Blog Post #2: Technological Determinism

We can see that Katherine's life, being on her phone and more specifically, using social media platforms seems to be more important to her than conversing with other people, which includes her father.  The technology that Katherine has access to has fundamentally shaped how she goes about her daily life. The technology she uses has direct influence on how Katherine spends time alone, spends time with other people, as well as how she internally sees herself and other people, sometimes using aspect of this technology to measure herself up against these other people.  This can be directly tied directly to technological determinism, as it is roughly described as how technology can, for the most part, determine how we shape the world around us.  Meaning that technology has a direct influence on the process of our daily lives and what humans make their priorities day in and day out.  In Katherine's case, technology has determined how she interacts, or doesn't interact, with other people in her direct personal space because she deems being connected online and surfing social media platforms to be a more important and appropriate way of spending her time.  It is this access and proliferation of technology that has determined that this is how her world should be shaped, that being connected is more valuable than face to face, human interaction.  It can be seen throughout the rest of the video with other kids as well, while the focus is on Katherine.  Katherine has the means to give value to technology as it is ever-present and is instantly accessible.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 4, 2018 at 2:55 PM

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  2. UnknownOctober 4, 2018 at 2:56 PM

    I thought your post was really interesting. Technology defintely shapes Katherine's life. It even controls her day to day life. She prefers being connected online rather than having face to face interactions. She ignores her family and is always wanting be online interacting instead. Katherine is more concerned with the online world and the interactions that she has created there. If she misplaces her phone, she is concerned with not knowing if someone has liked or commented on her picture. This is so common with kids today as they have grown up surrounded by social media. People are now glued to their phone and want to be connected 24/7. Technological determinism is a good perspective to tie Katherine's technology obsession to. It shows that her phone is more than a piece of technology, to her it is her life. It is something that shapes her world. It is something she can't live without.

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  3. Sierra NardellaOctober 6, 2018 at 9:36 PM

    Hi!

    I really enjoyed reading your post and I can agree that Katherine's anxieties regarding the interactivity of new digital media is definitely related to technological determinism. I also thought it was incredibly interesting that you pointed out that technology has determined how her world should be shaped. Technology has shaped her world into one that is more focused on connecting with friends over technology and social media apps. This is very clear throughout the entire article because her daily activities all include the use of her smartphone and the anxiety of keeping up with every app on her phone is present throughout all her daily activities.

    Attached is an interesting news article that explores the many perspectives on the debate regarding technology causing anxiety in teenagers. I believe that this article is important to read and extremely relatable to this week's blog post and Katherine's story because it explains the impact of technology on mental health and explains how technology has made teenagers anxious, worried, and unable to focus. Most perspectives present situations similar to Katherine's and explain how the use of technology ultimately has caused many diagnoses of anxiety among teenagers.

    Here is the link:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/15/opinion/letters/teenagers-technology.html

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  4. UnknownOctober 7, 2018 at 6:57 AM

    Hello, great post!
    I agree that the usage of Katherine's phone has determined when and with who she communicates with. I notice this with myself. If I see someone who I do not want to talk to I will go on my phone so that they will see that I'm 'busy'. I have also noticed that kids and even adults have become more glued to their phones and technological devices. As you mentioned in your post, technology is something that shapes her world, and I believe this is true for many people today. It is something that has become so frequent and accessible in our lives, that when we don't have access to it we have anxiety. I think that technological determinism is an appropriate perspective to analyze Katherine's and societies obsession with technology.

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  5. UnknownOctober 8, 2018 at 1:33 PM

    Hey there,
    I really enjoyed reading your post about Katherine's story. I agree with your point for technological determinism. I too think that Katherine's technology determines her life in the way she goes about her daily routines, how she is so focused on continuously opening and closing apps, over and over again. This can be seen outside of Katherine as many kids today are glued to their phones and are almost unable to live without them. I think the power of technology is good but as you can see in Katherine's story, they have their downsides as well. I agree with your post completely as I've seen this issue first hand with my sister and her friends, they communicate with each other through their phones, despite being in the same room as one another.

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