New Media for Children & Young Adults, 2010-11

I’ll add that I appreciated Baym’s approach here, as well, especially her insistence on comparing contemporary issues to how people responded to technological change in the past. The more I look into these issues in technology and new media, the more I see that things aren’t really all that different.

Technology has always had unintended consequences, and really that’s not saying very much. It would be pretty hubristic to claim that the impact of anything but the simplest of technologies can be accurately predicted. For example, computers are essentially super-efficient copying machines. I’m sure, however, that Babbage and Turing and friends couldn’t have anticipated the widespread copyright violation that would occur on account of their inventions, which in turn would lead to the de-facto criminalization of an entire generation.

I will jump on the bandwagon here and agree with the gang about enjoying this article.  I also thought that the responses were really insightful.  So thanks to everyone for being really smart!  I spent yesterday thinking about the points brought up, and wondering about the cross-over effects of technology and literature.  On this front, I would say that Baym’s social constructivism plays strongly here.  Most books that discuss technology and its effects (utopic, or dystopic) are science fiction- a genre whose popularity does not generally extend to a wide population.  It’s even less discussed in children’s fiction.  The novel I’m reading right now is fascinating in its use of technology. The characters talk on their bluetooth devices, and drain their ipods of batteries.  It’s great, because it’s so up to date right now, but as a piece of literature, I feel it will likely fall out of print faster than a book that doesn’t have technology in it; it will soon be archaic and possibly seen as clunky  and boring.  So then, does this mean that the “standards” or “classics” of modern literature will never be an accurate voice for society’s views of technology?  This would be strange, since our understanding of ancient cultures, their norms, and values often stems from the literature of the period. I think this could be even more prevalent in children’s fiction “classics”, a genre that is often looked at to garner the values of a particular culture or time period.  Also of note here- we could argue that the internet or new technologies will host these views and values, however, paper is still the only medium that we know of  as permanent.  Just a thought on the unintended consequences of new media on classic literature.

Like Schuyler, I enjoyed this chapter, especially since it seemed to address the technological environment that we inhabit much more realistically than Tapscott.

What I found most compelling was Baym’s discussion of the implications that the internet and mobile phones have on social interactions and relationships. I am wishy-washy in that I waver back and forth between believing that online interactivity and our dependance on it completely destroys our ability to function with people in face-to-face scenarios. Following Rob’s lead, I’m also going to take an example from YA literature: M.T. Anderson’s book Feed is about a dystopian society that has advanced so far technologically that a computer chip is installed in everyone’s head and even when hanging out with friends, characters can “chat” each other from across the room in their own minds. The need for speech is essentially eradicated.

So while this is a legitimate fear, I also think it’ll never happen. At one point in Feed the characters lose their connection to the information feed. At first they’re completely lost, but then they easily resort back to life without constant connectivity and communicate without any problems. I also think people can easily resort to saying that someone is “socially inept” because of the internet, but the truth is there were socially awkward people before the internet, and their ineptitude was blamed on other things. Like Baym says, the internet quickly becomes a catch-all for all our problems.

I would be remiss not to point out the obvious point, however, that the internet, texting, and instant messaging is definitely changing the way we communicate in terms of language. Nouns are made verbs and vice versa, words are shortened to a grotesquely small syllable, and initialisms are everywhere. However, just as Aristotle’s prediction that the alphabet would ruin communication was laughably incorrect, it would be wrong of me to suggest that these technological changes to language are destroying English as we know it. Language is constantly evolving and developing, and although it pains me to see someone use “lol” unironically, I shouldn’t be so quick to devalue the way that technology has changed language.

I really enjoyed Nancy Baym’s introductory chapter on new media. My appreciation can perhaps be summed up by her statement that “the truth, as is so often the case, lies somewhere in between.” In almost direct juxtaposition to Tapscott’s largely one-sided presentation of the issues, I enjoyed the way that she laid out both the technological determinist and social constructivist viewpoints and was able to demonstrate the merits of each while attempted ultimately to reconcile the opposing views into what she described as “social shaping.” Excuse my pretense, but the concept of a culture’s relationship with technology as a continuum in which each influences the other strikes me as quite obvious, which led me to question the prevalence of such polarized viewpoints as technological determinism and social constructionism.

I began to question how so many of the discourses in our lives are characterized by these utopia/dystopia polarizations, and how rarely it seems that individuals on either side of an issue are willing to be swayed from their entrenched viewpoints. I was reminded of a recent This American Life podcast in which an expert on climate change attempted to convince a skeptical youth of the existence of global warming; despite her best arguments, the young girl remained unconvinced. Similar examples are endless, and it occurs to me that our culture and education (and technology?) encourage this type of thinking. I’ve written countless papers whose thesis I could have blasted apart a hundred different ways, but instead strengthened to meet the established expectations for an academic essay. The sheer volume of available resources makes it possible to back up almost any argument, no matter how suspect.

Similarly, modern media allows us to find the points of view on a given topic that match our own expectations and sources of news and information that come pre-tailored to fit our entrenched point of view. In this sense the Internet and the social communities it supports can be seen as a fractured and disparate collection of ‘islands’ rather than the utopian medium of global cultural exchange some had envisioned, but is it the cause, or merely a reflection of existing social structures? In all likelihood; both. Perhaps as Baym suggests, the ‘domestication’ of the internet may eventually make the technology so pervasively embedded in our lives that it is “barely worthy of remark,” but I suspect the polarization of viewpoints will persist.

/rant

NOTE: I know this is a bit of a long post, but it’s because I’m not sure what to focus on specifically.  There is so much STUFF out there!  I figure because I’m working with YA literature a lot, I will incorporate some of what I have learned from fiction into this post.  I hope that I don’t confuse too many people.

A lot of what Baym has to say can be seen reflected back from the pages of fiction.  Currently, I am reading Cory Doctorow’s For the Win, in which a number of people meet, interact, and fight back the evil corporate world through online games and all sorts of other crazy technological things that I can barely follow.  What made me think of this book is Baym’s discussion of the curious dynamics of online relationships and interaction.  The cartoon that reads “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” is in both Baym and Doctorow and is relevant both in reality and in the slightly fictional world of the novel:

Although Steiner has said he didn’t know what the cartoon was about when he drew it, New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff said it “perfectly predicted both the Internet’s promise and its problems” (2004: 618). Whether this cartoon represents a dream or a nightmare depends on whether one is the dog or the fool unknowingly talking to the dog.

Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting article from the National Science Foundation on Jeremy Bailenson’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. For those of you who wondered why immersive online spaces such as Second Life seem compelling, at least to some people, read the article and watch the video.  Food for thought.

Nancy Baym’s chapter provides us several ways of examining technologies and technology use. She introduces us to the discourse of technological determinism, which posits users as acted upon by technology, seemingly powerless to counter its negative affects. She also describes its polar opposite, in which technologies and technology use are constructed and determined by social factors. Along the way, she mentions the issue of “moral panics,” which is particularly relevant to our examination of young people and new media. We often see parents, educators, and policy makers responding to dystopian visions of technology adoption, worst-case scenarios in which children are the victims of technology, or are preyed upon by those who employ technology for devious purposes.

As part of our conversation on Monday, I’d like to address both the unintended uses and unintended affects of technology with young people. Can you think of an example of this? I’ll get the ball rolling with this example from my research in children’s virtual worlds:
I asked my students last year to spend time in one of three virtual environments designed for children: Club Penguin, EcoBuddies, or BarbieGirls.  Most people were totally intrigued by the chat systems.  These sites all use a moderated chat structure that either limits users to pre-selected words and phrases, or edits messages among users with a dictionary of restricted language.  Students remarked that the dictionaries are too primitive to allow users to hold intelligible conversations, or the dialogue appears exceedingly vapid and generic. Kids, however, have figured out a ways to get around this. YouTube was full of CP hacks and cheats for getting around the swearing and self-identification rules. Disney appears to have cracked down on this, but kids seem to find a way. This highlights the tension between child safety (keeping kids away from online behavior like swearing or grooming by pedophiles) and online communication rights.

What are your reactions?  Any examples of similar unintended uses/affects that you wish to share?

link: http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/the-newest-japanese-pop-star-is-a-hologram-video

This strikes me as another prime example of New Media moving out of the “box” (tv, computer ect) and blurring the lines between our digital and ‘real’ lives, but something about a huge crowd cheering on a computer animation is still deeply unsettling to me.

Also, I found it interesting to note that although the hologram tours with a live backing band, the singing is synthesized digitally.

(note: always the skeptic; I couldn’t actually find any mention (or pictures) of the hologram project on the Crypton Future Media website, so I’m sort of wondering if this is real.. but then again, I can’t read Japanese.)

Pricewaterhouse Cooper just released a report entitled “Turning the Page: The Future of eBooks.”  I just thought it might be an interesting read for anyone looking at eBook readers or the future of electronic reading.  It’s got lots of charts and tables and graphs, which makes it that much more Awesome to read.  Go Pricewaterhouse Cooper!

I stumbled across this short piece on McSweeney’s turns the tables on the old “birds and bees” speech, and provides an amusing illustration of the generational divide that Tapscott describes:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2011/1/21young.html