"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is the quote that Powers opens up with in Hamlet's Blackberry. I feel like this has so much to do with what we've been discussing in class this semester. We have so much power at our fingertips. We can virtually do anything we want. The possibilities are endless but its like we are using our power for evil, not good.
It sounds cliche, but I think it's pretty accurate. Its like, when you look back in time, people did not have nearly as much technology as we do, and they accomplished so much more than us. Instead of coming up with kindles and blackberrys, they created the lightbulb and the television and a computer.
Then we came along and contaminated these tools by adding more and more useless functions to them. For example, instead of watching television once an evening for one solitary program, it has turned into necessary white noise that is always on in the background of your life. Same goes with the computer. Instead of using it to write and send papers easily or to access certain information, it has turned into just one more vehicle for entertainment purposes.
So basically, the quote is saying that we can do so many great things with the technology we have today... so why are we creating applications for our iphones that allow us to tweet with celebrities we don't know? weird.
i think it's a vicious circle. life is shallow, so we seek escape & distraction via technology, which just makes life seem even shallower, which drives us back to the technology, which. . . you get the idea.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought of it before but this kind of triggered it too:
ReplyDeleteWe invent something with practical purposes and it has the potential to do a lot of good. Shortly after the production of this new technology is mastered, however, we begin thinking of ways to turn this practical technology into entertainment technology.
Radio was once strictly for communication and the broadcast of information. Then radio programs like The Shadow became popular entertainment.
TV could easily have been a medium that transmitted information, but immediately programs that entertain became the dominant portion of what is shown.
The phone took a while to develop from the rotary landline to the cell phones we have today, but once the cell phone was "perfected" it became another vehicle for entertainment.
And of course, as this happens, they all become vehicles for advertising as well.