Saturday, June 04, 2005

Wow, meta!

Here's something weird: I've been posting the McLuhann stuff because he comes up in conversation constantly in Toronto, but is shamefully forgotten in the US university. But, I realized that he had a point that applies to these blogs.
He argues that every technology, when taken to its logical extreme, does exactly the opposite of what it was meant to.
Blogs are communication devices. But, they proliferate. Now, when there are so many of them, it's impossible to find the sort you'd like to communicate with. They're all spam, or teenagers' diaries.
And so, they limit communication.

3 comments:

Rufus said...

Well, I'm not sure I'd use P Diddy as a barometer of anything one way or the other.

Criticism? Oh, sure. 1) He has to be taken with a very large grain of salt, 2) more poetic than scientific, 3)too anti-progress, 4) At times extremely obtuse, 5) Too loose to be academic, and too obtuse to be popular.

Overwhelming? Certainly. Limiting them? Well, I guess they might be limiting themselves. Certainly, nobody forced anyone to carry around a cell phone everywhere that negates any contact that they might have with anyone around them. But, it does limit them in an external way. Absolutely.

As for blogs, they are nominally a communication device. Yet, the sheer number of them negates any real communication. Anyone who thinks that sitting alone and typing is communicative is seriously deluded.

Zach said...

I agree with you that it can be limiting. However, it also grants access to places never before imagined. Prior to blogging you wouldn't know what the avrage troop in Iraq is feeling or thinking. Now you have these thoughts and this info which never before was seen. That is but a single instance of their effectiveness. I think that over time the good will be sorted out from the bad and it indeed will be effective...

Rufus said...

I hope so. It's all hearsay at this point, but a lot of teachers are starting to worry amongst ourselves that this generation lacks all but the most basic interpersonal skills. Also, it's hard to know what effect it has on the sensorium to constantly recieve information in these detatched bits. Is this why our university kids can't seem to read more than 8 pages?
I agree that the good could be sorted out from the bad, but I think we'll have to do it ourselves, because I don't think it will be a natural process.
I definitely appreciate hearing what the troops are thinking though, and I agree that I wouldn't have had that chance before.