deeper I found that there are several ways in which the machine can interact with our brains, which I find a bit disturbing. I mean, what's next? Are people going to start wearing brain censors to read each others’ minds? I do not like the idea of that at all. A mind can often start wandering and do we actually want people to read those private thoughts?

On the other hand, there are some positive sides as well, for example for people with the "locked-in syndrome". Some experiments were carried out using a brain-computer interface, providing a new communication channel between the human brain and the computer. One at a time, a letter would pop up on a screen and brain activity would be stronger when the letter the person wanted to use popped up. They could then write words or ever sentences with this program.

Many more examples of this type of research can be found here (link).

A horrifying moment at work for me recently was the discovery that we are selling the boy/girl gender pregnancy tests. This sort of technology (DNA predicting technology to be exact), is a gender test which states that it produces a 90% positive result in testing the gender of an unborn foetus.

The first thing people notice about our identity is our gender, and if a person’s gender is doubtful then there is immediate unease within the social scene. As we are currently seeing in the news with winning South African athlete, Castor Semenya who has been submitted to a gender test. As she is considered to look manly, it has also been revealed in a previous test that Semenya had a testosterone level three times that of normal women.

Semenya like many other athletes constantly aims for higher, faster, stronger and above all self enhancement. I would like to suggest that these athletes are after an improved self or in reality a genetically modified self. And by using enhancements which involve DNA altering technology, these athletes are actually a form of cyborg. Not a sci-fi cyborg which stereotypically involves alienation, but involving extension to the body through the addition of technology. Cyborgs are also reliant on technology to survive, as in this case athletes are dependent on technology to expand their careers. For example machines which monitor their bodies allowing them to improve their performance.

I suppose in the end, in this day and age it is ‘the image that counts.’ So what do you think male or female? There is a fifty-fifty chance, right?

Here are some links to a couple of interesting stories about people getting arrested and fired from their jobs because of what they have posted on Facebook. Article 1. Article 2.

This kind of surveillance over SNS i find to be quite concerning, with focus especially on Facebook quiz applications, with many young people especially unaware that Facebook owns the rights to all public data you place on the site... even the 'seemingly' private questions you are often asked in quizzes.

The questions i have for this are; are people generally unaware of the kind of surveillance that can be carried out by almost anyone with access to SNS? if so what does this suggest about the kinds of people using the sites.

Second question is, if people are aware of this level of surveillance, then could it be that people using the SNS do not mind that there is a possibility of their private data to be exploited by a stranger?, or in this case, their boss.

This blog entry is a reflection of the attention that is paid to the aesthetics of social networking sites (presented in class today), and why it is that people choose to sign up to a particular social networking site.

Today I was surprised by the number of people who chose to sign up to select social networking sites for reasons other than their chosen site being where their friends happen to hang out (just 12%). For me and almost all of the people I know, being signed up to a social networking site is strictly about connecting with actual friends. To me the features (applications and customisations) that come with the site are of little relevance or importance. I am signed up to facebook solely because my friends who I like to keep in touch with are also signed up to facebook. My only interest is in writing to my friends and sharing and viewing photographs. I have zero interest whatsoever in customising my page, using applications, taking quizzes, or attempting to befriend strangers who I have never met. This is probably why I am content with my facebook account as a single means to keeping in contact primarily with friends who are away, or for me to keep in touch while I am away. That is rather than myspace and bebo that have customized page options.

Based on the online ‘vox pop’ of 100 reasons for choosing a particular social networking site it would seem that a greater number choose to sign up to particular social networking sites primarily to engage with people they haven’t met before . I’ve based this conclusion on the selection criteria that these people have rated as being of highest importance in selecting which specific social networking site they will sign up to. I am very surprised by this finding, because I assumed that most people used social networking sites for reasons similar to my own. I was very wrong.

In tutorials today I discovered that the concept of a 'personal homepage' is unfamiliar to quite a few people. This isn't really surprising given that few people today invest time in building their own personal website from scratch in order to construct a 'home' for themselves on the internet where they can 'put their stuff' and just 'be' online. For most people it's a bit like building a house of straw when Facebook or MySpace or Blogger will put you up in a fully furnished state-of-the-art apartment. However, in the late 90s many internet service providers offered their customers a little bit of free space on the internet to create a personal homepage and these were typically used to create a space that described the author's likes, dislikes, interests or to demonstrate their creativity. Enter 'personal homepage' into Google and you will see many fine examples of the classic personal homepagestill exist.

I think the same desire to have a space of your own on the internet and to display something of yourself persists, but perhaps our new cyberhomes are a little more communal and also a little more commodified.

If you have never seen a late 90s homepage this parody captures the personal homepage aesthetic quite nicely.

Enjoyable silly piece on the ubiquity of screens by Guardian columnist, Charlie Brooker:
"We watch them on the bus. At work. At play. We have been invaded by screens. They rule our lives. All we need is a screen to have sex with and the circle will be complete"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/24/charlie-brooker-screens-invasion

This article connects with some of the issues we'll be discussing this coming week.

Erving Goffman put forth several ideas about the self and personal identity. One if these is that we only have an identity because we exist in the eyes of others, that is, if it weren't for other people, we wouldn't have an identity. In relation to what we have studied in class this week, Goffman's ideas about the self an be related back to personal web pages such as Facebook, myspace and Blogging sites.

People online identities on Facebook and myspace are some forms of our identity that would not exist if others weren't observing. There would be no reason to change interests, or update statuses if there was no one to observe these qualities of the self. In a more general approach, Facebook would not function as a social site unless people were there to observe others.
The selves that people construct on social networking sites are rarely for self clarification of their identity. In the more public arena of Facebook, the reason for sharing things about the self is so that others know things about the person.

In addition to this, Blogging websites offer a more in depth look at a person's identity. Where Facebook sets a template for people to fill in with their preferences for books, films, and political views, Bloggers can make these for themselves, giving a more rounded and less permanent construction of their identity, the more changeable, frequent updates that blogging allows for means people can write about their current favourite book, or a a good movie they just saw, offering on going insights into their identity.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Embedded below is a video produced by one of Michael Wesch's students on anonymity, self identity and new media

Face book and relationship troubles?

New media technology has given the ability for couples to showcase their love for each other through personal internet sites, and social networking sites. Sites such as face book have become a gift and a curse for couples and their relationships.

The positive is that they allows a space for couples to illustrate their love using (comments, pictures, e.t.c) for all to see and also by allowing this to be done easily at a distance. However on the other side face book has also given the rise to new realms of online tension, paranoia, and jealousy, between loving couples.

According to New Zealand herald article and study found in (Friday Aug 14, 2009, NZ Herald), states that old flames and flirty friends, have the ability to incite suspicion and trigger jealousy through the use of Wall comments or photo comments which may say ‘your hot’ or ‘I miss you’ for example. Additionally photos which users become ‘tagged’ on where they may be caught in situations with people other then their partners and in situations where they must explain to their partners.

Amy Muise, a doctoral candidate at the University of Guelph's psychology department who led a recent study on how Facebook can spark jealousy in romantic relationships among college students.
"Part of the issue with information on Facebook is that it lacks certain context, " Muise said, "so there could be things posted on your partner's wall that you really don't know what it means."…“Facebook users can get snagged in a "feedback loop":

This new networking medium has created a new element and space to relationships whereby it can act as a new way in which cheaters can be potentially caught through the archive of comments or pictures. But also confusion can be created by out of context comments and pictures which may trigger jealousy between couples.
As we move into a new generation of socially networked media, whereby it is completely normal and realistic to have a face book profile (among other online profiles), whereby the content within the page is taken too seriously by individuals and couples alike.

Article found at:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10590776

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNyg1ftMIU

This is a follow up to our tutorial discussion today about suicidegirls.com. Questions were raised about whether or not this website subverts the cultural norms of pornography and reinforces feminist ideals. I, personally do not think it does either. That the women featured are called "girls" does not make me think of them as strong feminist role models. Instead, it reasserts that they are controlled by another dominant force, just as a girl (child) answers to a parent. While they do get to choose which photos are posted, the girls must conform to a preordained “look.”

The fact that the girls post information about themselves and have an interest in "intellectual" happenings, does not make them worthy of the title of subversive feminists. For me, it does come down to the requisite naked photos. This simply reinforces the idea that women can and even should be taking their clothes off and posing seductively for the (male) public. There is a section of Spike TV's (television for men) website dedicated to "girls," where "each week the Suicide Girls bring you their hottest girls." (http://www.spike.com/channel/girls) The fact that suicidegirls.com advertises here shows a clear targeting of male "viewers." Nothing is mentioned about the intellect of the girls.

If Suicide Girls really want to be subversive, feminist women, they should stop trying so hard to embody a certain "look" and simply be strong in everyday life.

From the Matrix Reloaded:

"If we wanted, we could shut these machines down."
"[Of] course. That's it. You hit it. That's control, isn't it? If we wanted we could smash them to bits. Although, if we did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air..."

Are these girls cyborgs?



Calvin Harris takes credit for the world's first "humathesizer". Using conductive body paint and by making electrical circuits with their bodies they are able to orchestrate a song and dance routine for Harris' new song. At first I thought this was a bit fake - especially with the bikini clad beauties, but extra research seems it is quite legitimate and quite interesting!

It seems the human body is potentially the most amazing natural computer. With ideas such as Microsoft's proposed forearm keypad as old as 2004, who knows what the possibilities are?!

I also saw District 9 yesterday which has several cool cyborg themes, including human metamorphosis. While fantastical, it is important to keep an eye on how art represents and deals with this man-machine relationship, for it often demonstrates real ideas and possibilities...

How about these cyborgs?

I though Mondays lecture about intimacy online was both interesting and very though provoking in the way of looking at the different points of view about online intimacy. I found this article online http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/11/14/couple-to-split-after-husband-cheats-on-wife-in-second-life-86908-20893532/ where a woman left her husband who was having sex with someone else on 2nd life. I found it interesting that their relationship started, progressed and ended through technology. They met in a chat room, spent most of their marriage on 2nd life and then it ended as one was unfaithful on it. It made me wonder, if technology hadn’t had such a presence all the way through their relationship, would she have found her husband’s ‘cheating’ serious enough to opt for divorce? The article states that the couple spent most of their marriage on 2nd life and now after their divorce, have both now found new relationships and love online through other online games. This relates back to what Luke was saying in the lecture about ‘intimacy at a distance’ and ‘proximity without intimacy’. They both now have intimacy at a distance by engaging in sex and relationships online, the ex husband even being engaged to someone he met online, but has not met in real life. During their marriage, the couple were close in proximity but had little intimacy as they spent their time on 2nd life and one was unfaithful.

I believe there is a strong gender difference in online gaming. I find most of my male friends almost all of them play some kind of online games during the day, in the evening and some all night long. Most of them usually play these games in the internet cafes where many of whom are related players in that place. It is a world for them to interact and compete with each other. It can be seen similar to females enjoying and continuously upgrading their profiles on their social networking sites like Myspace. I think movies and games share a lot in common. They entertain us and allow us to escape reality for the briefest of times, or make us dwell on ideas we may never have pondered before. But unlike movies games make us (particularly referring to boys) part of their world. They get the chance to take the role controlling the chosen characters and allow them to share in its greatest moments. But why does people find it disturbing when a girl decides to play this sort of games.. Like now the Diablo3 introduced female character allowed to be chosen for their future heroes. I think this has got something to do with the concern that girls trying to compete with boys are seen unequal? Hence saying this is not a real competitive game for the males? I believe there shouldn’t be a gender difference in online games because these days more and more females are participating in these games and even some of my female friends are actually enjoy playing these games regularly and I find now the boys are actually getting used to them playing with them and forget the idea of gender whilst playing the game.

When I was looking around trying to find an interesting website I found this site http://www.sitedrifter.com/where it takes you to whatever site that's suggested to be great.
It is updated by introducing various kinds of interesting sites from "Free Social Networking and Online Dating Software ", "Free Screen Recorder To Make Video Tutorials "and other useful websites are categorized on the right hand side of this webpage. There are also frequently updated lists of new game releases and even what is called an "annoying websites". I find this kind of site quite interesting even just by having a look I find myself being transferred into a site that is really interesting and worth while to have a look at. Sometimes I find myself regularly visiting the same site that I found in this site. There are lots of blogs subscribed in this site where people introduce some of the very useful and interesting sites.

Another site that I spent a lot of time on was this site www.paidsurveysplus.com which I found when I visited the job search site. This site was also introduced by someone who shared her interesting story of how she made money at home by just filling out surveys. First I thought this was nonsense but when I read her experience and other peoples replies I decided to go for it. It hasn't been long since I started this but I am earning some money at the moment but since this was a site particularly for people in US, there is less job for me to do meaning less pays I receive.. However it was worth a try I guess..there are still some New Zealand companies who are willing to pay people for their opinions by participating in surveys.

The idea of being a cyborg is kind of scary. Had you asked me before the lecture what I thought I cyborg was then I would have shown you this picture from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis(1927):

In Donna Haraway's 1991 essay "A Cyborg Manifesto", in part one "An Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit", Donna Haraway defines cyborg as a kind of hybrid product of technology. Haraway argues against traditional notions of feminism and essentialism thus encouraging dualism and hybridity.

This Hybridity in cyborg theory does not conform merely to the master-slave relationship exemplified by G.W.F. Hegel in the"Master-Slave Dialect", but introduces a more complex two way relationship, in which the boundaries for Animal and Human, Organism and Machine, physical and the non-pysical all breaks down.

Recent tenable Holographic technologies brings us back to the discussion of digital versus analogue, and the induced confusion of the blurred boundaries, where seeing another Three-dimensional person in front of us would not traditionally be thought of as anything non-tactile or digital, but here it is a digitized construction. Haraway argues that, through the exploitation of nature to serve the needs of culture, we gain "pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction."



The launch of Cisco’s On-Stage TelePresence Experience received strong reactions from the live audience, and attracted 455,160 viewers on Youtube (as of 16/8/2009). This experience was made possible by the incorporation of Musion 3D Holographic Projection technology with Cisco's TelePresence.

I think of the person being holographed as not a kind of cyborg in the way one would crudely imagine it to be, such as from the villain-like interpretations of Star trek or Doctor who.

It can not be seen as the extreme "Avant-Garde" cyborgs either, due to the fact we are not actually repositioning our own physical bodies, therefore I would classify it under the domains of the mundane cyborg.

From a rather realist approach, Catherine Hayles writes that it is human nature to use technology, and that human and technology co-evolve. An example here is the evolution of communication technologies, from male to telegraph, to telephone, to face-to-face web conference, to telepresence (maybe). And we as users of the technology evolves with the technology.

This also shows the trend of the disappearing interface and the increased immersion fidelity. with possible future everyday Holograms that we Can Touch and Feel, such as the touchable holography technology created by a team of researchers from The University of Tokyo.

I am notoriously indecisive. About a week ago I wrote a computer program to make all my trivial decisions for me. Essentially, it flips a coin and reports back on the result. Here's an example of it working:

You will be entering two options to choose between.

Please enter the first option: Write a blog post!
Please enter the second option: Delay indefinitely!

I have chosen:
Write a blog post!

I hope this choice is satisfactory.

I wondered if the act of using a computer program to decide things for me qualified me as a cyborg, but I think not as I am not inseparable from the technology. In fact, in its current state I can't make any decisions with it when I'm away from my computer.

That led me to wonder, would it be any different if I used the traditional (and fundamentally identical) flipping of a coin instead? Could an act such as this still be applicable to cyborg theory? What are the limits of what counts as technology or machinery? That the process of flipping a coin is so binary seems oddly fitting to me... but I digress.

Robotic pets?
I thought this was interesting, the development of robotic animals/pets, in which are able to perform tasks otherwise done by humans. This particular example I found which is still under construction was of the BIGDOG, which can carry heavy loads. The you tube video speaks for itself though. What I was most interested about is the future of this type of technology. Being a person who doesn’t think of themselves as a cyborg and would not embrace cyborg technology, I would be happy however to embrace this type of robotic technology in order to make life much easier as companions which have serious usefulness! Check out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM

http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2009/02/cyborgs_robotic_pets_on_the_ho.html

The music video was shot for the Japanese band Sour’s Hibi no Neiro’ (Tone of everyday) from their first EP album ‘Water Flavor EP’. The MV portrays people pass through the maze of everyday but regardless of different colours and tones. If we can embrace the feelings, then we can establish a colourful picture.

Under the globalization of media, computer is a useful meditated tool to conduit for images and sounds. The idea of telepresence is kinds of new experience to create feeling and sensation through the fans’ individual channel. Also, it can solve the geography problems and provide the flexibility for expanding the scope for interactive practices and stimulate an unprecedented level of cultural fascination through the combination of their behavior, facial expression, gesture, drawing and texts. This is a minimalist low budget production with simple synthetics editing and visual effect, it is possible to be home production with innovative clever idea.

The MV can be determined an unprecedented degree of interactivity and explored the boundaries between technology, culture and nature. It is an example to explain the terms of ‘Technological determinism’ and ‘Technology voluntarism’. Music can be more individual, for example, home crafted production by using Apple software Pro tool and Logic Express. Fans joined together from all over the world in the front of the Web Cams to present themselves as a role of actors and actresses. The convergences of gender-neutral activities are presented, for example, males are active that they act as monster meanwhile females just said hello through the frame. During the scene, there is a guy who wears a mask to show his funny character and the other guy shows his masculinity though his arm tattoo. I can feel their vitality and happiness.

Credits
Director: Masashi Kawamura, Hal Kirkland, Magico Nakamura, Masayoshi Nakamura


Enjoy.

Just a little "technohumour" concerning relationships and technology

I believe there are preceivable differences in the performance of gender in technologies in society. Such differences in texting styles based on gender can be one of the example. I find that females tend to use more emotional emoticons when texting than males who just use simplified short texts. Also examining the profile pictures in social networking sites there are trends in these self-images according to gender. Females are more interested in sharing their social lives by writing diaries and uploading pictures regularly (often the kind of pictures taken with their friends having a party or any activity they are in not necessarily a picture of themself.) Not only this kind of gender performance are portrayed this way but are also performed online. One thing that I found which might not be so relevant but the way males don't tend to chat or have long conversation with their mates (of same gender) whereas girls would do so. The organisation of lists of friends might be one of the difference where females (myself and some of my female friends) usually categorize people and organise them in groups of different kind e.g. close friends, gender etc. This was interesting because when I looked at my male friend's one his list of people on line was just in one simple list. These differences seem to show that females might be more socially opened than most males in society and maybe their stereotypical role as females have moulded them to perform differently.

Creator of the above clip Max Rosen, runs a course at New York University on viral video production. He identifies some characteristics of viral advertising to ensure its success and generation of profit in these demanding times such as:

Just to avoid any confusion - I'm do not select (and am therefore not repsonsible for the content of) the Youtube videos that appear on the right sidebar of this blog. I just select keywords and the videos are generated automatically for us (and change over time). It's just meant to be a bit of fun with the uncontrolled flow of Web 2.0. If anyone sees anything appearing that they find offensive, let me know and I'll gladly change the parameters. And feel free to suggest keywords of your own.

Three news stories from the UK media have caught my eye this past week.

The first looks at the suggestion that youth are starting to leave social networking sites and that {gasp} it might be the oldies that are driving them away: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/young-abandon-social-networking-sites

The second reports on the sometimes tragic consequences of teenagers 'sexting': http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/07/sexting-teenagers-mobile-phones

And the third sets about 'debunking' the claims made in a recently popular YouTube video about Muslim immigration in Europe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8189231.stm

The cyborg themed lecture this week raised concerning issues. I have never fathomed that I could indeed be a cyborg of sorts. Yes technology is an integral part of my life as means to a source of health, knowledge and entertainment. Of course won't argue the many ways various technology enhances our lives through such aspects as medicinal advancements which (are supposed to) provide better quality of life, better copmmunicative means regardless of distance, and leisure activities which provide pleasure. But with the good also comes the bad and technology is no exception. Weapons of mass destruction, death from the drugs that were supposed to make us better in the first place (missused or not), and overindulgence of our gadgets causing vision and hearing damage are just a few examples of technology's destructive effects.

I have always preferred the idea of humans being seperate to the machine. If we, the human, created the machine, then surely the machine can only be as smart as its creator-not smarter?

Aldous Huxley, I believe, paints a terrifying cyborg future with his dystopian novel 'A Brave New World'. The World State, which its characters are situated, are conditioned and shaped by various technologies (most notably chemical interference of fertilized eggs and 'soma' hallucinogen) to conform to The World State where everyone is classed off, permanently 'happy' from 'soma', and don't know the concepts of love, hate, and all the emotions in between. No one questions anything about any aspects of their lives because their thoughts are supressed and they are programmed to believe that everything is right in the world. They are simply human shells of a corporate body who are slaves to The World State.

The more technology advances, the more it can be abused. Who decides what is ethical and draws that line? The Avant Garde cyborgs have disturbing visions. If the human body is used as a mere medium, then what is going to happen to Mankind? A becoming of a Programmedkind perhaps?

Briefly in our tutorial (although we were meant to be discussing gender), we touched over the idea of social networks changing the way we socialize or interact with others.

Then the other day when a friend of mine posted a comment on his profile complaining about endlessly doing his study. Another comment from his friend was posted in response making the claim that he had not being studying he had instead being WoWing (world of war craft, playing) instead of doing his study. My friend, who posted the comment about study, clearly did not want to be associated with WoW. The next the comment was deleted, leaving no evidence. With a simple click of the button, he had literally taken back something he had said as though it never even happened, something one would not be able to do if they were having an immediate conversation with a person.

I had an idea then, that just as we can edit text on the computer, we can also edit our personalities. How much of our 'real' personalities are reflected through social networks? Personalities online are not the same as personalities in real life because of the differences between the immediacy of one on one interaction vs the disrupted flow of conversation via technology.

Technology disrupts the flow of immediacy because of the way which users can edit and reedit as many times as they want, making their words appear seamless, intelligent or witty. When replying to someone’s post (using facebook as an example), people have the opportunity to construct their words as they please. When arguing with someone, each person can take the time to think up a clever response, and both could appear clever and confident. In real life a person may stumble on his or her words in the awkwardness of conflict. They may think of what they could say later but not be able to actually express it.

In the lecture when Luke asked people to turn to the person next to them and say what their favorite movie was, personally I was baffled. I love many movies and so I would have said one of the first few to come to mind in my head. However I was nervous because I wanted to present a movie that represented my taste in movies as being different from the mainstream. If I was typing my favorite movie in a social networking site such as Bebo, I would have searched through my mental memory to find the a foreign film that maybe won a Sundance award at some point and have typed that down. However being put on the spot the only thing that came to mind was ‘twilight’ because I had seen that film most recently and secretly I enjoyed it.

There lies an awkward future. If people continually resort to the internet to communicate and depend more and more heavily on the use of technology for the purpose of interaction, everyone will become the same. being unable to distinguish between those with a sense of humor and the ones who have to think for a while to come up with something that others might be considered funny or the ones that come across opinionated, but in real life lack the ability to speak their opinion compared to the ones that always speak their opinion in real life, how is one to know whose personality is real?

Many people, including myself, have been reluctant to label themselves cyborgs. The common reasoning behind this, is that people feel that being a cyborg somehow means they lose part of what makes them human. Cyborg theory however does not argue that there should be a movement from human to machine, but instead that there shouldn't be a term for these at all. Cyborg theory originated from social constructionism, which argues that all the categories and concepts through which we understand the world are due to our social interactions, and therefore these interactions are what form our realities an truths. Thus it argues it is as crazy to categorize people by being short or tall as it is to categorize male or female/human or cyborg.