Week 10 Lecture Notes

Lecture Notes: Information Technology and Society

- Technology (the science of technology) gives off an 'aura of progress', but over time this technology becomes 'normalized' and loses that aura.  Society now becomes bored more quickly with new things.

- One benefit of rapidly changing and advancing technology is that the farmers in remote locations now have more options when it comes to selling their produce.  They no longer have to settle, they have so many options at their finger tips, resulting in better deals and fairer trades.


DE-MATERIALIZATION ISN'T WORKING (mobile phones)
       This is most true with mobile phones.  We can now do more than ever before on these little (or massive) hand held devices.  But, instead of being satisfied with the amazing power in our hands, we continuously are "upgrading" (and I use that term loosely) whenever a new style comes out.  Most the time when new phones are released, the technology itself has barely improved.  People just want to be able to say they have the latest design, even if they are sacrificing on functionality.

- The issue with the above is that mobile phones are highly unrecyclable.  They are no longer designed to last forever - thus forcing the user to upgrade their phone more often.
- They are made from certain cheap plastics and metals which cant be melted down or pulled apart, meaning our phones are just going straight into landfill, where they will stay for hundreds of years!

- The design process was called upside down; There is no thought or consideration for what happens at the end of the design process - which is something designers should always have in mind when creating and designing works and products.

- With the mobile phones of today, we have access to a whole world of information, and yet we have nothing which tells us about the phone itself; and more importantly what to do with the phone once we are done with it, and wanting to dispose of it.

Information Access

        With a whole world of information residing at our finger tips, the news and media has never been more readily accessible.

News
- People become very excited when they find out a piece of new information.  Sometimes though this information may not be true.
       People are publishing articles and news in order to gain a reaction, not to inform or educate people with the truth.

- This "fake news" is taking attention away from the REAL issues in society, because it may not be as exciting or as scandalous as the stores on facebook (for an example).

- Similar to the above, this kind of information is only telling people about the NOW and not about the ongoing, more important issues.

Other Notes- There was a study conducted on a group of people where they were not able to access the internet for 24 hours and came out showing signs of extreme stress; similar to that of an individual who has recently quit smoking

- We are bombarded with too much information throughout the day continuously; this makes us unable to make decisions easily as we are always getting updated on, and distracted by the NOW.

- Society is making itself dependent on unsustainable technology.  An example of this would be the payphone.  At one point in time you would be able to find a payphone on every second block; now you would be lucky to find more than 3 in your entire city.
By pulling up payphones we have forced society into buying mobile phones!
        If something was to go wrong outside of the home (like a car accident, or someone having a heart attack), without a mobile phone on hand in today's society, could potentially result in the loss of life.

Barnes, Richard. "Cellphones at a recycling warehouse in Hilliard, Ohio." The New York Times Magazine. 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13Cellphone-t.html.