Amber Case brings up important ideas of the "second self", the impact of technology on culture, access, mental transportation (or "wormholes"), and technology's overall effects on "self". A short 7-minute talk leaving you with a lot to think about and digest. I really enjoyed this TEDtalk because it addressed many of my concerns about technology and communication from an anthropological perspective and had an overall positive outlook - something that I feel really needs to be emphasized, technology is here to stay so we might as well embrace it.
"Whether you like it or not, you are staring to show up online, and people are interacting with your second self when you're not there." It is an odd and foreign concept to digest, people interacting with me without my knowledge. The internet is a scary place, I could wake up one morning with my Facebook defaced in any number of ways and I would have no idea how many people witnessed it before I took whatever was offensive down. Many people I know are combating this by temporarily "deactivating" their Facebook when they are not online - this seems like a good idea, that way you are not only able to control who sees your profile and information, but also when.
Case ends her talk with the idea of humans co-creating technology to aid in the human connection - increasing and improving what it is to be human.We all know that technology makes our figurative world smaller, but I her metaphor of the cell phone being a "wormhole" really hit home to me. We essentially have everyone we know, and hold close, right at our fingertips - that accessibility is comforting but also frightening at the same time because as she said, we lose that time to reflect and in result we may lose our "self". What steps can we take to take a step back from our cellphones or computers and get to know ourselves again? This new generation of young adults will not know what it is like to grow up without this accessibility, what new changes will we see in their future? It'll be interesting to find out.
I found her talk very interesting and helpful. I really agreed with losing the time reflecting and in turn, losing ourself. I am constantly connected to the internet and to my friends by my phone. It really makes me think about how I need to make cut backs and about how dangerous it can be. Thanks for the great post!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of an event a friend of mine put on last year. He challenged 100 people to go without their phones for 24 hours. It is a very interesting concept to think about when you consider how reliant we are on technology. Great post.
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