Better Than The Wheel?

The sun is high and two men inch along the nature trail on a hot summer’s day. They are surrounded by trees, bushes, and mountains, leaving no sign of civilization in a forty mile radius. The two men continue to walk in what appears to be the middle of a jungle, perhaps the Amazon. They have no source of protection but a backpack full of food, rope, and other miscellaneous things that would leave them completely defenseless to any animal or predator. Ten minutes ago they saw alligators, heard mountain lions, and almost disturbed a treacherous wasp nest. So far they are lucky, but how far will their luck go? The two men continue to walk until the leading man falls to the ground, clutching his ankle and screaming in pain. He just stepped onto a poisonous snake and the snake retaliated in its most natural way. The other man calmly takes out his cell phone and starts texting. Instead of calling 911 or helping his friend with aid, he continues to text. “What are you doing?” I yell toward the television, “why on earth would you be texting when your friend is screaming in pain?” After a minute of more texting, the man finally looks up and gives the other man step by step instructions to remediate the poisonous snake bite. While I thought the man was being insensitive and oblivious to his friend, he was actually searching the internet with his phone, finding the type of snake that bit his friend, and relaying information for a cure, all in a nonchalant manner! While this episodic scene can only happen in the wilderness, it goes to show the usefulness of technology in any situation. Without the friend’s cell phone, there would be no way for him to get help, let alone, save his friend. I have come to learn that technology not only helps us become more efficient in everyday life, but technology also helps us become more intelligent for all social situations.

Due to today’s advances in technology, information is easily accessible at our fingertips. If I wanted to know how to cook a delicious chicken pot pie, I can just Google for the recipe online. If I wanted to know the proper way to say “hello” in Mandarin Chinese, all I would have to do is log onto the internet and ask away. With the internet, we are able to connect to a worldwide community. We can ask questions and get different answers from people all over the world, giving us an immediate access to intellectual diversity. While we have so much information on the internet, however, some people despise the benefits of this new technology. Author of Cyberhood vs. Neighborhood, John Barlow talks about why he feels the internet is not considered a diversified community. “There is not much human diversity in cyberspace, which is populated, as near as I can tell, by white males under 50 with plenty of computer terminal time, great typing skills, high math SATs, strongly held opinions on just about everything, and an excruciating face-to-face shyness, especially with the opposite sex” (pg. 346). According to Barlow, we are communicating with the same group of people, therefore, not allowing us to interact with a real community. I feel Barlow jumped to conclusions with this statement. The cyberspace the internet provides is more diverse than ever with computers so affordable that almost everyone has one in their household. Even if they don’t, they can access the internet free at a local library. With so many people from all over the world connected, we are interacting with a diverse community. For example, there was one time where I was assigned an essay addressing an ethical business situation. While I had a perfect argument for my essay, I wanted to check if other people agreed with me. As a result, I posted my essay in a forum where people all over the world had access to my position on the topic. Immediately, I was contacted by someone in Japan that had a counterargument that never crossed my mind. While my ethical solution focused solely for people within the United States, it did not seem to work with the people in Japan. This is because I did not take into account the cultural differences of both countries. Because of the internet, I was able to see an issue from more than one point of view. Because of the technology that gave us the internet, I was able to connect with a diverse community that gave me intellectual insight to help me find a way to develop a perfect solution in an imperfect world. Just as Barlow stated himself, “diversity is as essential to healthy community as it is to healthy ecosystems” (pg. 346). I guess no community will ever be healthier than that found on the web. As the technology helps us connect with others, it also helps us connect with ourselves.

While we are able to learn more about each other through the web, the technology of the internet also enables us to learn more about who we are. To know what we like and dislike, we have to experiment. No one can explain the sensation of eating a black pepper. No matter how good the explanation is, the only proper way to know what eating a black pepper is like is to actually eat it. We learn through experience and the internet is our window of opportunity. However, some people might consider experimenting through the internet as a disorder. The author of Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn has come up with the term MUDs, or Multiple-User Domains, to classify the people Lasn feels should be diagnosed with a psychological dissociative disorder. On page 44, Lasn talks about a man who suffers from MUD. “In each MUD he is a different person: a teenage girl, a history professor, a dog, an Arthurian knight, a cyborg and William S. Burroughs. In none of them is he actually himself. Yet each persona has come to feel as real to him as his “real” self.” While Lasn feels that this man might have a disorder that developed through the internet, I feel this man is learning about himself through this new technology. It might not be realistic to become a dog, of course, but through this man’s fantasizing of a dog, he learns about his real self using the internet as a tool for self discovery. Rebecca Blood, the author of Weblogs: A History and Perspective, agrees that the internet is a means of learning about oneself. “First, I discovered my own interests. I thought I knew what I was interested in, but after linking stories for a few months I could see that I was much more interested in science, archaeology, and issues of injustice than I had realized. More importantly, I began to value more highly my own point of view. In composing my link text every day I carefully considered my own opinions and idea, and I began to feel that my perspective was unique and important” (pg 403). Not only has the internet helped Rebecca find her true calling, but the internet helped her hone personal skills. She became more confident in herself and her abilities. Rebecca continues to support the claim that the internet is a means of self discovery through her experience with a blogger. Through the community the internet provides, the blogger was “met with friendly voices, he may gain more confidence in his view of the world; he may begin to experiment with longer forms of writing, to play with haiku, or to begin a creative project—one that he would have dismissed as being inconsequential or doubted he could complete only a few months before” (pg. 404). While the internet can help us find out who we are, it can also help us with personal problems.

While the internet has the ability to bring us information we desire, the internet can also give us a “family of information” to help us prepare for the unexpected. Being in a family is a learning experience. We learn from each other and teach one another, the unique interaction that makes siblings so great. What if we extend our immediate family to more than just blood relatives? According to Kalle Lasn, the author already has a colleague that accomplished this through the internet. “Her mild curiosity about this new world grew into a full-fledged addiction. Day and night she jumped in and out of conversations with strangers on one topic or another. These strangers, who may or may not use their real names or genders, who may or may not tell the truth, came to seem almost like friends. She knew some of them as if they were family” (pg. 43). Lasn considers her friend’s relationship with others on the internet as unauthentic. The same mindset is true with Barlow as he states “prana” is missing from the internet. “Prana being the Hindu term for both breath and spirit” (pg. 346). However, both of these authors might not realize how the internet community can act as a family. In Barlow’s article, he continues by elaborating on a tragic experience he had with a loved one that eventually counter-argues his assertion. His lover died unexpectedly and he had no one else to go to but the internet. In a forum, he wrote a eulogy for his loved one and was immediately found with global support. “Over the nest several months I received almost a megabyte of electronic mail from all over the planet…They told me of their own tragedies and what they had done to survive them. As humans have since words were first uttered, we shared the second most common human experience, death…Those strangers, who had no arms to put around my shoulders, no eyes to weep with mine, nevertheless saw me through. As neighbors do” (pg. 349). Here Barlow shows that the internet can be a place of community, a “family” where one can go for support. This family was able to give Barlow the information he needed to cope and move on. Through other “relatives’” advice in the internet community, he was able to learn from their experiences to help him overcome his own.

Technology has made everyday obligations into easy tasks. It has made information easily accessible, learning about ourselves effortless and fun, and even gives a helping hand in times of need. Technology is breaking down the brick walls and bringing everyone together. Who needs family reunions when we can see family members through a computer screen the in comforts of our own homes. The vacation spot that is thousand of miles away is now only a click away. While technology improves every hour of every day, I can only image what we are capable of in the years to come.