technoculture203-09

So I arrived at the lecture on cyborgs thinking: there is no way that I am a cyborg. But as the lecture proceeded, and to my own surprise, my view on the subject started to change; I began to realize that I am actually a form of a cyborg; a mundane cyborg. Technology has just become so stitched into my life that I had been unable to realize how unordinary and unnatural it really is. My own personal, most significant digital prosthetic would be my cellular phone, not a flash one by any means. Its alarm wakes me up in the morning, its clock informs me of the time throughout the day because I do not wear a watch, and its features allow me to contact and meet with friends when I am out and about. The cellular phone is just one example of a taken for granted technology that has become so relied upon, so ordinary, and pervasive in the lives of most, to the point that we often forget that it is of technological form, and not natural. The cellular phone’s importance and position as an extension of the self is often re-established in times where we are without it for long periods of time; at these times we are able to realize what we are unable to do without the technology- to not call a friend. It is at this time that we can reflect over what it in fact enables.