Technology as a lived Experience:  

How has networked technology changed how we experience and understand an aspect of our humanity in the world? Using your thesis sentence as the core theme, write a personal essay (1200 words) in which you take a position and discuss an aspect of technology in relation to human values/experiences/social justice.

You may pull from your field notes (week’s 1 homework), lived experiences you have had, lived experiences someone in your life has had, any of the essays/articles we have read (Jillian Weiss, Turkel, etc.) , anything you have read that is related, and your own research

You don’t have to footnote but make sure to incorporate your sources in the body of the essay.

Writing Rubric:

  • Thesis Statement, Introduction, Conclusion
  • Examples, Evidence and Content 
  • Organization and Structure
  • Writing Mechanics and Style

If we look at media through a systems lens we are able to begin to understand how we produce/consume media shapes how we function in society.

BBC 4 – The Media is the Message

The Media is the Message – Marshal McLuhan

“The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves
constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete
disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting
the whole system during the operation has to be considered. For in operating on
society with a new technology, it is not the incised area that is most affected. The
area of impact and incision is numb. It is the entire system that is changed. The
effect of radio is visual, the effect of the photo is auditory. Each new impact shifts
the ratios among all the senses. What we seek today is either a means of controlling these shifts in the sense-ratios of the psychic and social outlook, or a means of avoiding them altogether. To have a disease without its symptoms is to be immune. No society has ever known enough about its actions to have developed immunity to its new extensions or technologies. Today we have begun to sense that art may be able to provide such immunity.”

How do you use social media and how has your experience of social media changed since your began using it?

There is a big discussion about young adults and kids using and being exploited by social media. Should big tech take some responsibility? Is there a place for government regulation?

Cory Doctorow – Unpacking his theory of “Platform Decay” or as he calls it the “Enshitification of Platforms”

Transmediale McLuhan Lecture 2024 with Cory Doctorow 

Discuss:

Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle

PostHuman: An Introduction to Transhumanism 

Jason Silva on Transhumanism: Are We Decommissioning Evolution? | Big Think

Why ‘upgrading’ humanity is a transhumanist myth | Douglas Rushkoff | Big Think

vs. post-humanism

How to Become Posthuman – Dr. Ferrando lectures at Princeton University, US

Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path

Google Video

Homework:

Finish your first draft of the essay: Technology as a lived Experience