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Digital Detox

      So I tried something that might be considered strange in our current age of technology. I did a digital detox, limiting my screen time to only purely necessary communications or course work. The amount of time I spend on my phone just scrolling through social media is honestly atrocious, so my hope was that it would allow me more time to spend on what is important to me. I wish I could say that I spent the day meditating and introspecting, coming out of it a better person who is more in touch with themselves and reality. This was not the case. In truth, it made me pretty anxious to be without my digital pacifier. I slipped up several times, opening up my social media completely unconsciously and not even realizing what I was doing.     I knew my phone was a very integral part of my every day, but I didn't realize how just how hard it would be to avoid. Even if you open it up only for necessary communications, the notifications pull you in. Maybe if I had j...
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AR/VR

       A really exciting emerging technology that I honestly hadn't considered much as being part of the Communications field is AR/VR (Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality). Of course I had heard about Facebook's Meta, but considering what I know about that particular company, I was honestly a little worried about the concept as a whole. I was reluctant to trust something that promised even more dissociation from reality than what technology could already offer. However, we had a fascinating presentation in class from someone who works in the industry and she presented it as a way to integrate technology with art, and it definitely got me excited about the possibilities.      Her presentation included incredible visuals of art pieces that were set in major cities and could only be viewed through your phone. I think it would be so fascinating to see spaces that we recognize be used in a totally different way. It's also so interesting to see creativity sho...
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The Social Dilemma

     I had put off watching The Social Dilemma  when it came out, because I knew it would be depressing. We had to watch it as an assignment in class, so I wasn't able to put off these harsh truths any longer. I'm really glad I watched it, because it has allowed me to be more mindful of my social media use. A big focus of the film was how social media companies such as Facebook use us as the product, selling our attention to companies for advertising time. It's hard to ignore this truth as I scroll through targeted ads, but I don't think I fully understood the magnitude of this, and how insidious it truly is.      Did you know that these companies use AI that they don't even fully understand to measure exactly how long you engage with certain ads, and to keep you engaged as long as possible? I think I always knew this, but realizing that even these companies had little idea how this AI worked made me think of a dystopian sci-fi where AI takes over. I t...
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Connected, but Alone?

     Sherry Turkle is the Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She wrote Alone Together in 2012, where she discussed the way technology is changing how we communicate and gave a TED talk on the subject as well. I haven't read her book, but I did watch the TED talk and I thought she raised some interesting points. She stressed the importance of being mindful with our consumption of technology, and its affect on how we communicate and how we see ourselves in the world.      She used the example of people using their phones at funerals to hide from their grief. Too often we forget that in order to process strong emotions, we must sit with them and feel them. Our phones kind of act like a digital pacifier. Personally, I find myself using my phone more often in times of stress. It can feel good to turn off your brain for a bit, and maybe that can be beneficial for the short term, but long te...
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Marshall McLuhan and The Medium is the Message

    Marshall McLuhan wrote The Medium is the Message in 1967, which was at the time controversial. However, in our growing digital age, his philosophy is more relevant now than ever before. He argued that electronic media wires people differently, even going so far as to say that television and radio lead to illiteracy. Perhaps the source of controversy came from a defensiveness people at the time felt with being accused of illiteracy. Marshall said "one of the effects of living with electronic info is that we will be living in a state of information overload." Have you ever found yourself with a to do list a mile long, but instead of doing the work you needed to do, you ended up scrolling on your phone, looking at nothing? Does this happen because we as humans are inherently procrastinators, or is it because we live in a state of information overload?      McLuhan is credited with coining the term "Global Village", referring to the daily consumption of media, i...
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