This week in class we were assigned readings from a textbook called, “Technology: A Reader for Writers”. In this textbook, it provides tips and facts about how to be the best writer you can be online. Within the textbook, there are different sections written by various people who cover topics that every online writer needs to be aware of, and helpful hints to make he or she’s blog the best. This textbook can come in handy for me since writing a blog is fairly new. One of the sections assigned for reading this week is one by Eric Schatzberg called “What is Technology?”. According to the textbook, Eric Schatzberg is a Professor of History of Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies. So pretty much this guy knows what he’s talking about. He starts off the section by telling the reader that technology is a very broad term, and his goal is to discuss the “term itself rather than what the term refers to in the world”. Schatzberg begins to tell the reader that “technology has become as important as science”. Many people might disagree with that statement, but I fully agree and understand where he is coming from. Technology is used in our everyday lives whether we like it or not. We simply cannot run away from it, unless you live on a stranded island or something, but even then, it is still out there. In the end of his section, he expresses that technology can be a problem when we look at it and use it wrong. He asks, “is this a problem?” and he answers it by saying, “It is if we take technology seriously as a concept for understanding our modern world”.
Another section that was assigned for our readings this week was one by Evgeny Morozov called, “Machines of Laughter and Forgetting”. According to the textbook, Evgeny Morozov is a journalist who has been published because of her work in technology, democracy, and society. She apparently believes and considers that technology can change the way we think and behave. I can definitely agree with her on that because a person can watch something for hours on end and progressively turn into a character and take up some of their characteristics. In my opinion, technology definitely has an influence on your mind. Morozov’s main point throughout this section is that technology has an invisible impact on the user, but we know about it and let it happen. “Technology can save us a lot of cognitive effort, for “thinking” needs to happen only once, at the design stage.” Morozov is pointing out that people surround themselves with all this technology that does the thinking and work for them, rather than doing it ourselves. What I find extremely interesting is when Morozov keeps expressing to the reader how much technology has an effect on human society. An example is shown by saying if you were to take away a kitchen appliance, you would pretty much be lost without it and have to worry about cooking that particular food on your own, therefore putting thought and effort into it. Technology allows us to not worry about a particular thing, and go on thinking and working on something else. Last, but not least, Morozov states that technology will most likely continue to slow us down and not be able to think on our own, but we at least have time to “stop and catch a breath on our way to the abyss”.
Turn the Paige 