While there is certainly value in this approach, the price we have paid is that we have deliberately made technology so invisible that we can't see it to question it. In turn, we can't consider it in terms of balancing what it does for us with what it does to us. Your materials this week are all about this trend, as well as how to reverse it. This unit builds on what we began with our studies of McLuhan. In large part, it represents my attempts to make the theories of McLuhan more generally accessible to the public.

 

Objectives:

• Consider, discuss the reasons people fear technology.

• Consider, discuss different approaches to evaluating the impacts of technology (next week you will conduct an evaluation).

• Consider, discuss the process for creating a personal mantra about your relationship with technology.

• Produce a one sentence mantra describing this relationship.

 

Primary reading(s):

• Part II of Digital Community, Digital Citizen.

 

Primary viewings:These videos are intended to remind you of the continual evolution of technology that changes how we think and live:

 

• When ideas have sex- a TED talk by Matt Ridley about how innovation happens. From the website: “At TEDGlobal 2010, author Matt Ridley shows how, throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It's not important how clever individuals are, he says; what really matters is how smart the collective brain is.”

 

• Craig Ventner announces synthetic life. Here Ventner announces the first step in making artificial life. The first few minutes can be understood by non-biologists. However, after that point his presentation becomes fairly scientific. Watch as much as you feel compelled to watch. From the website: “Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they've created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science.”

 

• Japanese build long-distance French kiss ‘bot.’ This should stretch your McLuhan perceptions: how does this extend us? While this might seem sort of hokey, imagine what versions 2.0 and 3.0 might look like. And imagine playing The Technology Innovation Game by combining this with...a haptic pillow? Second Life?

 

Primary Moodle discussion questions:

• How can you "see" technology more often and more readily?

• Consider one of the themes for this week- producing a mantra. What do you make of the shift to a headline driven society? Is Twitter simply a response to being overwhelmed by information?

• How does this impact your work as a media psychologist?

 

Do:

• Create a mantra tweet. Create a mantra in no more than 140 characters, the maximum length allowed for a Twitter tweet. As explained in the book, your mantra is to be about your core value as a media psychologist, or your relationship with technology. You can do so from a number of perspectives, including the perspective of digital citizenship, the perspective of your professional practice, perhaps a more personal perspective - or some combination of these.

 

Optional activity: Playing the innovation game