Month: September 2016

AS WE MAY THINK

“As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush can be compared to the Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows” and how technology has either enhanced or devolved our minds.

Carr makes the argument that technology has also devolved our minds. We can do a lot more with the improvements in technology, but it has rewired our brains. We can’t do as much as we could before, well, without getting distracted. Simple tasks such as reading have become extremely hard to do because our technologically savvy minds are constantly being bombarded with outward information. A big gripe with that however, is Carr’s absence of what happens if we don’t use technology. Does our minds go back to how they were “originally”. Is the damage already done? Carr doesn’t address that.

Bush thinks on a similar page. Technology has improved many aspects of life, but, we seem to be worse off human beings than before. So much information at the tip of our fingertips that can be accessed at a moment’s notice. The world wide web came helped Bush introduce a concept called “the memex”, pretty much an extra appendage for our brain that increases capacity.  It would further assist with creating associations, such as hypertext does for the internet.

My opinion however, is that I don’t see an issue with any of it. Technology has vastly improved the way of life for countless societies. If the internet is a medium to gain information just as books were 30 years ago, then what is the difference? I’m still accessing information and gaining knowledge. Why does it matter if that’s taking place by tapping on a touch screen versus opening the pages of a book?

 

IDEALISM VS REALISM

Idealism:

I would classify myself as a religious individual. My outward actions may suggest otherwise, but my inner thoughts and beliefs show that I am a fairly religious person. I believe there is something perfect. Is that me? NOT AT ALL. Is it a place on this Earth? Doubtful. Can I work on myself to reach perfection? Nope. Being raised Pentecostal Christian, some can imagine the faith involved in that denomination… I am not a practicing Pentecostal any longer, but I still believe in a divine being that is perfect.

Realism:

I can totally see where relists come into the equation. Humans are humans, perfectly imperfect. There is nothing perfect in this universe and that’s okay. Why do people work on themselves to be please another being with no proof that something of that nature even exists.

I’m constantly questioning my own beliefs, which is why I feel that I’m not a realist because I always end up back believing there is something. If I didn’t grow up in the church, I would probably think more like as a realist. To each their own though!

Now translating the above concepts into music was where things got a little confusing for a minute. Music is just sound, so I’m not sure how it can approach an ideal like state. People like certain music over other music. Some sounds create better music; instruments, singers, studio manipulation. Everything affects the end state of music. I guess it works if one says that through the studio, the music does reach an ideal state, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll enjoy it.

 

 

THE SHALLOWS

Today’s class was very “all over the place” for me honestly. I understood the teachings about how technology has decreased our attention span. I was all about reading in elementary school. I read for fun, at school or at home. The only thing you’ll catch me reading now are online articles about movies or the newest piece of technology that interests me. I will rarely read books that are assigned for class. If I HAVE to read one however, I will NEED the paperback or hardcover version of the book. If it is a pdf file I might as well not even bother with it as there are simply too many ways for me to distract myself. I have countless apps and bookmarks that if I have to read something longer than a few pages on my laptop, it won’t get done, or at least not in a timely manner.

Another issue I deal with when reading is that I cannot read for a long period of time. I’m unsure of what the issue is, but I found reading draining. This is going to contradict some things I stated earlier, but I read, for fun, on my cruise this past summer. Michael Crichton’s “The Lost World” was a fantastic book and I’m extremely surprised that I read on a cruise, especially since, as stated above, I DON’T read for fun. To get through the book however, I had to read chapter to chapter. If I needed to grab another long island ice tea, I would have to wait until I finished the chapter. I was in the zone and I refused to break out of it if I didn’t have to because I knew it would take me awhile to re-immerse myself in the book again. I did however, have to take multiple breaks while reading the novel throughout the week. If I read more than two chapters at a time, I found myself re-reading a few of the pages again because there was so much mental energy being used at once, that I wouldn’t recognize that I wasn’t gaining things from the material that I read.

I would agree with Carr when he stated that technology has decreased our brain capability of being able to focus for longer periods of time. I could play video games or watch movies for hours. The second I’m given something that isn’t directly related with technology, it’s game over. There is no way I would be interested or invested because I just cannot focus.

P.S. Every time the title of Carr’s book “The Shallows” was stated, I would begin to think about the summer shark flick, “The Shallows” which interested me much more.

LOUDNESS

Music has been ruined for me. The song “Say a Little Prayer” by Aretha Franklin was played and I got excited as it was the first song that I actually knew. As I sang along in my head, the concept of loudness was brought up. It was pointed out that Aretha was really belting out the song. When compared to Adele’s “Hello”, there was a hearable difference. “Hello from the OTHER SIDE” should be LOUDER than the other parts of the song, but it wasn’t. The song had been changed in the studio to have the same loudness, the same consistency throughout. If you compare the two fantastic singers, it’s clear that the two songs have been manipulated differently. In the video for “Hello”, Adele is visibly belting out the lyrics, but it isn’t heard in the final product. The entire song has been set to a certain maximum volume. “Say a Little Prayer” may have been edited in the studio, but the volume differential is present. Even without the background singers, it was obvious that Aretha varied her voice throughout the song by placing more emphasis on certain words and phrases as does Adele, but without the volume being manipulated. I began thinking about older songs that I enjoy since volume loudness was a relatively new phenomenon and it clicked.  When I listen to “California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papas, I constantly have to change the volume of the song because the music wasn’t set the same maximum volume. After realizing that, I retracted my initial thoughts about volume manipulation being a bad thing. I see the pros and cons of both, but ultimately I enjoy (being the millennial that I am) having the volume set at the same loudness.