Blogger Post: Technological Determinism

During Chapter two of Personal Connections in the Digital Age, the anxieties of New Media is strongly argued. As anxiety of New media is extremely evident in the Katherine Pommerening story as she is completely disconnected from the physical world and her main focus is in her iPhone. The 12 minutes car ride was spend ignoring all communication with her family as her face was in her phone, completely disconnected. She finds herself constantly on her phone whenever she can and whenever she can sneak it. Something of which i find so odd as when i was growing up my days were spent outside with friends and my nights were spent having face-to-face interactions or with the regular reality T.V show's before bed. This directly relates to the concept of Technological Determinism, which is linked to cell phones as they shape the way that humans interact with others and interact within society, the cell phone itself is the technological drive. Baym touches on the point of how machines change us, and how society is what drives technology to become so advanced and overtime takeover. Carr tells it as being a passive recipient transformed by an outside source (Baym, 27). Relating to Katherine as she is being transformed by something, that something being a cellphone. Katherine is clearly glued to her cellular device as she can barely seem to put it down when doing activities with siblings, and if she does she is coming back to over 60 messages. One thing we do not seem to understand is how obsessive we can become over something interactive. Humans often have very obsessive character traits and becoming obsessed with the cellphone. Overall, this is my reasoning on why i have decided to go with Technological Determinism as society is driving what we are doing in the future and the future is becoming technologically corrupt. Relating well to my life as cell phones are taking over the personal connection that people have with one another and changing the way that future generations will grow up. Lastly, i truly wish we could go back to a time where cellular devices did not exist and families could sit at a dinner table without children sneaking their phones under the table.

Comments

  1. Lauren WilkinsonOctober 4, 2018 at 3:48 PM

    Great post! I really like how you use the word obsessive, because although I hate to admit it, I relate to this personally. I often feel anxious without my phone and I must always know where it is - the weird thing is that this is now normal to my friends and family who often find themselves in the same predicament. What is interesting about this is that it does accurately reflect technological determinism, as you have pointed out. Technological determinism can define a particular era and thus changes society. With this in mind, when I was first allowed to have a cellphone my parents had strict rules which they enforced, like no phone at the dinner table. Now, just 7 years later, my parents hardly notice If my phone sits beside me at the dinner table, and where it was once considered rude, it has changed to being almost invisible, because technological development has been so widely accepted by society now. This is like Katherine as well, as you pointed out, she gets in the car on her way home from school and barely acknowledges her au pair as she is consumed by her phone. Again, where this once may have seemed rude, is now accepted as a part of life deemed normal thanks to technological determinism. Good work!

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