As a primary school student I remember studying the invention of the Telegraph, Radio and the Telephone and presenting my findings on a piece of prettied up cardboard with ‘cut and paste’ information from books and encyclopaedia’s not to mention the fact it was mainly done with the help of mum and dad! That was only 12-13years ago but boy has my understanding of communication and technologies changed since then!
Today I think we all underestimate the complexity of the communications that we use on a daily basis and in many cases take for granted. I could not think of anything worse than having to rely or use a horse to communicate to those that ‘aren’t in my line of sight’, and I don’t know about the rest of you but I know if that was how it works today it would be a long time in between communicating with some of my family and friends.
Before this weeks readings and lecture I was honestly oblivious to the fact the military first developed the concept of the internet or that there are undersea cables linking us to the rest of the world, call me dumb but I never thought about it that hard. I was always a curious kid but as I mentioned obviously took the internet and communications for granted!
This week I particularly liked Sterling, 1993 reading. It amused me as to the fact it discussed the possibilities for the internet however some 18 years later it has achieved these and gone above and beyond the expectations, as it failed to mention the possibility for:
- Smartphones/ iPhones
- Social networking
- Skype
- Or even wireless networks
What I found most interesting about this week’s discussion is the fact that with the internet and worldwide communication, “The world becomes a single body, wires and cables as its nerves”. I feel that is a good comparison as it assists with our understanding of how complex the internet is.
The image below of the global Facebook usage shows us the extent to which our usage of communication systems forms an electrical nervous system, whereby the lights signify the connection hubs.
The question is where can our technologies progress to from here?
i love the worldwide facebook map... pretty insane after looking at just the internet one the other day in class.
ReplyDeletep.s. i am definately counting on some hologram stuff within 10 years haha
Love the facebook map too, fascinating that Indonesia and the Philippines are so hooked to it, while Russia and China are completely absent because they have their own social networking sites: http://vkontakte.ru/ and http://www.imqq.com/ respectively.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually pretty scary to me to think where technology will lead us, maybe that's due to my brainwashing by Hollywood. Personally I would love our technology to take a page out of Stargate (I'm a real big fan :D) and mere second traveling from one side of the world to the other through some kind of portal would be amazing and I could also imagine very expensive!
ReplyDeleteI like your viewpoint on how we take technology for granted. It's hard to look back and remember how we communicated before we had social media and the internet, and even still before that the invention of text messages. Back in the day getting invited to a party involved either sending an actual physical invite or calling up 20 of your friends individually on the home phone. Now you just click a few buttons on facebook and everyone gets an invite and all the details. It's definitely a lot easier and more cost effective, but I think it makes things much less personal.
ReplyDeleteIm sure i wouldn't have nearly half of my friends without the advent of the internet and social networking. It would be so hard to keep in touch regularly with friends in overseas or even in other parts of Australia. In this way i guess the internet has allowed us to be more social and keep in touch with distant friends, while at the same time it might have distanced our closest friends a little?
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ReplyDeleteI know I'm just agreeing with everyone else here, but that map is mind-boggling!! I was thinking about the movie the Social Network (based on the creation of Facebook) and a particular scene, where Mark Zuckerburg and his friend get really excited when a girl says 'Facebook me'. I don't know about you guys, but Facebook is a very regular form of communication for me and my friends, and this would not be out of the ordinary to say! How rapidly the social network has expanded is amazing. In regard to addiction and that sort of thing, I wouldn't say I'm addicted but it's definitely a habit. Regularly if I need to get work done really seriously, I'll get one of my friends to change my Facebook password.. And then when I log back on nothing has really changed anyway
ReplyDeleteAwesome Facebook Map as everyone has already stated . .. and due to studying a lot about North Korea in sporting terms i couldn't help but throwing my attention straight to that part of the world and seeing no light at all haha so interesting . . .
ReplyDeleteLove this blog Elise, it really puts things into perspective. What was fascinating to learn after the Internet Timeline that ted gave us in the lecture, was that all the earlier inventions weren't planned, they were merely someone experimenting with what was right in front of them. What comes next I wonder?
ReplyDeleteThe bright spot in wollongong on the facebook map must be due to my usage, (and wollongong uni students on general). Everytime i look at people's computers they are most likely checking their facebook!
ReplyDeleteGreat post Elise. I too can admit that I was incredibly unaware of how 'wired' our world actually is until I began studying DIGC. In relation to your question of what is next for technology, I recommend that you read the novel Blind Faith by author Ben Elton. In this book he predicts a future world which is so heavily reliant upon technology and online communication that it becomes illegal for one to have a private life and to keep secrets offline. Although this sounds extremely farfetched and unrealistic, I believe that if we are not careful with how we use technology this utopian world may soon become a reality.
ReplyDeleteThe way India is highlighted is amazing. Ted had a similar map in one of his slides and, yeah I didn't expect India to be as online as it is. It's really distributed too. Ted was saying India is a very online country, and I guess it goes against what I thought India was like. I feel bad saying it, but I had my own ideas of what India was like and didn't expect it to be as "connected" as it is. We also get a pretty good indication in that picture of the connections between specific countries. It looks to me like the majority of connections to and from Australia are into Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteThat is a fantastic image! i too enjoyed Sterling, it helped me understand the context the of the internet.I also absolutely love the idea of networks and the internet as a nervous system it just reinforces my belief that the internet is a living organism
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