Technology Helps Through Questioning

In chapter 3 of Smarter than You Think by Clive Thompson, I read how the websites we use today helps us, but we're not using it in the correct way. He tells us that hashtags (#) are a way that people can get on the same topic and find out more about what they're interested in. He also talks about websites that people would post comments and opinions on a website for others to read and understand more about a certain subject. Later this developed forums on blogging where someone would post something and others would ask those questions or opinions on it. Other websites picked up on this, such as Reddit, where people would post AMAs (Ask me anything) where anyone from a celebrity or even a normal person would answer questions directed towards them from the community. From these questions a new website developed called Quora. Anyone can answer questions from anyone and became a popular site for knowledge. Question websites has a format that encourages people to ask questions about anything they’re interested on so this is why blogging is used less than question websites due to the thought of “Who asked?” 

More technology, more writing, more clarity

Many of you have written about the downside of technology so now it is my turn to enlighten you on a positive aspect.

When I was reading the beginning part of chapter three in Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson, he made a valid point that because of technology with its blogs, social media, text messages, and many more, we are writing more than we ever would have.  A rough estimate is that we write 3.6 trillion words per day which equals 36 million books and this is all because of growing technology and the internet.

Writing down our thoughts also clarifies the fuzzy ideas in our heads.  As I read this chapter last night I had a great idea of what I was going to write about but, now that I have to write it down I realize I will have to hone my thoughts to be able to write it on this blog in a way that makes sense.  As a result, technology is giving us the ability to make our thoughts clearer because is gives us a medium to write down our ideas.

AF: Try it -- a Digital Detox

Andrew Postman writes about this in the Introduction of Amusing Ourselves to Death, and here it is on NPR.  

Could you step away from ALL media for 24-hours?  How about 48-hours?  That means

• no phone (cell or landline)
• no internet
• no television
• no games
• no MP3 player, radio, CD player, turntable

What would happen to you if you were confronted with all of that silence?  What kind of thoughts would you think?  Hey, come to think of it, have you had a deep, reflective quiet time lately?  Just you and your thoughts, and maybe a canopy of trees above your head?  or the breaking waves with the blue horizon in the background?  Do you know how to be quiet and alone?

Happy Pill, Unhappy Life

I am currently reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and have noticed that its plot utilizes what appears to be an opiate based drug known as soma that makes the taker happy and careless.  The drug is a powerful tool used by the government to keep the population in a blissful and sedated state.  The name soma is also the Latin root for  "sleep", similar to the prefix "narco" in narcotics. This is rather interesting as it is almost as if the government is trying to keep the masses asleep from the real problems that lie in their ruling body as well as their lives that is managed in every aspect, including ones physical and mental state.  I believe that Huxley is likening it to that of a modern day synthetic heroine or a similar opiate as those who partake of these become quite passive and submissive.  Taking advantage of the drugged out state of the consumers and effectively removes any possible resistance, allows them to maintain their control over the people and further their reign.  Not only is this an unethical and immoral method of manipulating the people, but is also in a way a form of enslaving the masses.

AOTD: Who knew television affected us that much?

This has to be the most eye opening book that I have ever read. I admit that I was a big fan of television and still am, but Postman's message on how people should view television has really gotten across to me. Along with being eye opening, it is also one of the most difficult books I have ever read. I found myself having to reread certain paragraphs and using a dictionary to look up certain words, especially in the beginning when he was trying to introduce the concept that different forms of media affect the way that a society forms or how truth is formed through different forms of communication. As I continued to read, I found myself thinking about most of the ideas that Postman mentioned when he described the different ways television's entertainment is influencing us, especially his reference to the "news of the day" and how much information that we do receive is sort of pointless since is does not affect our lives directly.

Spoiler alert to any who have not read the second part of the book. When he talks about entertainment in education, I kind of already knew what point he was trying to get across. Almost no student can sit through a period of lecture without being somewhat entertained, as was the case for the first twenty minutes in AP World History a lot of the times.  When reading about this, the idea that really stood out to me when Postman argues "learning" through television such as in "Sesame Street", is that children are really learning how to love television instead learning the love of going to school or getting an education. His discussion of how television and its entertainment is affecting religion by not allowing the viewer of certain religious programming to fully be embraced because of interrupting commercials and the simple ways one can become detached is the newest way for me to see how television can affect the discourse of our society. 

After finishing the book, I have tried to question what television actually is and how it affects me directly but I am sort of having trouble because of my long time love with its mindless entertainment I think has gotten to me or probably because television does not affect me at all. Postman does a great job in explaining how television and its Age of Show Business has affected the various forms of our lives, in my opinion, mostly in education and religion. During the end of the book, I found myself questioning what would be the best ways to fix the problem of entertainment within television when trying to get across an actually meaningful question without the audience falling asleep such as the case in most lectures.  What impressed me the most when reading is the relevance that most of his arguments have nowadays and whenever I am not reading about an 80's reference, I kept on reminding myself that Amusing Ourselves to Death was written almost thirty years ago. 

AF: Paragraphs

Organizing units of thought into logical and manageable chunks of text dates back to the middle 1800s -- the paragraph provides writers with a way to break down large ideas into a series of smaller ones, ensuring that each idea builds upon the one before, and leads to the one that follows.  It is a time-honored rhetorical strategy that in itself can subtly communicate.  In other words, how a writer organizes a logical flow of information is as important as the content itself.

Paragraphs are especially important in digital forums like this one.  Large blocks of text onscreen can be daunting and difficult to read.  Think about the visual layout of the web pages you visit most frequently.  Text is most likely presented in "chunks" (Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram), and large blocks (like an average Wikipedia article) is going to use spacing and paragraphing judiciously and intentionally.

Anyway.  Paragraphs -- use them.  They are your friend.  

Déjà vu?

Hello everyone, I am writing to tell you about a few things I saw early into Postman's book. It might just be me overanalyzing things, but let me know if you saw the same things. Just as a heads up, the first point I make refers to a conversation that occurred in sixth period chemistry with Mr. Urciuoli, so if you didn't have that class I apologize in advance. However, hopefully you are still able to understand the point that I am making.Also I am sure that all of you have read Fahrenheit 451, but again if for some reason you haven't I apologize ahead of time because I use that work as support for my argument. Lastly, I am aware that is post does not completely cover the theme of Postman's first chapter. I am just sharing with you some connections I made while reading in hope that you saw the same things I did.
So as I began reading the first chapter of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death,  I felt as though some of the points Postman was making seemed familiar to me. And then it hit me. My chemistry teacher had talked about how the news isn't the same anymore and how good-looking people are just hired to read a teleprompter now. He later went on to say that the content that is being presented by the news channels is either A. mainly not accurate or B. about celebrities. The point that my teacher was making goes perfectly with what Postman was stating. In this chapter Postman is telling the reader that not only is the way that we communicate our ideas changing, but that the actual ideas that our society is setting forth is making a sort of transition. He states that our society as a whole is changing as a result of this shift in media, and he later says that because of all of these changes we are "amusing ourselves to death". That was the first point of Postman's that seemed familiar to me, now here's the second. Still in the first chapter, Postman quickly mentions how we are altering things, such as the news, so that they are more interesting to the public; we are shortening them down into captivating headlines because people don't like being bored and would rather be entertained, and so the way that companies cope is by making everything into bite-sized tidbits of information that will grab the consumer's attention. As I was reading this I was immediately reminded of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I was reminded specifically of the part in the book where Faber, I think, I could be wrong, explains to Montag that books are no longer wanted because the stories that the books tell are now compressed into minutes-long programs on television and then made shorter and shorter as time goes on. Then I realized that the entire world that Bradbury wrote of was very similar to what Postman talks about. I mean Mildred, or as she is known in the movie, Linda, almost amused herself to death, didn't she? She sat in front of her television for hours on end and became so consumed by it that she became something that could be barely called human. Now this is the string that connects everything. Remember the part near the end where The Cousin says that Montag had been captuered but he really wasn't? Well that was false news given to the public and that was what my chemistry teacher had talked about and what Postman hinted at in the first chapter and then later discusses in the second chapter of Amusing Ourselves to Death. The fact is, the truth is being compromised just so people can be entertained.
So you see this book that Ms. Fletcher has assigned us came just at the right time, well for me at least. If you didn't have my chemistry class I hope that you are still able to see the point I am making and that you saw the connection between Fahrenheit 451 and Amusing Ourselves to Death. Please let me know if you did, thank you.