Coelynn McIninch
November
2007
Paper #3
Human
Communication?
We
are living in an information age with the whole world connected through an
invisible conceptual space. Our direct physical interaction with technology and
our communal use of Cyberspace has created a social dependence on technology.
We live in the Age of Information and of Communication because electrical media
instantly and constantly creates a total field of interacting events in which
all we participate(McLuhan). The new types of, and uses for technology are
altering the way we communicate, interact and create.
We
have come a long way since 1968 when Doug Engelbart first introduced the idea
of information-space by creating the first graphic user interface and a handy
little pointer he called a mouse. The idea sounds so simple to us today but this
basic concept was a major turning point in our techo-social history. Engelbarts
idea turned the blank screen into an interactive virtual space. The user was
endowed with the ability to reach in and touch information, to manipulate data
with a wave (and click) of the hand. Data was given a familiar visuals and
terminology to make the transition and utilization more instinctive: ideas
organized in folders, displayed in windows and disposed of in the trash. Our
place in this digital space represented by a small arrow dancing around the
screen in perfect mime of our own bodies.
The
invention of the user interface was the first major step towards total
immersion in the digital world and the total amputation of the self. Creative
advances in the structure of interactivity and graphics have created a machine
worth living in. (Johnson). MySpace, Facebook, chat-room, Blogspot, website,
Cyberspace: the language of the Internet is a perfect indication of our
perception of Cyberspace as an external physical space. We are so completely
invested in this Metaverse(Levy) that we rarely acknowledge the true nature
of Cyberspace as rapid-fire patterns of billions of switches turning on and off
each second in hard drives and servers all over the world. Just blips of electricity
translated, processed, conveyed and displayed.
The
ability to connect to the entire world at once and from practically anywhere
can be overwhelming. Globally extending the self beyond the body and projecting
it into the digital metaverse (Levy) leaves the user with a separation
anxiety of the self, the only remedy being to continuously tap into the
displaced electrical world to reestablish the umbilical link to the digital
self. Consequently this also leaves the user, or participant, constantly
distract from, and disassociated from, the physical world.
Our
society relies on certain physical, visual and auditory clues to help
communicate each members needs and desires, resulting in a set of mutually
accepted rules of conduct. Once
any one of the senses is removed from the equation, negotiation of all needs
and desires becomes more difficult. Communication online or through text
messaging does not require facial expressions or vocal intonations, all
conveyance of emotion and intent must be rendered visually. To the casual
observer, anyone sitting at their computer, absorbed in an online game or
chatting with friends appears to be completely devoid of emotion. As a
generation, we have amputated our senses. According to Marshall McLuhan, We
have to numb our central nervous system when it is extended and exposed, or we
will die. Thus the age of anxiety and of electric media is also the age of
unconsciousness and of apathy. Hours are lost to surfing, navigating,
hunting, watching, staring at a glowing box practicing interpersonal
communication without ever physically speaking to, or seeing, another person.
Considering the early age at which children are being taught to use computers,
the Art of conversation may become a thing of the past.
When
you go to almost any public space today there is a certain irony to be found in
how few people are actually participating in that public space. An employee on
the cell phone, a child playing Spiderman II on the Gameboy, a teenager
listening to his iPod, customers surfing on their laptops all of them in public
space, physically, and in private space mentally. The odd twist to this dynamic
is that the actual number of people invisibly connected to that space could
measure in the hundreds. The public space has been relocated and private space
is portable.
Cell
phone innovations and usage have progressed too fast for our society to
generate a proper set of etiquette rules for the technology. Years ago any
person wandering the streets speaking out loud would have been avoided as a
crazy person. Now, wherever you go there are people speaking and gesticulating
to invisible persons, sharing intimate details about their life to the open air
without even realizing someone else is listening. Historically all new technologies
go through a certain gestation period during which we gradually adapt to the
eccentricities associated with its use but the turnover rate of new technology
may actually be forcing us to use even more technology to speed up our own
adaptation i.e.: increased text messaging necessitates new phones with
keyboards so we can type faster. The increase in text messaging use may at
first seem like a step backwards in technology when in fact it is simply a
perfect complement to the way we prefer to communicate. The telephone requires complete
participation unlike the written and printed page and Americans thrive on
multi-tasking so they are drawn to a communication form that affords them the
luxury of participation on their own terms in their own good time
According
to Marshall McLuhan The phonetically written word sacrificed worlds of meaning
and perception that were secured by forms like the hieroglyph and the Chinese
ideogram. Oddly enough, the current trend in messaging is gradually moving
closer to symbolic representation.
As evidenced by the following example of the Star Spangled Banner
translated from English to tXt lingo using the
online site http://www.transl8it.com:
O sA, cn u C, by d
dawns erly lyt, w@ so proudly we hailed @ d twilight's lst gleaming, who's
broad stripes n brite **, thru d perilous fyt, Oer d ramparts we watchd, wr so
gallantly streamin? n d rockets red glare, d bombs bursting n air, Gave proof
thru d nyt dat r flag wz stil der. O sA, dz dat (*) spangled banner yet ~~~ Oer
d l& of d fre, n d hom of d brave?
Or by a bit of social commentary from a drink
coaster at The Outback Steak House that playfully states: 2 much
tXting mAks U 1 bad spLR This visual/literal shorthand evolved in a desperate
attempt to compensate for the absence of vocal and visual clues that would
normally exist in face-to-face conversation while at the same time maintaining
the apparent speed of vocal conversation.
There
are many debates at to whether or not all this texting is damaging to
literacy. The real question we should be asking is whether or not future
generations will need the current alphabet at all. Civilization is built on literacy because literacy is a
uniform processing of a culture by a visual sense extended by space and time by
the alphabet. (McLuhan) Could that literacy become fully symbolic? Writer Neal
Stephenson in his Sci-Fi novel The Diamond Age describes a future world that
relies on Mediaglyphs or graphic representations of ideas. In his view of the future, the old alphabet
still exists but is only used as a formality and a sign of aristocratic status.
Much like students today being taught Latin
The
Internet is an emergent technology (Johnson), a virtually endless web of
ideas linked together seemingly at random. The successful display and
distribution of these ideas is based partly on the technical clarity of the
messages design and partly on chance. The technical clarity is in the
programming and interface design. Chance is the odds that one person finds a
site and shares it with another person or links it to their site, and they tell
two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on. This is how patterns of information and cyber communities emerge (Johnson).
The
global exchange of ideas in cyberspace is creating a huge stockpile of free
information accessible to anyone who taps into the information network. With
sites like Wikipedia, You Tube, MySpace etc. participants are coming together
to create a massive collective intelligence (Levy). Or,
as founder Jimmy Wales likes to say: free access to the sum of all human
knowledge. Access to the network is the only barrier to
education. Old, young, rich, poor, all have a chance to explore and
participate. Everyone has a voice. Writers can self publish on their websites and
advertise for free. Flicker gives
everyone a chance to share his or her personal view of the world and sites like
Craigs list act as information crossroads for exchange outside of the
cyberspace. The Internet as tool
has created a democratic leveling of the educational playing field. If you need
to know something, all you have to do is ask and the answer appears in front of
you.
With
wireless technology, voice recognition software and access to the Internet, you
could literally stand on your front lawn at three in the morning, ask the
question how do I boil water? and your laptop will light up with two million
possible solutions to your question. But, how do you decide which one to listen
to? Who is right? Are they all right? Are there really two million people out
there who have responded to your question?
The
conceptual nature of cyberspace is a confusing one. We perceive cyberspace as
being simultaneously public and private, public because of its accessibility
and private because of its anonymity. The tendency of electric media is to
create a kind of organic interdependence among all the institutions of society
. . .(McLuhan). You can do your Christmas shopping, kill the evil overlord,
manage you personal business, marry a virtual wife and pour out you soul in
text, all without leaving the comfort of home. We are no longer on the outside
looking at the world go by. We are on the inside, controlling all facets of
experience. The basic act of controlling all information with a click and drag
from the comfort of your own home creates sense of security and hubris. The
perceived comfort and visual control also generates a certain level of
gullibility and trust in the durability of information, images and ideas that
have been written, uploaded and stored in cyberspace. How many photos and
important emails are stored on your computer or in a server somewhere outside
of your home just waiting to be printed out when you happen to find the time?
What happens if the server crashes? You could loose several years worth of
memories. Thats like storing you family photos in a shoebox . . . in the
backyard.
With the arrival of electric
technology, man extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central
nervous system itself. (McLuhan) but, there is an important distinction
between interactivity (which emerged from the properties of media technology)
and participation (which emerged from the protocols and social practices
surrounding media)(Jenkins). The virtual world used to be a world apart from
us but somehow; this invisible community creation seems to be creeping out into
the real world a bit more each day. Online communities like Second Life are
creating a unique problem, from a psychological standpoint and a legal
standpoint. Second Life is a 3D
interactive environment with more registered users than the entire population
of Massachusetts, It is modeled after the physical world. Participants create a
fictional name and a 3D representation for this new identity. Residents own
houses, have jobs, visit clubs, and create goods for sale in virtual malls.
There is even a Second Life court system for solving disputes between
residents. Participants are thriving on the convincing reality and versatility
of the Second Life interface. Universities are using Second Life to teach
online classes. IBM holds board meetings in Second Life. Record companies
release new records, Major performers have concerts of previously unreleased
songs. The residents create the content and virtual terrain and of Second Life
which gives them the feeling of ownership. This ownership encourages participation. Its hard to resist
participating in a fantasy where you have no real risks, you never grow old and
you can change who you are with a click of the mouse. Your own identity is
prosthetic. "Our
brains are not specialized for 21st-century media, there's no switch that says,
Process this differently because it's on a screen."(Reeves) To enhance the simulation and grant
users more natural control over the interface, researchers in Japan are working
on a machine that enables the user to control their avatar with a thought. The
goal is to create a full sensory suit that enables residents to
physically interact with the interface. This online society is already so close
to reality that one participant, Doug McMahon, has started a blog called A Constitution for the
Metaverse (http://metaconsti.blogspot.com/) as an attempt to negotiate a
communal set of rules for conduct within this new virtual society.
"The
main threats to our survival result from the almost total disjunction between
the power of our technologies and the wisdom required to use them over the long
period during which their effects will last." (Primak and Abrams.) We used
be relatively unaware of the subtle shifts of social adaptation to
technological advances because they happened gradually over the course of an
entire generation. Now, global connectivity and the rapid exchange of ideas is
forcing us to, to adapt to the personal, social and legal, complexities of
multiple industries wide advances occurring every three to five years.
Theorists, artists, scholars and industry leaders have attempted to make order
of this rapidly changing techno-social dynamic unfortunately, the likelihood
that any one of their books on the subject will make it to print before being
rendered obsolete are fairly slim.
The world is
at your fingertips but so is the off button.
Works
Cited:
Allucqure,
Rosanne Stone. War of Desire and Technology at the Close of The Mechanical Age, Cambridge: MIT Press,
1996
Alter,
Alexandra. Is This Man Cheating on His Wife? Alexandra Alter on the toll one
man's virtual marriage is taking on his real one
and what researchers are discovering about the surprising power of synthetic
identity.
10 August 2007 Wall Street Journal Online <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118670164592393622.html?mod=pj_main_hs_coll>
Jenkins,
Henry. Convergence Culture. New York: NYU Press, 2006
Lvy,
Pierre. Cyberspace as a meta evolutive step Planetwork 2000 Conf. 14
May 2000, Golden Gate Club: San Francisco
http://www.planetwork.net/2000conf/presenters/levy_text.html
McLuhan,
Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996
Primack,
Joel R. and Nancy Ellen Abrams. View From the Center of the Universe - Discovering
Our Extraordinary Place in the Universe.
New York: Riverhead Penguin, 2006