A few weeks back I conducted a study to determine the amount of time that I use my cell phone, for communication, in a day. What I found was that I do not use my phone a whole lot. Under 15 minutes in a day in fact. However, the internet is completely different and I, as well as my friends, probably use it for a couple of hours a day at least. Sven Birkerts would probably have a few things to say about this.
One of the strongest attractions of the Internet is the fact that you can access so much information and do so much with it relatively easily and fast. One second you could be researching information and the next your talking with a friend. If you get bored of doing something on the Internet all you need to do is open up another tab and find something else to do all within seconds and without having to go anywhere else physically. Once you begin to use the Internet and access its bounty it is easy to be immersed in it for hours.
This is one of Birkerts criticisms of the Internet and partially why he does not like to use computers of the Internet:
"I'm sure I'd be intrigued, amused, sucked in, and that I would start to think it was a good thing."
It's true. We think that it is good how the Internet gives access to so much but we rarely think of the ramifications of using the Internet. For one, the time that is spent using it is enormous. A lot of people use Facebook and are constantly updating it and connecting with friends via it. Some may even spend a few hours on this website alone in a day. Then there is also all of the work that is completed on the Internet and that too can take hours. Time itself even seems to go by faster when using the Internet almost in an effort to make you stay longer. Birkerts alluded to this somewhat by saying that, "as the circuit supplants the printed page, and as more and more of our communications involve us in network processes–which are in every way constitutive of the immediate present, the now–our perception of history will inevitably alter. Changes in information storage and access are bound to impinge upon our historical memory." Maybe the perception of the altering of time (history) while on the Internet has little to do with the old addage that "time flies when your having fun" but more to do with the way we are spending our time in a medium that does not recognize it, or at least does so poorly.
Another characteristic of Internet usage that would really bother Birkerts is that we rely on the Internet for so much and are completely satisfied to be dependent on it. Most people never think twice that they just purchased something on the Internet and never actually saw a transfer of money or goods. People also aren't generally bothered by the fact that they are talking to people without actually being present with them. While we can still do these things in person and face-to-face it may not be long before we completely ditch that method of interaction for that of virtual interaction on the Internet, becoming completely dependent on it for the functioning of our daily lives much like the plot in "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster. Who's to say the transition isn't already happening?
Consider the precedent for the Internet. While is provides, in Wu's terms, a very disruptive technology, the virtual contact it enables is hardly new. That aspect of communication began with the telegraph, expanded with telephony and ham radio, then blossomed with IM, e-mail, and social networking.
ReplyDeletePerhaps what is new, aside from radio and television, is the one-to-many communication we now enjoy and, in fact, includes this blog.
One wonders what Birkerts makes of that aspect of how we now write and read. I think, personally, that he gives it not enough credit as a tool for education.