Journal 1
Parts 1 and 2
I would like to start my first journal with a quote from the assignment page, “I notice that more of my time is spent in words and language— because that is the currency of the Net—than it was before” ( Brian Eno p. 126). To me, This quote means that the majority of the communication I do now of days is through social media and typing / text based platforms.
Before my exposure to the internet, the majority of my time was spent playing with toys and trying to annoy my older brothers to get their attention. I was young at the time, but if I wanted to hangout with friends my parents would make arrangements and figure out all the details. If we made a plan to hangout on Friday after school, then we would hangout on Friday after school. There were no last minute change of plans or cancellations.
Today, having grown up with the digital age and a rapid growth of technology, communication has evolved into instant messaging and plans forming and dissolving within seconds. I too notice that my time spent communicating has transitioned from oral to instant messaging. The currency of “the Net” is using language and text to communicate, rather than word of mouth. Social media and texting makes communication faster and easier but it can also make it more time consuming and confusing at the same time.
It’s hard for me to remember a time when the internet didn’t affect my life. One change or influence could be my patience. I feel like I have a shorter patience now verse pre-internet me because I am so used to things happening instantly from the click of a button. I am also used to constantly being entertained, so when I am not, it feels weird to sit down and do nothing, I almost feel like I should constantly be doing something. The internet can also create a false sense of reality when viewing the world. Anthony Aguirre says, “…easy access to images of everything and anything creates a false illusion of knowledge and experience. The world pictured as pictures does not deliver the experience of art seen and experienced physically” (Replacing Experience with Facsimile). To me, this means that although you might have seen images of the Grand Canyon (for example) your whole life, you might feel as though you know the place and that the pictures accurately describe the landscape. However, these pictures do not have the same effect or experience as if you were to physically visit the Grand Canyon itself. Seeing these images can create a false illusion, making you feel as if you know the place, when in reality, you have never physically seen it before.
Another example of how the internet has changed my life is through memory. Charles Seife says, “Every dog-ear is a meta-memory, a pointer to an idea that I wanted to retain but was too lazy to memorize” (I Have Outsourced My Memory). I can relate to this quote from Charles because I too get too lazy to remember important things. For me, instead of remembering my class schedule for the week, I took a picture of my schedule on my cell phone so incase I ever forgot, I could simply check my camera roll, instead of working my brain and triggering my memory. The internet and other technologies has made me lazy about remembering small tasks because I know I can write it down or bookmark the page, and feel safe about letting the information leave my brain for the time being.
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