In Conclusion

I have never really been one to overthink how technology, more specifically the internet, has played a major role in how Americans have changed their lives. Not only how their lives have changed, but the way that people make decisions have also changed. No longer are there small towns where everybody knows everybody. Rather there are giant cities where nobody knows anybody. While I would love to be able to go to the grocery store and know the owner and most of the customers, that is no longer realistic in our society.

But why is that??

People have been so focused on the whole "bigger is better" idea and that if you have a steady job and steady income, you have to spend your money on big, expensive things (like a giant house) because thats what you "want."

So where does technology come into play? What role has it played in this transistion to individualism that has occurred in America?

Technology has become an implicit part of every American's life, whether through the internet, cell phones, ipods, etc. Cell phones allow more personal contact with friends and family via calling and texting. Many people use ipods to block out all other noises besides their music. The internet allows people to be a part of something, without actually knowing the other people (blogs, lifestyle enclaves).

Apple has shown us that people want to be individuals, they want to be unique. Thats part of the reason that Apple did so well. It was a new device that allowed people to personalize their devices to have personalities, based on apps, music, movies etc.

Google showed us that people want an easy to use service where they can search for anything, and find answers in one location. It showed us that the data is always right. But it also raised the question of how individualistic are people really? They are believing searches that are determined by algorithms that are written by computer geeks.

Facebook showed us that people want to have connections to the outside world, to other people, but it is not necessary for these connections to be face-to-face. It also again raised the question of how personalized is Facebook? People fill out boxes that Facebook provides regarding biological information: where you live, birthday, interests, hobbies, etc.

Basically, what this class has shown me is that people believe the masses.  In other words, if all your friends are using facebook, then you will want to use facebook. If all you see on facebook is that your friends have been on pinterest or playing words with friends, then you want to do these same things. I think that people in general are still a community, they want to be wanted and have social connections with other people, but it is in more of an impersonal way now then it was in the early-mid 1900s. People can now take care of most of their business online without leaving their homes, rather than always going to the bank or post office to take care of personal business.

Who's fault is it? Lawrence or Technology?

Everybody talks about the Lawrence difference, usually referring to something about the many different personalities and lifestyles that can be found all over campus. But another aspect of the Lawrence difference involves the intense homework that all Lawrentians must complete. To many students by 8th or 9th week, there is a sense of having to be productive at all times. Because there seems to never be enough time to get everything completed in time if you are not always being productive in some way.

My thought is this: Many people say that our generation is very technology dependent. As Rosen mentioned last week in his iDisorder talks, people are more likely to play around on their phone while waiting than simply sitting there in silence. Is this because they are bored? Or, like Lawrentians, have young adults become so preoccupied with making the most of their time, that it is completely unnatural to simply sit without being productive in some way?

So, society has become a very go-go-go atmosphere, for a variety of different reasons, which possibly has led to people becoming more unable to wantingly sit without some sort of stimulation. In order to do what would make themselves "happy", people have become dependent on technology to give them their wanted stimulation.

So has technology or society been the reason that people have changed? Or has technology simply been the medium through which people have changed, but not the actual reason? I think these are interesting questions that people will have different answers for a long time.

Lanier-->Is the Self what YOU want?

Many people, including Bellah, argue that America is becoming more individualized, relying on satisfying one's inner self. There have been strong arguments that technology seems to be helping in pushing people to become more individualized and self-reliant. New platforms, like Google or Amazon, help people to find information about what other people are thinking without actually having to have face to face conversations. But not everybody thinks that technology is helping people become more reliant on the self.

Jaron Lanier's book "You Are Not a Gadget" looks at how technology has influenced people to become not reliant on the self, but rather reliant on what technology says about certain things. For example, in a Ted talk (check it out at the 18:20 mark), Lanier suggests that new technology designs are most effective at self-confusion. We confuse what we really want to fit in with the technology design. He is concerned with the fact that people are letting algorithms recommend friends, movies, and music for us, rather than making decisions about social categories for ourselves.



So Lanier is suggesting that technology is influencing the self, making the community have a larger influence on personal decisions than the actual self. In "You Are Not a Gadget" Lanier makes several key points about what effect current technology can have on people, including this quote about the effects society can have on the decisions of the self.

"Emphasizing the crowd means deemphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad moblike behaviors.This leads not only to empowered trolls, but to a generally unfriendly unconstructive online world." (pg. 19-20)


Technology superpowers like Google have as their goal to be able to tell what people want based on previous searches and what is popular among other people. This is what Lanier referred to as the crowd, and it deemphasized individual humans because people would would accept what Google offered them was what the majority of the community bought as well, so it must be a good product.

The Internet Disorder

While I was unable to attend the iDisorder presentation by Larry Rosen, I find it very interesting that he has done so much quantitative data on this subject. It is almost like he is using Google's philosophy/technique of deciding whether users like their new products, by using hard data. Google shows new features to some users, and lets the raw data determine whether they decide to implement the new feature or not.

 










Similarly, Rosen used experiments to explore how dependent people were on their electronic devices and social networks. Most notably his experiment where he put people in a room with their phones on the table and made them "wait" for an hour. His data showed that people were likely to go on their phones durng that hours. So his data showed that people are becoming dependent on devices that Google has proven, with data, that people would like and would use often.

My point is that Google followed a scientific system that has worked for ages, and now Rosen is using that same system to prove that people are dependent on Google. So I guess following the cold hard facts will lead you to success.

Rally the Troops!

Most writers/journalists have a point of view that is portrayed in their writings. This is especially true in newspapers, magazines, and as the world becomes more technologically advanced, blogs. While all writings have a point of view, the most popular theme in many writings is trying to motivate people to get involved in a particular cause.

"Small Change" is an article in the New Yorker that compares the strong ties of  personal motivation compared to the weak ties of impersonal motivation, such as via facebook or twitter. Gladwell discusses that strong ties actually produce results, using the example of hte Woodwarth sit-in in the mid-1900s. The four African American friends stuck together in a personal way, which caused their friends to join, and then their friends, and so on. However, the weak ties/friendships that are a result of facebook or twitter do not produce as strong of results because the connection is not as strong. People do not feel compelled to join a cause because they have no personal connection to it. Gladwell calls all of the weak ties that are a result of twitter and facebook a network. There is a lot of people, but not as much individual involvement.

The Egyptian chronicles blog  gives updates on news stories that appear to be unfaithfully reported by the government controlled news. This blogger also puts their perspective on these stories, implying to their readers that they should be out there, involved in some way with the revolution. She also gives the illusion that there are a lot of people out there fighting for the cause right now, and anybody who is reading her blog should join them. Gladwell would suggest that, even though she isnt using facebook or twitter, the Egyptian chronicles blog is a form of weak ties,and while many people may read her blog, there isn't as much action. While I do not know what exactly is going on in Egypt right now, according to this blog, there are many people who are reading her blog and using that as motivation to get out there and fight for the cause.

Facebook and Privacy

Facebook has been dealing with issues of privacy since its beginning. People want to share information with friends, but they don't want the whole world to know about any details of their personal lives. Zuckerberg's main intention with creating facebook was to create a social network where people could have virtual relationships with people. In "The Social Network," one of the uses of facebook that Zuckerberg suggested was to see if people were in a relationship or not, or to get some background information on a blind date.

Last year, Consumer Reports came out with a review regarding Facebook and their privacy issues. One of the most surprising things that this article points out is that Facebook collects data anytime you visit a Facebook page. For example, anytime a person visits a site with a Facebook "like" button, Facebook knows about it. It doesnt matter if you are logged in to facebook or not, they still know that you visited that site.This can help them with targeting for advertisements.

Also slightly nerve-racking about Facebook and their privacy settings is that a friend of your friend can see some of your information without your knowledge or approval. It doesnt matter if you have the restricted settings on or not, they can still see the information.

Some people may not think this is a big deal, but it makes it easier for ID thieves steal identities of people who have specific information on their facebook page. Plus its just plain creepy. You don't really know who is visiting your profile page. There could be creepers, stalkers, and criminals who know everything about you, and sneak up and steal something from you without you having any clue.

So many people use facebook without realizing how unsecure it really is, and it is important for people to be aware and to perform necessary actions to take care of themselves and their identities.

Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs

After viewing “The Social Network”, the movie about the beginning of Facebook, there was a striking resemblance between Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. Both men showed such strong dedication to their respective companies, but they both also had this feeling that they were above everybody else, including the law.

 Steve Jobs started Apple with Woz, but when they came to a disagreement about where the future of Apple should go, Jobs did what he had to do to make sure that he stayed in control of Apple. Whatever happened to Woz happened, but Apple was going to stay on the path that Jobs had envisioned. According to “The Social Network”, Zuckerberg was also as determined as Jobs to make sure that Facebook continued on his envisioned path. He ignored the fact that he stole the idea from the twin brothers from Harvard, and he ended up diluting Eduardo’s shares. Both of these actions resulted in lawsuits that Zuckerberg would clearly lose.

Jobs and Zuckerberg’s personalities were also very similar. Both were awkward men who said what they thought, most of the time without thinking about how it would affect somebody. This is evident in the many instances where Jobs shouted how one of his employers ideas sucked. In the opening of “The Social Network”, Zuckerberg is on a date with Erica Albright. He says some very harsh things to her, but doesn’t understand why she is reacting with such anger. After she breaks up with him, Zuckerberg proceeds to blog about her, again saying some mean things.

 Both men give off this attitude that they can do or say whatever they want because they know that they are smarter than the average person. Zuckerberg is an excellent programmer, and Jobs has been putzing with computers all of his life. They emit this snotty personality, and many people who do not know them personally take it very offensively.

The main difference between these two men is their motivation for beginning their respective companies. When Jobs saw what Woz had created, his main intention was to find a way to make money from it. He wanted to sell it. Zuckerberg had a different motivation that is more similar to Brin and Page from Google. He wanted to provide a service to people, a social network for people to connect with other people. He didn’t want ads to clutter the page, to alter the users experience. Brin and Page wanted to create a way to search for things on the internet; a search that gave the most popular results and was the easiest for the searcher to use.

Zuckerberg and Jobs have many of the same personality characteristics, but I think their main difference is their motivation. Because they have very similar personalities, they therefore have similar ways of running a business, but their one glaring difference is why Facebook struggled in creating revenue in the beginning, while Apple had revenue from selling their products immediately.

So how does this relate to the ideas of religion? Jobs was more worried with creating revenue, creating products he could sell to individual people. These ideas support the concept of the self. Whereas Zuckerberg was more focused on creating a social network for people, rather than focusing on how to make a profit. He created a virtual community. While Jobs created products for the self, Zuckerberg created a product for the community.