The age of digital dependence

By Matthew Gillis

I think it’s safe to say that all of us have experienced a time when the technology we take for granted suddenly stops working. Luckily enough, it’s happened to me more than once in the past week.

The exact moment in which you discover that the technology is broken becomes filled with emotions: shock, wondering how something you’re so dependent on is even capable of breaking, panic over how to fix it, and anxiety over being yelled at by your mom for “not appreciating anything you get.”

On Friday, my digital camera stopped working, and yesterday, my Internet wouldn’t load Delicious’ webpage (which is ironic, due to the fact that this was the only webpage I needed to access).

This range of emotions that came with the frustration of my nonfunctioning technology got me thinking about my dependence on technology. I was feeling all of these things at once because I knew I needed to use this technology but had no knowledge of how to fix it.

In an age where everything in our lives exists through technology or is online, how do we face the inevitable glitches? Are we putting everything important to us at risk in the hands of a technology that is bound to have flaws?

Today, after my Internet finally let me access Delicious, I perused the site and found myself particularly fond of its overall purpose. In essence, the site acts as a digital bookmark for everything and anything you find interesting on the web.

After bookmarking several websites, blogs, and articles and creating “stacks” that pertain to my interests, I became intrigued at its feature of putting everything I selected in one designated place. I could put everything I found on the web on my own single profile. Everything.

From variability, in which each user can customize his or her individual stacks, to hypermedia, which allows users to connect media to their profile, Delicious is the embodiment of the principles of new media as described by Lev Manovich in “The Language of New Media.”

I can’t help but wonder if Delicious and similar sites, like Pinterest, are slowly replacing traditional pen and paper bookmarking. While I find it to be a very beneficial tool, I feel a sense of reluctance to put everything of importance on a technology I know nothing about.

In summarizing my concerns, I turn to Danah Boyd‘s article “Incantations for Muggles: The Role of Ubiquitous Web 2.0 Technologies for Everyday Life,” in which she writes, “As you build technologies that allow the magic of everyday people to manifest, I ask you to consider the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

I can only imagine the day when my digital bookmarking tool, which could eventually become a place for not only my favorite sites to be stored, but also my entire reality, stops working.

I doubt then that the worst of my problems would be my mother’s reaction.

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If you’re interested in other media and technology-related blogs, which I follow using Google Reader, check out: Technology in the Arts, CNN Tech, New York Times: Technology, Technology Review, and The PhotoArgus.

Technology: an uncontrollable monster?

By Matthew Gillis

Overwhelmed. This is the only emotion I can distinguish after reading the introduction to Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or be programmed: Ten commands for a digital age.  I keep coming back to the same question: do the digital technologies we willingly choose to be a part of actually have control over our individual realities?

To put this uncontrollable digital monster into a more manageable context, I’ll use photography. When I take a picture, the lens in which I’m looking through presents a portion of the world. I, being the photographer, am able to choose what aspects of the scene I want shown in the frame of the image. These deliberate decisions reflect my position as the producer of each image and show my role in constructing a new or altered reality for the viewer of these photographs. I have the ability to omit or highlight aspects of the scene.

As a photographer, I am responsible for both understanding how to use the camera and also how to produce my desired image, because I am shaping a potential viewer’s idea of reality. I am in agreement with Rushkoff, who similarly believes we are responsible for knowing how to use technology and being able to program, or create, it. Photographers are creating “reality” through images, while programmers are creating technology that is able to think and operate, controlling our realities and, ultimately, us (Rushkoff 21).

If we choose to ignore that photos aren’t necessarily reflections of true reality, we choose to be falsely influenced. Doesn’t this seem similar to Rushkoff’s idea that failing to understand programming of technologies, which control our realities, is choosing to be programmed?

Going back to my original question, I have come to an answer: yes.

I think it’s our duty as consumers of technology to be able to discuss the function of technology. If it’s our job as a society to shape each technology’s use and meaning, according to “What’s New About New Media?,” then isn’t it equally our responsibility to be able to understand how to use it and how to create it?