Social media
Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows
Discussion on Carr’s Chapter 10
1) Ok, so ELIZA was a simple program but it still seemed to be able to seduce users into believing some personal conversation was happening. Our smart phones, tablets, laptops and video games are so much more complex programs. How this danger play out? How might your understanding of the effects ELIZA had on users be useful in your own or your colleagues’ research papers?
2) On page 207, Carr characterizes what Weizenbaum came to believe is what makes us human. What seems to make us human (as opposed to machines)? And how do our digital technologies push to be more like machines and less than human?
3) Tools both extend our power and limit our power. A hammer gives the ability to pound nails but limits our hands toonly pounding nails. But a hammer is a very simple tool. A smart phone, a computer, is an incredibly complex tool, so how might this kind of tool – which gives us incredible power – impose incredible and widely enforced limitations? Offer any theories you might have about our digital tech limits us. And how might it apply to your investigations?
4) Carr claims that “the price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation” (211). What does Carr mean here by alienation? How is your digital technology alienating you? Or how does it alienate the people you know? Anything useful here for your paper?
Respond to the comments below in your own words:
1)Talking to ELIZA is kind of like talking to Siri, or playing some video games. These games are so realistic now a days where you could start to think a character is a real life person. Same could be said with Siri you talk to her on the Iphone and tell her what to do and she will respond and do that task. You can change it to a male voice or even an accent I believe, which makes it even more realistic. Understanding the effects of ELIZA can be useful to see how and why people become attached to human like voices.
2)What differentiates us from machines and any technology, is our ability to make decisions, thinking before acting, on our own and with wisdom. The machine does not act by itself, nor makes decisions, it does not go anywhere by its own means. It totally depends on how we use it and where we take it. Unfortunately our excessive use of them, has created us a strong link and in some cases sickly, that we depend on technology, we are not going anywhere with at least the smart phone, places us with satellite GPS, tells us where go, before people used the maps, they thought and analyzed where they should go, now the machine tells us the route. We like the easy way, and we do not use our brains to know where to go and how to get there. Less human, more dependent.
3)These technology device also require the use of our hands and fingers. These complex tools do what we search or tell them what to do. We can google certain things and the computer will bring up related articles to it. Technology limits us by not thinking any through and memorization is no longer a thing. We now just pull out our iphones or computers if we do not know something. Instead of reading or doing work one our own we rely on technology to give us the easy way out.
4)Carr used the term alienation because the more time and energy we spent on our computers, cell phones, etc the less time we exercise our minds. He knows that without the having to memorize, show emotion, or have a perception of reality we are essentially removing ourselves from a world of humanness to a virtual world. It happens through social media sites. People communicate more on facebook than in real life. They get so wrapped up on the site that they forget that there is something to be said for human contact and emotion. When writing my paper I definitely could use this as a factor in an argument about self esteem issues and social media. There is a huge connection for young girls.
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It is clear that nowadays technology has taken over the world in which all we have or do is due to technology. This has made it possible to come up with machines which are able to emulate human beings in all aspects they can do anything provided little human effort is provided to them. What has come up to distinguish between these computer machines is that the computer machines use energy generated from electricity………………………..
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