So it's the second week of my EDCMOOC, I started yesterday as I have been busy but again it's been a interesting couple of days with some thought provoking videos.
The video that caused much of the provoking was 'A Digital Tomorrow'. It shows a quite minimalist living environment with not much in the home, but we have the homeowner lying on the bed staring into space. You then notice the glasses she is wearing aren't really sunglasses but some RayBan'esque Google Glass equivalent that are streaming shows, films, adverts etc. straight through the glasses. This got me thinking about the technology taking away people from real life, making communication one on one a thing of the past. I likened the glasses to when you see someone in the supermarket talking away, which you think is to you and then realise they have a Bluetooth headset on and are really talking to their friend on the phone. Very embarrassing indeed but it's another example of technology taking over in a really anti social way. Talking to my kids when they are texting or have their head glued to a IPad infuriates me but then I'm interested in making sure technology serves for the purposes of good and not evil (maybe a bit over the top but I want to talk to my daughters).
Everything comes across as dehumanised and disconnected with the world around us and then she is engulfed by nothing but technology and then goes about her daily life trying to get this technology to work in the way of the caveman, banging phones on your hand to make it work, holding the phone in the air and moving it around. The funniest but quite sad part of it was trying to call 'Gerado' something I'm sure we can all relate to, ringing a company and trying to give your postcode, speaking to an automated voice. This is shown in a lighter manner in the series Phonejacker, where he pretends to be that 'Automated Person' and sends the callers mad with his mispronunciations and getting their details wrong.
Overall I found it an interesting video and something to really think about, it's made me think about moving forward in the future with new technology at the price of losing some human spirit, which to me would be my idea of a dystopia.
Off to hangout in Google.
Alan
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