Over the course of Technology in Society 400 a reoccurring question has lingered in my mind; although technology has unleashed emancipative opportunities for humanity, have we neglected the negative consequently on users?  Sherry Turkle, a professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focus’ on adverse effects that are the result of societies dependency on technology.  Recently, after I watched Sherry Turtle’s Ted Talk, I began to follow her twitter feed and further understand her views toward technology and how, as a society, we should become aware of the damaging physiological effects technology has on humans.  Turkle’s Ted Talk specifically drew on societies impulse to constantly be connected to the social web, which, in turn, diminishes face-to-face interactions and relationship building with human beings.  This obsession with technology has ultimately brought society to a place where self-reflection and relating to others is highly difficult.  Turkle declares that people using these devices intensify their expectations from technology and less on each other.  During the duration of the Ted Talk, I found myself becoming concerned; Turkle was right, even movies like Her depict a future society that no longer yearns for social interactions but solely depends on the companionship they can maintain with artificial intelligence systems.  However, this companionship is a façade, which results in true loneliness.  Turtle demands for a shift in how people operate and depend on their cell phones, internet, social networking, etc. she believes that a growing number of adolescents have not developed interpersonal skills, this renders these individuals incapable of creating deeper connections with other humans.  Turkle encourages the reclaiming of our personal connections through talking; she yearns for us, as individuals, to understand our vulnerabilities and embrace our faults, not conceal them on Facebook by portraying an idyllic version of ourselves.

In my opinion, I completely agree with Sherry Turkle’s discourse around technology.  As an avid smartphone and Internet user I have noticed a change in my own behaviour and personal interactions.  I feel, increasingly more of a blasé attitude toward the physical society around me, even though people surround me, I admit, I am ultimately alone.  Technology has enveloped my conscious and the only way to escape is through the creation of new, deep, meaningful relations.

Her, a romantic-comedy, drama science fiction film set in a futuristic utopian Los Angeles, although not exactly farfetched from today’s society, illustrates the monotonous life of Theodore Twombly, an introverted, divorcé, love letter writer for the popular website BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com.  Theodore’s career is seemingly paradoxical to his real life, which lacks romance and companionship.  Nevertheless, Theodore takes fulfillment in his work and enjoys the intimacy he provides for couples, family members, and friends.  It is quite obvious that film writer, director, and producer Spike Jonze intentionally highlights the popularity of such a website that could make an authentic hand written letter for those who are too busy or those unable to articulate their feelings in a meaningful way, demonstrating our societies growing reliance on technologies.  In spite of a struggling love life, Theodore appears to be just going through the motions of life rather than actually living.  However Theodore’s tedious life is about to take a dramatic turn when an unimaginable, entirely new, operating system (OS) is released.  The highly advanced technology functions on an almost chilling personal principle by initially asking character questions of the user, ultimately casting Theodore with his ideal hyper-sophisticated artificial intelligence communicator.  In the end a female voice called Samantha is assigned to Theodore.  ‘Samantha,’ although not a physical human being is designed to keep the customer of the OS organized, give personal advice, and somehow make intimate suggestions.

As the initial peculiarity wears off, Theodore become far more comfortable with the idea of sharing personal feelings, thoughts, and plans with an OS.  As a viewer, I observed the growing relationship between Samantha and Theodore and quickly overlooked that the relationship is between a human and an intelligent software system.  The lines begin to blur when Samantha shifts toward a sympathetic and regretful that she was not a living organism.  This concept of acceptance of technology to replace human relations is uncomfortably realistic.  With current systems such as Siri for iPhone and Skyvi for Android it is apparent that today’s society is not far from advanced operating systems that can hold a conversation with the user.

The relationship is eventually faced with a physical intimacy impasse.  Until Samantha suggests bringing forth a “surrogate”; a women willing to play the role of Samantha to fulfill Theodore’s sexual needs.  This poses the questions: will there be a future market for surrogates to role-play in a relationship between humans and technology? And how will these affect relations between people? All in all a highly captivating and intriguing concept that may be perceived as unforeseeable however I believe society has already unconsciously entered into this paradigm.

As I peer out of the Biblio Café, I am immediately drawn to the multitudes of students and faculty who roam the campus without the use of sight; so engrossed in their cellular devices, we have now adapted to a lifestyle with limited vision of our surroundings.  The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives are Altering the World Around Us by Nora Young, illustrates the world that we are absentmindedly entering into; a world that boasts all sorts of digital potential but at the cost of a private life.  Young initially creates a discourse and provokes an intriguing question for the readers; are we truly living life or just a constant stream of quantitative data?

Throughout the novel Young, author and host of CBC’s Radio channel Spark demonstrates a great interest in the culture of digitalizing our life.  Young, attributes Benjamin Franklin as a pioneer for self-tracking to create a perfect human specimen.  Although Franklin’s, ideal individual was through achieving moral perfection; he logged his behaviour in accordance to thirteen virtues and each time he sinned he marked his page with a black mark.  Eventually, Franklin arrived at his goal and was able to review his progress and marvel at his accomplishments.  During Young’s research for this novel she participated in her own version of self-tracking.  Young, tracked her online productivity with a site called Rescuetime.com, this site would monitor and create quantitative data to illustrate where she was spending most time browsing the web.  Julie Rak, a diary expert from the University of Alberta pointed out that self-tracking can be correlated with The Panopticon theory.  The Panopticon was a model of prison design; cells were positioned facing a central tower where guards were positioned to watch behaviour.  Although, prisoners would never know if they were being watched or not; this encouraged the prisoners to self-monitor and self-regulate their own behaviour.  This very model contributes to everyday individual’s behavior while they are tracking using some kind of log, be online or diary.   The notion of having someone else see your results gives you motivation to keep improving those numbers.

This book was particularly concerning and fascinating with my background in geography; social media and many Smartphone apps have enlisted geolocation based mapping as an automatic function on your digital device when posting on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc.  This has ultimately created a virtual self that not only identifies with online content; it travels the world with it.  Now when our information of location hit the online world it is categorized in what is called the Geoweb.  The Geoweb is a conglomerate of ‘tags’ at specific geographical sites that are then searchable online by location.  This foreign concept has been widely critiqued and praised.  Young remains neutral on this concept but provides adequate material from both sides of the spectrum.  First, Young brought awareness to the dangers of constantly sharing your location with strangers online; the website PleaseRobMe.com was specifically made for individuals’ urges to overshare in an unknown community.  PleaseRobMe.com extracted public data from the Geoweb and effectively shed light on the fact that when you are publishing your whereabouts this automatically suggests you are not at home.  However, where there are pitfalls there are also benefits.  Young highlighted a news story in Portland, Oregon that successfully used geographical locations from twitter to locate a pipe bomb that had exploded in a park.  Citizens who commented on twitter about hearing a big boom were asked to rate the noise level; eventually creating a data map that directed police to the park.  This ultimately led me to do some further research into the usability of twitter for an abundant Geoweb.   Author Mark Graham compiled Twitter data for his journal article; Mapping the geoweb: a geography of Twitter.  Similarly to Young, Graham denotes our society as an ever evolving digitalized atmosphere and that social media has become fundamental for many individuals.  Graham and his team of researchers chose to gather georeferenced tweets to create a data map of the trails that users were revealing over social media.  I found it intriguing that through the span of seven days only 1% of Twitter users were disclosing their locations (Graham, 2013).  This statistic was surprising to me as  Young’s book indicated that the geographical data left behind by users was vast and that we should become more conscious of what we put out into the world.  Regardless, I agree with raising public awareness and encouraging social media users to consciously understand how their data map may be treated or misused.

Overall, I found Nora Young’s novel The Virtual Self: How Our Digital Lives are Altering the World Around Us, overly relatable and in some ways eye opening for a Smartphone and social media user.   Although, I am not an avid self-tracker I do understand the process and the obsession to see your life progress with hopes of self-improvement.  To look back on the record of your achievements and journeys; both physically and emotionally that have molded me into the person I am.

Augmented reality, a virtual tool that can transform how humans perceive and interpret the world around us is rapidly growing simultaneously with technological advances.  Although I rarely interact with augmented reality games or devices on my iPhone and laptop I do however find it intriguing how various apps nowadays are developed with absolutely no revolutionary factor other than something to waste time doing.  I have been surfing the web to find some apps that are considered ‘must haves’ most apps had a fundamental objective and purpose to their invention but one in particular “The Dark Knight Rises Z+” just absolutely baffled me.  This sought after apps sole purpose is to change natural environment sounds to those you would hear in Gotham City.  Personally, I find this to be the most ridiculous use of resources and developers skills. In my opinion, I do not see the point in needing to hear my environment through an augmented lens.  Although many apps follow this same format of being absolutely useless in advancing or helping your personal needs they are often very popular with today’s society and our endless need for stimuli.

Nevertheless I have tried certain augmented reality apps such as yelp and around me, these two in particular serve a useful purpose in everyday life.  They can articulate where you are currently located and then provide you with accurate amenities in your vicinity that you can choose from.  This type of technology is highly useful to travelers or people who are less familiar with an area or city.  I highly recommend apps facilitating to this nature of global positioning systems.  One easy click and you can find out where you are, what is around you, and if your favourite sushi restaurant has good reviews.

Hello my name is Jessica Watson, I am a forth year geography student.  I became interested in the courses that Technology and Society had to offer through TS200.  Being a human geography student I also  believe that technology fundamentally incorporates geography in all aspects.  Therefore I am strongly interested in technologies such as location based marketing through the use of the google glasses.  I am fascinated by technological advancements and am looking forward to expand my knowledge on the subject.