Content: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace
McLuhan's Message: By interacting with peers through this type of medium, there is a disconnect between you and the other person. Not only is it encouraging laziness by convenience, but it is promoting a newly accepted isolation. People are taking refuge in their Facebook and MySpace accounts and taking the initiative to start a conversation while safely behind a computer screen rather than face-to-face with someone.
Medium: Advanced Mobile Devices
Content: iPhone, iPad, iTouch
McLuhan's Message: These new media mediums add a new level of technology to our lives, yet it eliminates some other important factors. I could spend all day playing Angry Birds or Tap Tap Dance, yet should I? It is not the development and precision put into these devices that is worrisome, but instead the time devoted to playing around on these new "toys." Promoting lazy habits, drawing more and more people away from activity, and safe isolation in each device are all effects of prolonged usage of each of these mediums. Where is the iRun?
Medium: Video Chat
Content: Oovoo, Skype, iChat
McLuhan's Message: Yet another attack on our social abilities. Being able to keep in touch over long distances is great, but when it gets to be the only way of communicating with people, it has stopped being helpful and turned harmful. No one should be saying "I find that if I go a day without using Skype, I wake up in the morning confused as to where I am. My life is so different without a night of Skyping." (Direct quote from one of my floor-mates.) All that is needed to join is an account, computer, and a webcam. These three necessities are becoming more and more common at a younger and younger age. Again, it leads us to ask where the face-to-face communication has gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment