Notes from an interview with Michael Wesch about how the internet has changed us... Note the recommended solution at the end...
"When a new medium becomes foundational in a society, it really does shake things up very profoundly and I think it would be a little naive to say that we have a choice in the matter.
There will be ways in which our culture and lives will transform in ways we do not like and don’t intend.
Technologies become like frozen intentions. The way these things are used and how they become part of our lives is at least partially out of our control and in that sense it’s not totally irrational to think of them as something other than just a tool.
These media shape what can be said, how it can be said, who can say it, who can hear it, whether or not these messages will survive for some time, how they will be accessed later.
These are the fundamental questions of our time and they shape not just how information flows, but also what counts as knowledge or what’s going to be valued in our culture.
You can post things on Facebook and the moment you post, a very complex algorithm starts kicking in to decide exactly who is going to see what you just posted.
That algorithm is biased in different ways and ultimately shapes our conversations and will in some ways shape our culture.
The reality is that a whole flurry of algorithms are shaping our lives right now. They shape what movies we watch, they shape what movies get made, they shape our economy — over 70 per cent of all trades on Wall Street are done by algorithm. Facebook and YouTube, these are the largest public spaces possibly ever created and they are controlled by companies. There are some elements to be concerned about, especially given that there’s got to be a profit motive somewhere in there as well.
Those not getting a smartphone become society's outcasts.
So, can you opt out? In many ways no.
We need a level of media literacy that includes a sophistication about how to use what media form, when, why and also when to shut it all and to have a moment to really think through it all properly.
We live in an age of almost infinite information and learning opportunity and so the key here is we have to inspire people to have a sense of wonder and curiosity and if we do that, they have what is essentially the world’s largest knowledge machine at their fingertips. If we fail at that, they have the world’s largest distraction device."
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