Social Uses/ Implications of Technology and Media

A technology that gives shape to my daily routine: It has to be my cell phone without a doubt. It wakes me up, it tells me when to go to class, people can text me on it, I play music on it and oh yeah, I can do this cool thing where I can speak to someone on it and we can have a full conversation. I am absolutely amazed at how much my cell phone controls me. When I was younger, I was one of the last of my friends to get a cell phone. “I don’t need a cell phone!” I would declare, so green with envy it could have killed me.
It’s really sad because I usually have my cell phone set on vibrate, and randomly throughout the day I will feel a vibration and go to see who’s calling and nobody will have called me or anything. THAT is how much it is controlling me. I think it is like that with everyone by now, at least my age. Your cell phone is your life. In the world of cell phones, your cell phone is you. It is almost as if we don’t even exist anymore. People do not call you; they call your cell phone. Your cell phone is your key to the social world. The day of knocking on doors and calling home numbers is dead. People don’t want to ask your mom if you’re home, they want to talk to you. I think a little part of us would rather our ankles break then our cell phone. I mean who wants to miss that text from Kelly down the hall?

Theory/Praxis

In our everyday lives we see, hear and say a lot of things. We read the newspaper, we e mail each other gossip and events, and we even read blogs on other people’s opinions (which are not as intellectual or academic as mine...). Everything we are told in everyday life, we usually take as fact because, well, we’re hearing it. Usually it is from a credible source like the news or CNN. However, what do we really know to be true? The study of epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the limitations of our knowledge. So what do we really know to be true at any time? Technically you could say that the bridge between what we believe and what we know is truth, but we cannot really know anything for sure. The only thing we can do is doubt everything around us, and if we doubt than it means we’re thinking and if we’re thinking than we exist. In other words, as René Descartes said, I think therefore I am (which became the idea of Western philosophy). Such a simple sentence, however it can explain so much. Everything we as humans really know, in five words.


Works Cited

"Epistemology." Wikipedia. 2008. Wikimedia Foundation. 7 Oct 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology.

"Cogito ergo sum." Wikipedia. 2008. 7 Oct 2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_think_therefore_i_am.

Decoding/Deconstructing Advertising

The advertisement I chose to write about was a Nike/Bauer hockey commercial that features Tampa Bay Lightning Forward Martin St. Louis. The Laval, Quebec native and left-winger stands at 5”9 and only 177 pounds, however he has a Stanley Cup ring, and has over 500 points so far in his career. I thought that this was a very effective advertisement for hockey players everywhere. This commercial does not just appeal to all hockey players who are vertically challenged, but it also applies to all hockey players who have some kind of obstacle in their lives or careers. Being a competitive hockey player myself, I can personally relate to this commercial. From seeing this, it seems to me that Nike/Bauer understands the game of hockey, and knows what it is like to try and play at a high level. To me, this is about as effective as a commercial will get, however it will still not make me want to buy Nike/Bauer products because of it. It may just be how I am, but I am not easily influenced by advertisements such as this. I may tell a friend the next day about the “sick” Nike/Bauer commercial I saw that day, however I think that is where my interest would stay. If anything, the commercial makes me a bigger fan of Martin St. Louis, because he is the one telling his story and Nike/Bauer is the one putting their name on it.

You can find the commercial by visiting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhZbH4koWSE&feature=related

Mass Media

I believe that the term “Mass Media” can refer to any mean of communication, (whether it is television, radio or newspaper) that reaches a large audience. In this point of view I look at Mass Media in the same metaphor that Marshall McLuhan did, in that we are in a Global Village. In McLuhan’s time however, this concept would have seemed impossible, but today we cannot deny that we are all gathered and linked by Mass Media. We are all a click, a “send” or a text away from each other, and information can travel as fast as we want it to. It seems as though our Global Village is continually expanding, and it is up to us how far we want technology to evolve, and how much of our trust we want to put into its hands. We are now linked by technology, but will technology tear us apart? It would be easy to think that only good can come of technological advances, however what do we really know about the devices we use everyday? Conversely, we as humans cannot deny that it is clear at this point, that “Mass Media” is bringing individuals closer and closer together and breaking down boarders that used to exist across the globe, across our Global Village.

The Ecology of Media

The telephone, or more importantly, the cellular telephone has emerged as one of the world’s most popular and successful technological advances in the past century. The cell phone can control many people’s lives, including mine. Echo Boomers like me are growing up having a cell phone from as early as the age of 10, or in some cases even younger. The strides that the cell phone has taken to become what it is today are great. When you think about it, the cell phone is supposed to be a telephone but portable (no kidding), strictly for audio conversation. However, look at what your cell phone can do. You are able to text, e-mail, check the score of the game, download and listen to music, take pictures, take videos and so on and so forth. The telephone is controlling the way we interact as a culture, and can be taken as a good or as a bad thing. Some may say that this is a negative thing because we as humans are becoming lazy and rely too much on our technology. Moreover I think this is not the case. I believe that this is shaping us as a culture for the better. We are able to instantly communicate to someone who is in China from Canada using a tiny piece of metal/plastic in our pocket. I look at it like this, if we are able to create such a powerful tool of communication, then we are bound to make the same kind of strides in medical advances.