Thoughtty wotts. (HW 3)

In regards to digitalization, I'm sort of straddling the fence. I see how it is completely altering how we talk, how we see people, the way we interact. That being said, I also believe that there are both positives and negatives to that. One one hand, it sort of draws people closer, having them open up more often to their friends online, connecting. Unfortunately, this attitude changes in person, once you can see a person, have them react in real time to your words, have them feel the emotion more than any typing could do. Facebook helps to unite long lost friends, but also invites a certain amount of disconnect in person. It's always much easier to talk to a screen as opposed to a face.

I prefer texting (the computer tells me texting is technically not a word, and I was taken aback, before I realized how that was further proof of how digitalization is affecting us. OMG LOL) to phone calls. This, I imagine, is a result of impatience for patchy calls and strained hearing through crappy earpieces. Texting, while still not a real substitute for person-to-person talks, makes communications easier and at least slightly more fluid.

I want to reread some of my favorite books. First being A Clockwork Orange, hence the titley witle.

Update - I was just upstate this weekend, with no phone and no internet, no cable TV. I felt perfectly fine, maybe a little lighter, save for the anxiety of anticipating an email response from a couple of people that I wasn't able to get to until today. Turns out I missed a potential movie date with friends and a couple people needed to talk to me. I'm not sure how to feel about it. It's deeply personal and not something to blast on the internet, lest some unseemly types get to it.

I guess I'll just update these thughts as I go, putting in new things every once in a while. Yesterday were the MTV VMAs, or the Video Music Awards. The internet was buzzing with talk of the event, particularly when Kanye West disrespected Taylor Swift by leaping onstage in the middle of her acceptance speech and snatching the mic from her, announcing that Beyonce should have rightfully won the award and that her video was the best of all time. Kanye then left in a bit of a huff, as MTV scrambled to cut to a commercial. They did a recap of the show, demonstrating how the website Twitter had over 10,000 tweets about the VMAs, Kanye in particular, next being Taylor Swift.

Now, I certainly see the impact this has on our concept of digitalization, with millions of people able to share their opinions instantly over the internet to people who really don't care past sharing their own. The thing about the internet is that it gives you a voice, it makes you willing and able to share anything at any time, as you are essentially talking to a screen and not the real person. I could tell you right here and now that I love you, that I have always loved you, from the day we met, but it amounts to very little in this 12 point Times New Roman.

The very fact that we are doing this class on computers tells us how connected we are to the electronics we claim to use. Turns out, IT uses US. Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeraty wation, but regardless, the point is evident - we are leaning more and more into the digital void, and boy, it looks deep.

Hell, even our music is changing. It's all auto-tuning, so that artists no longer need to have any actual talent, a machine can make them sound nice. Disney is making that concept it's personal motto, making any young actress they hire an instant hit with their filtered, technological sound.