October 27, 2008
Internet Studies
Think About It Before You Use It
The World Wide Web is a cultural artifact dealing with computers. The World Wide Web is also considered to be part of the digital cultural artifacts. “Although the Web is an original new medium for cultural expression, like all new modes of representation of knowledge the first experiment are likely to imitate the forms of past media. It is original because although other communication technologies are global, this one has no central control points. It is new because its cultural expressions will be in multimedia, even though today is guiding metaphors are derived from print publication” (Lyman). This may relate to some relationships with computers because “our cultural conversation with and about intelligent machines is extended and varied. It includes moments of high seriousness and the dramatic confrontation of ideas” (Turkle 77).
We have to step up our computer skills as the technology of the computers upgrade. We know that the Web is not a real library, but we rely on it for our needs and information. “The Web is a medium for publishing; and uses a rhetorical structure based on hypertext; and it is a multimedia text including mostly words and numbers, some fixed and some dynamic, and images equivalent in size to a library of one million volumes; and was written by seven million authors; and most of it is distributed for free around the world” (Lyman). I believe this makes our relationship stronger with the Web. Since it is free more people are likely to get on and surf the Web, rather than if we had to pay for it every time we got on. It leaves us wanting to come back for more. The World Wide Web is an important part of an individual’s life. It seems that more and more people are turning to the Web for their information instead of going to the library for research.
As it says in, Life on the Screen, “Why is it so hard for me to turn away from the screen? There is something else that keeps me at the screen. I feel pressure from a machine that seems itself to be perfect and leaves no one and no other thing but me to blame” (Turkle 29). I do not believe there is an evil spirit or something hiding behind the screen drawing us to stay at the computer, but I do believe it is addictive. “It is striking that the word “user” is associated mainly with computers and drugs” (Turkle 30). With this statement being said I can understand why people are cautious in how they use their computer. I still believe it’s all in the persons mind if you become addictive. You are the one that needs to be in control, you can’t let something take over your life like that.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the computer actually kills people. In fact in 2001 the computer is acting as someone, and as the man steps always for a few minutes the man in the computer kills everyone in the tanks. The relationship between the man and the computer was a little deceiving. The computer acted as then mans friend but once he turned his back the computer murdered everyone that was stable. This may affect the way we think about and how we interact with computers. “With the idea of mind as society,” he says, “Minsky is trying to create a computer complex enough, indeed beautiful enough that a soul might want to live in it,” (Turkle 137). If there was a way for it to happen, people today would probably really take the chance to live inside a computer. For some 2001 may freak them out and they may think their computer is going to harm them in some crazy way. Others may not let it bother them at all. People react to things differently. You have to consider it though; computers are extremely smart and can do so many things. You have to world at your hands when you sit down with the World Wide Web. “We know that today’s computers are not sentient, yet we often treat them in ways that blur the boundary between things and people” (Turkle 102).
When we think about relationships between the World Wide Web and human beings, we see that “society uses it, although global, is not universal. Worldwide, English speakers are about sixty-five percent of the world online population, but hundreds of languages and dialects are used in the Internet” (Lyman). I thought this was an interesting fact because I have no idea that only sixty-five percent of people online spoke English, which seemed like a very small percentage.
Turkle said there was an attendant anxiety that demanded the assertion that these boundaries were sacred. That anxiety had been tied to a sense that people who worked closely with computers were somehow strange (Turkle 110). This statement is possibly very true according to how you look at things. People that have good connections with computers have a special feel for them and understand computers better than people who are computer illiterate. Turkle mentioned in the book that children were drawn into thinking about the computer for two reasons; one, the computer was responsive; two, the machine’s opacity kept children from explaining its behavior by referring to physical mechanisms and their movement (81).
More and more people are learning the World Wide Web better and better each day. We have new software, games, programs, and all sorts of new stuff coming out all the time. These people have a completely different view of the computer and a different respect. I can see how they think of the computer as their home. On page 37 Marvin Minsky had long justified the AI enterprise with the quip. “The mind is a great machine” (Turkle 137). “The mind may be a machine, but it’s not just any old machine; connectionism fits the picture because it’s scientific, but not deterministic” (Turkle 137).
I hope with this I have taught you a little about the World Wide Web and our relationship with computers. As well as learning how Life on the Screen may affect how we think about and use computers.
Work Cited
Lyman, Peter., and Brewster Kahle. Archiving Digital Cultural Artifacts. 25 July 1998. 24 Oct. 2008
Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster paperbacks, 1995.
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