The third assignment is where the true course material began to be introduced. This assignment required me to watch one of professor Gernsbacher’s online lecture videos, read 2 Clive Thompson articles, watch a CollegeHumor video, and read a Jason Feifer article. All of these articles, as well as the video, were focused around the topic of old and new technologies that people have feared. We then had to discuss one of the old technologies or pastimes that people feared, why people feared it, and how that parallels the fears people have today about the internet.
The lecture video talked all about the old technologies and pastimes that people used to fear but do not anymore. For example, the written word, chess, phonographs, novels, newspapers, pencil erasers, umbrellas, bicycles, and pocket calculators all used to be feared at different points in history for some reason! It reminds us that many technologies are feared at first, but now we hold them dear to us. So, for the internet, we will likely look back at it in the same way, wondering why people were so afraid.
The first Thompson article just discusses one of those fears that was previously mentioned, chess. The second Thompson article discusses how the internet is actually making kids smarter. Those who text also spend more time with friends in person, the internet allows people to wrestle with communication skills, and that student essays have gotten much more complex and impressive, and the internet can help people become more community minded.
The CollegeHumor video points out some of the same fears mentioned in the lecture video and also points out that the internet allows people to communicate more than people ever did before. It points out that we aren’t any different than we were before the internet, and that we should not live in the past. The Feifer article once again addresses old fears and stresses that new technologies integrate and improve different aspects of our life. It says that people always fear new things, but that luckily these new things still continue to emerge.
Reflecting on this assignment, it was very insightful and informative. The media in modern life always talks about how people are worried about the internet and smartphones, and how they will somehow make us dumber or worse people. Not only did the videos and articles provide positive effects of the internet, but they also reminded me that fearing technology is nothing new. For hundreds of years, it has been thought that certain technologies would ruin people, would make us worse in some way. However, as time passes the technology tends to have a positive effect, either functionally, or for entertainment, and people wonder why it was ever feared or objected.
This is likely how the internet and smartphones will be viewed in the future. They bring such great possibilities and opportunities and allow people to do things that many never imagined to be possible. I am looking forward to seeing how opinions over these technologies evolve, and how they can bring about positive change. This assignment gave me a great view on the life cycles of technologies, from foreign and feared to necessary and respected. I would never have a know a lot of this without reading these articles and watching these videos!
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