Just Another Post On The Wall - Post # 3 - Week 4

Consider if you will: this is being written at 11:15 PM in my cosy little dorm room with the heater whirring in the corner and disembodied voices occasionally seeping through the cracks around the door. Chances are, you will not be reading this from the same place, or even close to the same time that I am writing it. This “separation of presence”, as described by Nancy Baym in the first chapter of Personal Connections in the Digital Age is not a new concept. People have written on (cave) walls long before Facebook ever popularized the practice. The difference is that it is now possible to immediately send and receive messages while experiencing this separation of presence.

Despite the immediacy that current technology provides, the challenges - privacy, translation and misinterpretation, among others - of obsolete communication methods remain. As Baym states, the boundaries between public and private communication are blurred. It is possible for others to read what others have posted on Facebook walls in the same way anyone can see the contents of a cave drawing, if they are lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Here again, we see a shift from primitive cave scrawlers. What was once accessible for several people is now available for viewing by countless others. Many concerns about privacy raised in Baym’s book are concerns that have existed (in more primal forms) since the ancestors of humanity first became vocal.

It is a thought-provoking fact that particular technologies have flourished in certain geographic locations and not others. For example, cell phones are much more popular than the Internet in developing countries. This is largely due to its patchy availability and the expenses incurred in order to connect to the web. It would appear that the usefulness of a “separation of presence” is limited by the demands of the communicators. The communication demands of the third world can be economically accomplished with a cell phone, so there is little need for accompanying technology.

In 2005, a computer was developed that would cost under $150 USD, with the intent to provide cheap laptops to children outside of the first-world. The program was spearheaded by MIT and named “One Laptop Per Child”. Its developers hoped to allow children of low-income countries to connect to the Internet and use technology in their education. Despite many computers being purchased and distributed, the program was a devastating failure. Adding computers to a learning environment can be a useful tool, but only if the education system can properly implement them. A poor education system, in which students are solely responsible for the regurgitation of information, is not one in which computers or the Internet are used to their full potential. (Ruge)

After a few large purchases by wealthy groups, demand for the device dropped dramatically. The reason for this, and the reason why developing countries use cell phones far more commonly than the Internet is because the technologies were developed by those in developed countries to meet the needs of consumers in developed countries. The developers of the “One Laptop Per Child” program failed to research what would benefit children in developing nations, and instead made a computer that was useful for the technological demands of the first-world. There was little need for the machine in the first place. (Nussbaum)

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For more information about the “One Laptop Per Child” operation, visit:

http://laptopfoundation.org/

Additional Sources:

Nussbaum, Bruce. "It's Time To Call One Laptop Per Child A Failure, - BusinessWeek." BusinessWeek. N.p., 24 Sep. 2007. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/09/its_time_to_call_one_laptop_per_child_a_failure.html/>.

Ruge, Tms. "Why OLPC is “...dead in the water”… still." Project Diaspora. N.p., 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <projectdiaspora.org/2010/03/17/why-olpc-is-dead-in-the-water-still/>.

The Voice of Its Master - Post #2 - Week 3

Did you hear? Space and time were annihilated by the telegraph in 1868. I’d forgotten too. Don’t worry though, it seems like everyone is in the same boat. As Vincent Mosco makes crystal clear in the fifth chapter of The Digital Sublime, “Every wave of new technology […] has brought with it declarations of the end.” Chapter five raises the question of how society seems to forget the myths generated by advertisers. Many accept the claims without realizing that very similar statements were made about other products in the past. Obviously, advertisers were wrong when they claimed that the radio would turn every home into an extension of Harvard. And yet, society still gobbles up their claims about the next big thing. Advertisers have been wrong so many times, and commonly exaggerate claims far out of proportions, so why do people still listen?

This collective amnesia of society has happened many times in the past, and is already happening again. Myths are being created, consumed and forgotten every day. Currently, the myths concern Web 2.0, smart phones and tablets. Marketers claim that these technologies bring us together with their powers of mass interactivity. Consumers quickly forget how downright magical all previous technology once was. In the case of electricity, its novelty wore off in a decade. One arc light drew crowds in 1880, but after five years, it took a fully lit mansion to impress the masses. In ten years, electric signs were developed and everything else had become "normal". In time, each development loses its allure and fades (in the case of electricity, literally) “into the woodwork.”

On its website today, WIRED magazine carried a feature that showed vintage posters, advertising the latest technology of their time. One poster from 1935 shows a young woman with a light bulb. The text reads: “Buy light, not just lamps”. In this time period, buying a light bulb meant bringing the magic of light into your home. In today’s age, residential lighting is concerned with how you display the light. The average consumer cares little about the bulb itself, and more about the fixture.

A poster from 1958 shows a French family enjoying their television. Most striking of all is the text. Translated, it reads: “The evenings are pleasant with a television, the voice of its master.” The entire family appears to be enjoying the device, with their young child gesturing realistically along with the TV. The most interesting is the woman shown in the image. She is shown in a pose that implies she is thinking about what is on the television. This is somewhat different from the cultural standard of the time where women were to believe and do what they were told and not waste their time thinking. This poster displays a transition in the role of the wife from housekeeper to independent thinker.

The myths created about these wondrous devices and technologies all serve to generate a public view of the object. At the time of their development, new devices need exaggerated advertising in order to convince people they need one. For example, advertisers told consumers that to own a telephone is a moral obligation. If you didn’t buy the product, the ads implied you were an inconsiderate husband, a bad citizen, or uninformed. By making it seem that everyone has no choice but to own their product, advertisers were able to make a killing. The problem is that this still happens today.

Link to WIRED magazine's vintage posters feature:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/02/vintage-posters/