Education's Role in a Community

When searching Youtube videos of Jaron Lanier speaking, one video caught my attention more than others. The video features Lanier speaking about the importance of creativity in education, a point which I believe the modern public school curriculum has effectively ignored. The problem stems from an infusion of technology into the school system. Modern consumer technology focuses on consumption more than creation, and this is reflected in our public high schools. When students are watching youtube videos to learn rather than creating them, or reading articles rather than writing them, or being tested with an exam rather than a project, they are learning a strict consumption based educational model, which focuses on consuming and regurgitating information, rather than digesting and reflecting upon it.

In this video, Lanier speaks on the importance of preserving creativity in education. By doing so, we can resume the creation of dynamic-minded individuals who are used to digesting information, rather than simply consuming it. Unfortunately, it appears as though we may be becoming 'locked-in' to our current state of mind, and this could prove to be a problem for the future of individuality.

How We May Be Becoming Gadgets

The first reading assignment for You Are Not a Gadget presents a valid argument for why the individual needs to differentiate himself from his networking gadgets. Reflecting on much of what Lanier says, however, can prove to be slightly depressing. This dismal thought process began when Lanier discussed the concept of being "locked-in" and how it can influence a market for decades. This concept can be combined with the idea that computers artificialize individuals, leading to the conclusion that out next generation, who have grown up completely in the digital age, will be inherently less human than past generations.

When I was 12 or 13 I wasn't supposed to have a Myspace or Facebook account, and having one at that age was for the most part uncommon. For me, a memorable part of my early teens was hiding my Facebook account from my parents, even though I eventually came to notice that they didn't care. Today, though, it is not uncommon to see children as young as 8 or 10 on Facebook. In fact, some children feel as though they are 'missing out' if they aren't allowed to create one at such a young age.

These children are growing up too closely with technology, in my opinion. Whereas children in the 90s played with toys and did things outside, children today are increasingly becoming attached to gadgets such as cell phones, ipods, and computers. I believe this will result in a generation of less socially adept individuals. In fact, I can see the same factors affecting my generation.

Networks in a Revolution

The role of online social networks in a political revolution has been discussed at length for some time, and my opinion about the subject has changed several times. Following the reading of the Small Change article by Malcolm Gladwell I had a pretty pessimistic view of the potential of sites like Facebook and Twitter in rallying people together to carry out a revolution. Gladwell states that the organizational structure of an online network is mainly horizontal, as opposed to the vertically aligned hierarchical structure of past revolutions, such as the Civil Rights Movement. His basic argument was that with a hierarchically organized structure, a revolution can take its direction from a few central leaders, while delegating work to individuals devoted to the cause. This ability is juxtaposed by the apparent lack of direction in horizontal network based organizations. Gladwell also cites the vulnerability of outside influence as a major threat to resistance movements beginning online.

We see quite the opposite effect in the Egyptian Chronicles Blog online, however. Only viewing this webpage, combined with the apparent use of Facebook and Twitter in starting the Arab Springs Revolutions in early 2011, one gains the idea that social networks are actually quite a useful tool in organizing a revolution. If we analyze the circumstances surrounding the Arab Springs Revolutions, however, we see governments with limited internet presence being toppled by modern internet-based resistance groups. The main reason I do not believe such a revolution would be entirely possible in the United States is because our government is more technologically capable. In fact, cybersecurity measures have been taken to "keep the internet safe" and protect government information online. These security measures would no doubt easily be able to infiltrate and corrupt any sort of resistance movement beginning online.

When discussing the ability of social networks to host an organized socially based revolution, one has to take into account the government's ability to wage cyber warfare. In less technologically comfortable nations, such as those in the Middle East, network based revolutions are more effective than those attempted in more technologically developed countries such as the USA.

Reflecting on Habits of the Heart

The most recent chapter of Habits of the Heart forced some fairly deep reflection of our public sphere on me. In fact, I think it's safe to say I enjoyed this chapter more than most in this book. Most striking, this chapter addressed the increasing growth rate of urban communities, and its impact on small town rural and suburban communities. Surprisingly, different moral values seem to be attributed to different living conditions. Small town values were more traditional, while big city values tended to be more loose. Small town communities also tend to view urban communities as threats to their own moral values.

In the wake of this, small exclusive gated communities have popped up across heavily populated areas like California in an attempt to protect this way of life. Technology, however, has done little to ease this congestion, or its effects on the community. It would be easy to state that social tools like Facebook would allow more like-minded people to gather in larger cities, but the fact of the matter is our physical communities are being eroded. Facebook, hosting small lifestyle enclaves, may serve to sugarcoat this reality, but in the end, in my opinion, it doesn't do much to counteract this change.

If I took anything significant towards the goals of this class out of this chapter, it's this: the worldwide change in community structures growing due to an increasing population cannot be sidestepped using technology. This brings up more difficult issues, such as population control measures. Should the USA instate the One-Child Policy that China has enacted? Once we start asking these questions, however, we stray from the topic of technology and its religious potential.

Social Network & What Makes Zuck Tick

When I first saw The Social Network in theaters I took the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg as factual, although I didn't much care for the film. The second time through, however, I found myself doubting the factuality of a lot of the events, however I enjoyed the film more. I think if I were Mark Zuckerberg, however, I would strongly dislike the film.

Social Network portrays Zuckerberg as a sex-driven asshole entrepreneur, building Facebook to win the favor of his ex-girlfriend. The film also portrays Zuckerberg as jealous, often screwing over his co-founder Eduardo Saverin because he made it into an exclusive club that Mark wanted to join. The real Zuckerberg, as I can gather from interviews, is more product driven, closer to Steve Jobs in his motivation.

The interview with Mark that we watched in class did a fine job portraying Zuckerberg as purpose-driven, continually improving Facebook for the good of Facebook itself, never for monetary gain. This point is touched on in the film, but never developed, instead being abandoned for the more dramatized version of events from the book The Accidental Billionaires. This book, interestingly enough, was written mainly from accounts given by Saverin, which may explain some of the skewed facts.

Regardless, upon my second viewing I was able to appreciate the entrepreneurial buzz surrounding Zuckerberg. This buzz, similar to that surrounding Jobs and the Google creators, defined the age of the Internet boom and its inevitable aftermath.

Religion & Shannon's Diagram

Although initially the stark definition of "information" stripped of any connotational value presents a rather bleak subject for a religious studies class, it soon becomes clear that religion itself follows the same communications pattern presented in Shannon's schematic diagram (p.218, 222), albeit on a much larger scale. Shannon's diagram looks like this:

This diagram can be used to more fully understand the relationship between information transportation and religion. Imagine that the information source is a set of moral values. These values are filtered through a transmitter (a religion or church), and sent to a receiver (an individual). Along the way the message may encounter interference from a noise source, equivalent to the many instances religion has been distorted for evil purposes. The ultimate destination, however, is society as a whole.

Shannon's machine transported bits of specific information from one point to another, representing a very small-scale example of communication theory. Religion, however, can be considered an extremely large-scale example, transporting a set of moral values from one point in history to future societies. Similarly both signals can be corrupted, leading to unreadable files and unimaginable horror, respectively.

The Future of Google & Our Minds

In my last blog I touched on my opinion of Google's effect on how we think and view the world, and partly in light of the subject matter of Part 2, I'd like to discuss this further. Part 2 featured some interesting insight into Google's advertisement model, and how it personalizes the ads to each individual user. I see this as a further example of how Google's specialization of information may be damaging to humanity's mental health.

A supersmart search engine that knows exactly what you're looking for is one thing, but what Google is becoming is something much bigger, and possibly much more dangerous. This may seem like an overstatement, except when you view Google for the paradigm-shifting creation that it is. Google has redefined the way people think, specifically the ways they seek and digest information. Anything you want to know is just a few keystrokes away, so user's tend to skim many articles, rather than reading them one by one.

Although this shift in our learning process may seem more convenient, you have to take into account the specialization of information that you receive. If you have an Android phone or a GMail account, Google knows you, and it will specialize results of your searches to your tastes and opinions. This feature has not reached its full potential yet, however when it does it may serve to create more close-minded individuals, rather than well-informed individuals who have viewed the world from multiple angles. Similarly, the dystopian 'false-past' threat of Google and Wikipedia's control of information distribution seems to be showing itself in small amounts on certain devices (changing the text of 1984 for Kindle editions of the book, certain historical facts missing or misrepresented on Wikipedia, ect.). 

Whether or not these issues will pose a threat to our future mental abilities is difficult to predict, but I think the issue should be recognized and discussed, and perhaps approached from a hesitant viewpoint.