Okay so here goes...my first tentative step into the blogosphere
Tuesday, August 4, 2009 by Aalia
Although I am quite happy to try new media as they emerge, I never felt the inclination to get into blogging. I suppose it's because I think of blogs as a sort of an e-diary or an e-journal, and since I've never kept either it does not hold much appeal for me. That said, I really couldn’t describe my relationship to technology and new media. I don't hate it with a vengeance but neither am I addicted to it 24/7. I suppose you could say I am somewhere in no-man's land between technophilism (if that's a word) and technorealism. I utilize technology for my convenience; I don't let it dictate my life. Or so I believed.
Monday's lecture made me think twice. I've never thought of myself as a cyborg before. I thought cyborgs belonged in the realm of science fiction. But to have that alien concept thrown at me while I was sitting in my academic comfort zone was somewhat of a shock. Am I really a cyborg? Can I even think of myself in such terms? There's something so mechanical, so lifeless, and so cold about the very word itself. And to paraphrase someone in the lecture, I'm not sure if I am willing to sacrifice my humanity on such impersonal a word.
But as much as I deny it, there's no escaping that my daily life, a fair amount of my relationships and even my identity to some extent are thanks to technology. My ipod and cell-phones are extensions of myself; skype is an integral means of holding onto people very close to me despite the geographical factor. My facebook account is a means of my identity online, acts very much like my UoA Student Card. I have my daily 'digital' rituals. I check facebook, hotmail and my favorite news sites religiously, but I don't think twice about it. It's so embedded in my system that the digital part goes out the window and I accept it as something innate in me, like eating or sleeping. That's the extent of my immersion with and in technology, I simply have to do it and I don't question it. At least I used not to.
At the moment my mind is in turmoil, my conscience is grappling with the hitherto unimagined. The merits of artificial intelligence as opposed to nature are something that I never really thought about. Apparently I took the sacrifices of my laptop, my ipod and my cell phone for granted. And as hard as it for me to comprehend, I suppose I must take responsibility for my technological folly and concede that I am a mundane cyborg.
Although I still hate how that sounds.
Monday's lecture made me think twice. I've never thought of myself as a cyborg before. I thought cyborgs belonged in the realm of science fiction. But to have that alien concept thrown at me while I was sitting in my academic comfort zone was somewhat of a shock. Am I really a cyborg? Can I even think of myself in such terms? There's something so mechanical, so lifeless, and so cold about the very word itself. And to paraphrase someone in the lecture, I'm not sure if I am willing to sacrifice my humanity on such impersonal a word.
But as much as I deny it, there's no escaping that my daily life, a fair amount of my relationships and even my identity to some extent are thanks to technology. My ipod and cell-phones are extensions of myself; skype is an integral means of holding onto people very close to me despite the geographical factor. My facebook account is a means of my identity online, acts very much like my UoA Student Card. I have my daily 'digital' rituals. I check facebook, hotmail and my favorite news sites religiously, but I don't think twice about it. It's so embedded in my system that the digital part goes out the window and I accept it as something innate in me, like eating or sleeping. That's the extent of my immersion with and in technology, I simply have to do it and I don't question it. At least I used not to.
At the moment my mind is in turmoil, my conscience is grappling with the hitherto unimagined. The merits of artificial intelligence as opposed to nature are something that I never really thought about. Apparently I took the sacrifices of my laptop, my ipod and my cell phone for granted. And as hard as it for me to comprehend, I suppose I must take responsibility for my technological folly and concede that I am a mundane cyborg.
Although I still hate how that sounds.