The End

My experience with this class has been a positive one. Before embarking on the study of communication and culture in cyberspace, I hadn’t thought of how computer mediated communication impacts my life. I use the computer and internet daily, obviously I am impacted by technology. But my acceptance of this technology, my total acceptance void of questioning, is what Postman discusses in his novel. It is how our society is becoming a technopoly. It is also how computers will take over the world.
I take away from this class lots of factual information. I had no idea the history of computers, for instance. But more importantly, I believe, I have become aware of technologies, my interaction to them and how they shape the way in which I view the world. I will try to maintain my awareness as I go on with my life. I will still be using the computer and the internet, but now I will use them with the knowledge of how they affect me. Being aware of their power, I will be better aware of my actions and the decisions I make.
As for blogging….I enjoyed it but won’t continue. I have been curious about it for a while now, and feel as though knowledge of blogs is a good skill to have. However, blogging is very time consuming and I have other priorities right now. They also, and I didn’t know this, are excellent little insights into the world. Whether it’s learning a different point of view or reading factual information, blogs offer more than just the internet diaries I always thought they were.
I enjoyed the way the class was set up. Again, I am glad to have learned of blogging. I also enjoyed how the class used discussion boards.
All in all, I think this topic was interesting to learn about and important to know of in our ever more technological society. Computers are here for good, but they are only what we make of them. We need to be aware of our actions and dependence on technology. We should learn how computers effect our communication.

The Solitaire Empidemic

In You’ve Got Mail, Meg Ryan’s boyfriend mentions a newspaper article he read. The article said that Solitaire had been removed from the Federal computers of Virginia because no work had been for six months as everyone was tucked away in their cubicles playing Solitaire. For this assignment I decided to do some investigating and see if this actually happened. And it did! Sorta.
The article I found “Is that a spreadsheet on your screen – or solitaire?” written by Patrik Jonsson for the Christian Science Monitor, tells of Senator Allen of North Carolina and his quest to rid all federal workers’ computers of Solitaire and Mindsweeper. By doing this, he claims that millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money would be saved. (I always love how the term “taxpayer’s money” is used. As though I am supposed to now be roused, hunting for my pitchfork.) The article also discusses ways in which the solitaire crisis has been “solved” without eliminating the game. One way, the amount of people working is cut so that each person has more responsibility and, consequently, less time for games.
Should Solitaire be removed from computers, should it monitored somehow? I work for an accountant. I work with two other women in one room. The accountant works across the hall in another room. The three of us have our own desks, but they each have a computer and I don’t. One of the women, let’s call her Susan, uses the computer quite a bit for personal reasons, though she accomplishes a lot. The other woman does not (she accomplishes a lot too.) I think Susan uses the computer a bit much. She is, after all, at work, being paid to write up bills and fill out forms, not to email. But am I just jealous that I don’t have that option?
I have mixed feelings about people misusing computer games during work hours. Of course I don’t want to be paying anyone to play Solitaire; however, I also wouldn’t want to be trapped in a job, stuck at a computer, in a tiny cubicle all day. I would want a mini breaks, I would want to play solitaire.
This article is not quite the “metacommunication” Wood and Smith talk about. Solitaire is not a form of communication. However, the article does bring about the question of personal privacy and the computer. When does work end and Solitaire begin? The computer has become essential to businesses and bureaucracies, and yet, the easy access to Solitaire on that same computer has become a hindrance. Would workers really work harder, better, more efficiently without Solitaire? I doubt it. I believe they would twiddle their thumbs or doodle or play hang man with one another. The computer and the internet have not created new problems in the workplace, they have, simply, put a little modern twist on old issues.

In my high school English class, we read Fahrenheit 451, a wonderful book. Our teacher set up a discussion board online for us to post and respond to each other’s thoughts on the novel. We, a tight knit group of 30 living in small town Illinois, took this discussion board and and blew it right out of Fahrenheit 451 and into our everyday lives. Sure we discussed the book, but slowly our posts grew to include funny snipets about what happened to our waffles that morning, movies we’d seen recently and essays that needed to to complained about. Our teacher, dear Mrs. Heth, ended our discussions and they flew further and further from the book. And so, Swifty, ever so savy in technology, created a separate discussion board, for us to discuss…….anything. Soon the board expaned from 30 members to 50. Soon, school was over, summer was passing and we were going off to college. My family and I moved to Oregon, Tom and Jacob went to Chicago, so many with to the University of Illinois, some to Illinois State, some to Missouri, one to Boston, Swifty moved to Arizona. Our discussion board began to hold more meaning than silly snipets. We shared our lives through this discussion board. Our discussion board eventually faded away into nothingness. But what happened on the discussion board couldn’t have happened without the internet. Sending letters would not have had the same instantaneous impact. Conference calls could have been made with 50 people scattered across the country. Even with so many ways to connect on the internet, the discussion board stood out among the rest. A treasure. We had only each other to impress, each other who we knew so well. Facebook contained many new faces and strangers. Myspace had too many gadgets and gizmos. As our lives changed, and we moved away, the discussion board held us together. In the discussion board we could run away from our new responsibilities and lives, we could run back to our much simpler high school days.

For me, the discussion board stands out as one my most enjoyable times using the internet. No one hassled you if you didn’t respond, no one made you feel bad about slacking on your facebook comments. The experience was unique from other discussion boards or online networks in that we were already a community. The internet only enhanced our friendships.

It seems silly to me that people would advocate for everyone to have the internet, as though it is a right. Of course, who am I to say? I have the internet. My experiences with the internet have been positive whether for work , school or fun. If I didn’t have the internet, I know I would want to. As society as a whole moves further and further from traditional forms of communication, as the internet becomes the traditional form of communication, isn’t it right to be sure all members of society are able to participate? Slowly, we are moving from treating the internet as a luxury to it being a commodity we take for granted. My discussion group would not have occurred without the internet. Our teacher set it up originally, was it presumptuous for her to do so? As teachers begin assuming everyone has the internet, as stores hand out surveys you must take online, then maybe we should stop and consider that not everyone has the internet. We need to decide, if this is going to be how our nation communicates within itself, if the internet is becoming required in order to function within society, then perhaps in that way it is a right.