{"id":19,"date":"2012-09-21T06:14:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T06:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/?p=19"},"modified":"2012-09-21T06:14:22","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T06:14:22","slug":"culture-and-technology-not-distinct-but-linked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/2012\/09\/21\/culture-and-technology-not-distinct-but-linked\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Technology: Not Distinct, But Linked"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the excerpt from An Introduction to Cybercultures and New Media, by Pramod Nayar, the author discusses the affects of our modern day Internet culture and how it continuously expands and changes, positively and negatively, the world we live in. He offers up the idea that “cyberculture”, the electronic environment in which people interact, is the new “culture”. It goes without saying that technology, much less the Internet, plays a huge role in how we communicate and interact. While technology opens many doors, it closes them as well. Nayar\u2019s work reminded me of a religion class that I took last year called \u201cHope and Prophetic Politics\u201d. One of the main focuses of this class was how our culture is becoming an \u201cI-It\u201d society, an idea adapted from philosopher Martin Buber. The \u201cI-It\u201d concept supports the idea of product over people. This is a very scary, yet true fact that our world is facing. Nayar, a teacher of cultural studies himself, brings to light the irony behind this electronic environment we have created stating:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cIt is also significant that any technology of corporal transcendence can only be built through rigorous labor by very material bodies\u201d (9).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the material bodies take responsibility for building such high tech equipment, we are still putting in more effort and emphasis in and on technology.\u00a0As much as cyberspace allows creativity to flourish, it also leaves too much room for factious nonsense. In regards to creating a false sense of identity and losing an authentic one, Nayar quips:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe disconnect between representation and the body (still a primary source of identity in the \u201creal\u201d world) is, by definition, infinite in cyberspace. Cyberspace allows one to pick an identity, to masquerade, mimic, and transcend the bodily identities and interact with the world as somebody else\u201d(14).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We have become so obsessive over what we have that we forget whom we have. As a community (if we can still call ourselves that) we have rooted our identity into something outside of our bodies. We have become totally inauthentic. I both enjoy and appreciate Nayar\u2019s piece. While it may seem obvious that technology has taken off in more ways when we can imagine, we rarely stop to realize just how big of a role it plays in our lives.<\/p>\n

The dishonesty and abuse of technology frustrates me and makes me question our society as a whole. Are we really going to let technology take the place of our friends? Are we becoming, or are we already, an “I-It” society? Because if that\u2019s the case, we shouldn\u2019t be surprised if we one day come across a human enjoying a cup of coffee with a robot.<\/p>\n

My take-away message from Nayar is this: we cannot let cyberspace define our culture. We must find ways to relate back to the authentic and true identities we once had and re-create the interpersonal relationships we once formed.<\/p>\n

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  In the excerpt from An Introduction to Cybercultures and New Media, by Pramod Nayar, the author discusses the affects of our modern day Internet culture and how it continuously expands and changes, positively and negatively, the world we live … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","kk_blocks_editor_width":"","_kiokenblocks_attr":"","_kiokenblocks_dimensions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"gutentor_comment":3,"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"meganknudson","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/author\/meganknudson\/"},"qubely_comment":3,"qubely_category":"Uncategorized<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"  In the excerpt from An Introduction to Cybercultures and New Media, by Pramod Nayar, the author discusses the affects of our modern day Internet culture and how it continuously expands and changes, positively and negatively, the world we live … Continue reading →","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/27"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/meganknudson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}