The Digital Divide; Part 2 My Computer and Me


         The second section of The Digital Divide was interesting and entertaining. I chose to describe the four articles that I enjoyed the most and could relate to on some level. This part of the book is about social life, personal life, and school and how the world wide web fits into these aspects of life. There is no doubt that the internet has created an entirely new way to communicate with people all over the world and has had a major impact on interpersonal relationships. The irony of reading some of these articles is that some of them were written before many of the technological advances that we know today. I picked the following articles to reflect on and provide my interpretation of;  They Call Me Cyberboy, Social Currency, Love Online, and We Can't Ignore the Influence of Digital Technologies. 

          I thoroughly enjoyed reading They Call Me Cyberboy by Douglas Rushkoff. This article originally published in Time Digital in 1996 is this author's recount of his days as a pioneer to the once  unfamiliar, alien land known as the internet. He tells of his belief that during the birth of the world wide web, he was a renegade participating in this technical revolution. He was a part of a new culture with a drive and a mission to pass on the gift of access to the world via "digital enlightenment." He describes this group of internet supporters as "cyberculture," made up of radical Californians with a starry-eyed passion for the net. They preached tolerance above all else and patiently shared their knowledge with anyone willing to learn. But then the inevitable happened, big corporations took over the sanctity of this once "virgin" domain, even after it was shunned and rejected by the same mainstream America that now was claiming it as their own. The author describes the internet as "just another place to do business," after the capture of this once peaceful land by the ever-present Corporate businesses always looking to make a dollar. The writer of this article felt that the internet that he knew and loved prior to this takeover is just in "remission," and hopes that someday his dream of an interactive world would re-appear. In 2012, the interactive world is well realized, but I am not sure if it is the world he hoped for. Communication is just a click away... you just might have to suffer through a couple adds before you get there.

           The next article I chose was by the same author of They Call Me Cyberboy, Douglas Rushkoff, is entitled Social Currency. This passage, orginally published in TheFeature.com in 2003, argues that wireless providers are not pursuing what is most desirable to the general public, ways to interact with other people. Instead they are investing in content related upgrades like "multimedia networks" and data with enormous file sizes. The writer claims that the wireless companies are blind to what the consumer really wants, more opportunities for social interactions. He describes excuses to connect or communicate with others as "social currency." He uses the origin of baseball cards as an example as social currency and to society's craving for contact with others. Rushkoff mentions the still camera as a great addition and felt that adding a digital video would be even better. The main idea of this excerpt is that wireless companies will not succeed in effectively selling the content they are investing so much money into because people are more interested in socializing. Now fast forward to the present, and I think that the wireless companies have far surpassed this authors expectations. Not only do cell-phones have internet capabilities, advanced digital video and photos, and numerous ways to communicate with others, but the "content creations" have become more than successful. The creation of apps, gps, games, and so much more are features that some could not live without in a wireless device. When I read this, I realized how different cell phones were even 9 years ago. This passage was well written and logical, but quite obviously he had no way of knowing how amazing and advanced a cell phone's content would eventually become.

     Love Online is an excerpt from Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers by Henry Jenkins. This book was written in 2006, but this citation is not a subject that is outdated. Dr. Jenkins tells the story of his son's virtual love affair with a girl he met in a chat room. His son, Henry, met Sarah in an online discussion group and continued to correspond through email. After getting better acquainted, Henry ventured to phone her. Their relationship continued to blossom with online dating and virtual gifts. Sarah had a very protective father that insisted on being able to met any boy that wished to date his daughter. Henry called her father to formally ask for permission to drive the long distance to met him and his daughter. The writer speaks of some obstacles that online relationships present due to the inability to see what someone is saying or observe gestures made by one another. Henry and Sarah were only 15, and despite the fact that they did meet and shared common interests, the relationship eventually ended as most due in this stage of life. The writer reminds us that long-distance communication between lovers is not a new concept. Many lovers have been separated due to some unavoidable circumstance and have communicated their love and endeavors through written words. Though this couple met online, they used every available channel to communicate, even mailing tangible items such as photos. The bottom line though was that they longed see each other face to face. The author points out that the internet can help us find people with similar beliefs and interests and pop culture can provide a way to communicate with someone who may seem very different from you. The purpose of this article is to help us realize that the same ways that people have engaged in a romantic pursuit bring a new intensity to these online born relationships. Technology and media outlets require teens to juggle several different identities; the chat room persona, the online lover, and the mind that occupies their real body. This is a new concept, and it sounds exhausting.

       The last article I chose to relate is an entry from The Chronicle of Higher Education published in 2007 and written by Cathy Davidson. The title is We Can't Ignore the Influence of Digital Technologies and it challenges the exclusion of Wikipedia by educators as a source of knowledge. The writer, a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative, feels that Wikipedia should not be discredited or dismissed. She argues that "several comparative studies have shown that errors in Wikipedia are not more frequent than those in comparable sources," and those discrepancies can easily be corrected. Davidson describes Wikipedia as "a community devoted to a common good- the life of intellect." She proposes that instead of prohibiting students from using Wikipedia as a source for information, educators should include this website dedicated to collaborative knowledge by studying what it does and research it's sources. The author proposes that the new generations growing up and going to college are intimately familiar with technology. At the time of this article, Davidson started a project to study how digital technologies are reinventing the way people learn, play, and interact with others. Davidson is involved in another project dedicated to exploring how intellectual dissertation changes when it is transferred from written word to network screens.  Davidson has a vision of how collaborative, shared, collective, knowledge should be evaluated for potential and as a part of formal education, and use critical thinking skills to either renounce it's use or participate and contribute their own knowledge for the collective good. Davidson admits to using Wikipedia for a quick reference quite often and when stimulated by an entry, she often becomes engrossed in a debate started in the discussion section. Davidson described Wikipedia as "the single most impressive collaborative intellectual tool produced as least since the The Oxford English Dictionary." The message Davidson wishes to convey is that Wikipedia can be used in so many ways for the greater good, it is a way for the whole world to share ideas and collect knowledge as well as openly debate their opinions and finding with anyone who wishes to do so. I related to this article because I too feel that Wikipedia should not be discredited by colleges and universities, there are ways to confirm the information provided and it is an easy way to get a detailed description on almost anything you would like to learn about.