COM 565 Blog

IIn 1945, the American inventor Vannevar Bush. Published an article called “As We May Think”. It outlined a concept (considered revolutionary at that time) for a futuristic networked machine similar to today’s Internet.  Part of that vision was a small concept that has the power to revolutionize the way we communicate forever.

With the introduction of iTunes music has never been the same. The music world completely changed over night. Apple turned the music world on its ear and left it with three major problems. First iTunes opened up a new way to buy music. Before iTunes music was bought in music stores or through a few mail order music houses. You would go to music stores and sift through music bins with headlines and dig through the not so popular music titles, music store clerks usually would come in two flavors, those who didn't know music and those that where audio files.

Music stores where cool in the day, but somewhat limiting which brings me to the second reason iTunes took the music industry by storm. Finding music was somewhat of a hunt, you could talk with friends or listen to the radio and sample a new song of a bands album, but the radio stations played only the hit songs recommended by the music industry. Sure there were alternative stations playing the underground stuff but it wasn’t the norm. iTunes made it possible to buy music based on preference and recommendations. This was allowed users to make playlists of music that was a person as the music they were listening to and share with friends.

The third change iTunes delivered to the music world was purchase only the song you want for 99 cents. This was different than anything the music world has ever seen. The music world had 45 albums with one or two songs, but iTunes developed the concept of digital content in a music form. Apple really delivered a double blow when they introduced the iPod. What Apple really did was introduce a complete digital ecosystem. iTunes stored MP3 and iPods made MP3 portable and cool.

The music industry took massive losses as music listeners began converting music collections to mp3 and building and sharing playlist. After a time the music industry soon started to intact laws to constrict the control iTunes gave the world.

I don't know who actually said this quote? Some sources say it was the most influential physicist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein who pushed the limits of the human mind, while others say it was from the film Powder (1995) directed by Victor Salva, a film that questions the limits of the human mind and raises hope that humanity will advance to a higher state of understanding because its fundament to life. Who ever said it really made me stop to think about this statement and applied it to today's fast paced world we live in.

I do find our technology might be making us less human or at least evolving as a society in some very strange ways. As a society we are so eager to have technology's help in every aspect of our lives, but we really haven’t stopped to ask the questions of how much is too much, and how is technology's effects playing with our humanity. With all of our modern advancements we have become a culture of more, faster, better, and on demand.

We are creating a culture of distraction where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. People now feel anxiety when they are without their phones and unable to check emails, this really inhibits us from a real human connection when we need our phones over the people right in front of us. We are losing some of the very important things that make us human. We threaten creativity, imagination, and insight by filling up all our “free” time with stimulation.

Today’s technology has given us the ability to produce large amounts of cheaper foods, but the flip side of it is that childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.

Most Social Scientist and Technologists are not saying the future is in a mass parallel, but they are worried about our digital transformation. The paradox of our digital humanity isn’t with our wearable technology’s and our new forms of content that are helping us to connect but in our ability to stay connected to the things that make us human and happy.

(2014, December 11). Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm

Is technology making us less human? (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/is-technology-making-us-less-human--1171002

Mass communication Changes in the Social and Economic Scenario. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29, 2015, from http://www.peoi.org/Courses/Coursesen/mass/fram6.html

SCHOOL: Mass Media and its Influence on American Culture. (2013, May 20). Retrieved March 29, 2015, from https://makaylaheisler.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/school-mass-media-and-its-influence-on-american-culture/