Module 1 Blog Post

 This week in the Psychology of Social Media course, the class is off to a fast start. I hate being the last to complete an assignment, and yet, I have managed to accomplish that twice this week. It's not exactly the list of accomplishments I had hoped for, but I'll get a handle on it.

Opening the first module and seeing the list of youtube videos and articles, I couldn't help to think, "Oh no. Another course where I'm going to be bombarded with watching boring outdated videos for hours. Where's the 'exit' button?" It was a pleasant surprise to find that the content from the 80s and 90s wasn't just bogged down with old computer jargon that is no longer relevant. Seeing Steve Jobs roll out his impressive 1980s model Macintosh with such pride was quite refreshing.

Although the internet has obviously grown and expanded so many ways over the last 40some years, I can't help but wonder if it's all for the good. Reading Clifford Stoll's predictions and assumptions for the future from his standpoint in 1995 left me, as well as the others in the course, feeling a little guilty for being so obviously consumed by our electronics. Nearly every person commented on how Mr. Stoll's was so completely wrong in his predictions, but nearly every discussion addressed that his overall feelings as to why these things were never going to pass were valid--even if they came to pass anyway. 

Have we really gotten so digitally absorbed that we don't care about human contact any more? "Important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued." Do we care? "Computers and networks isolate us from one another." And yet, here we are. 100% virtually consumed in education, social interactions, and everyday tasks.