Author: Sam Lindsey
Assignment: Post #2, Davis Introduction & Mike Wesch
Man, I wish I would have known about these videos before I wrote a very long, very time consuming paper about YouTube last year... They would have helped immensely! The ways in which Wesch describes how technology is changing and how we are changing in turn reminded me about a lot of key points in my paper, points that I know are, and will be, relevant in the land of the internet for a long time to come.
Before I get into the body of my post here's a link to that paper for those of you who may be interested:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HeSC1Z6VUcJe4md6o54zWwk9Qf35sepZ5TLB6U37H-c/edit?usp=sharing
The most interesting part about YouTube specifically is the ability for us mix and make our own content. We become "Prosumers", the combination of a consumer and a producer. We watch others videos of challenges (ice bucket, cinnamon, mannequin) along with dances (like the Harlem Shake) and we find ourselves not only entertained, but wanting to jump in and participate. But I think that some of what Wesch gets at is that this can be a daunting task. Sure, recording the video and uploading it to the web are easy, but the actual production, the physical task of sitting down and talking to yourself, dancing by yourself, or whatever, makes a lot of people nervous. I noticed that when Professor Reddell gave the option for us to step outside and make a video instead of a blog post that no one took him up on it... Even now saying this I find myself wondering if I would be willing to post a candid video of myself rather than sitting here writing this behind a screen of "anonymity" with only my voice and tone of writing giving light on who I am.
Another thing that I found funny about these videos is that a lot of the websites and ways in which we interact with them have changed so drastically since these videos were released. I don't think I've ever even used Digg, Delicious or MySpace, but at their prime the whole of the internet was using them every day. The big thing now is Reddit, which seems to me almost like a mash of all those sites. It is the front page of the internet, so to speak. It's weird to think that a decade from now we could have something completely different then that, something that combines and improves upon the internet.
I don't even think I've even ever used a "webcam" like the one that was shown... Every bit of tech you would need to make a video call or chat is not physically built in to our devices. That's how important and essential they have become, that they are just seen as part of the device.
How do we teach ourselves, how do we learn to use technology without it using us back?
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