For my technology change, I decided to only use my phone for necessities/completely personal use and exclusively phone calls. For two weeks, I only used my phone to check the time, find directions, play music, set alarms, take pictures, and talk on the phone. I didn't use Instagram or Snapchat at all (I don't have a Twitter), I didn't use Facebook on my phone, I didn't play any games, check my email on my phone, or use an Internet browser on my phone at all. I also decided not to use Netflix entirely (phone or computer) for two weeks as well.
I loved it and I hated it. I felt restricted in my inability to text people whenever I wanted (especially my boyfriend), less connected to as many people as I used to in my refusal to engage with multiple social media platforms, and often bored at times where I was waiting for someone/something or idly sitting in my room. On the flip side, I realized how attached I was to technology and how often I used it, and it was liberating to feel independent of it. I also realized how much I could miss out on by being on my phone all the time when spending time with friends or family--usually by observing how often THEY were on their phones while I was telling a story or sharing something personal.
But you probably knew that, right? In fact, you'll probably see the same thing iterated 20-something different times and in different ways, save for one or two students. Because that's the thing about this assignment--we all hate how inextricably tied we are to technology, yet we need it to function in the modern world. I mean, the fact that this assignment is an online blog is proof of the latter.
The reason I say this technology change was enlightening but a little sad is because despite the mostly positive experience I had with it and the lessons I learned about being present with others, I still struggle with continuing it even SLIGHTLY beyond my planned "end" date. Like... This blog post is taking FOREVER to write. I keep checking my email/Facebook/Instagram/bank account (why?)/Snapchat, texting my boyfriend, looking through my calendar (again, why?), etc. while I'm writing, and I have to keep rereading parts because I'm not sure where my train of thought had left off. Isn't that sad? That AS I'M CURRENTLY WRITING about how liberating it was/is to be free of technology, I'm going right back to almost being willingly enslaved by it...
I guess that's what Clark means by "natural-born cyborgs..." Gah. I hate it. In his chapter "What Are We?," he talks about the Third Hand, this robotic arm you attach to your own body and control like... Well. A third hand. But he quotes a philosopher, Daniel Dennett, who says, regarding identity, "I am the sum total of the parts I control directly" (130). Clark then goes on to talk about how the Third Hand, then, becomes a part of the user's identity insofar as it is being directly controlled by the user...
Are our technologies part of our identities? I mean yes, there's so much that's a part of our identities... But to what extent? They're not part of the us the same way a Third Hand is, but we certainly act like they are. Almost everyone my age knows their phone like the back of their hand (ha ha), and as majors like computer science get more and more popular, the same is slowly becoming true of computers as well. But it seems weird to say that technologies are part of our identities because I don't appreciate technology for what it inherently is, but for what it allows me to do.
I would certainly say that my friends and family (and professors) are part of my identity, but I am able to have better (maybe) relationships with them because of technology. Is technology part of my identity the same way parts of these relationships are? Because if I didn't have particular technologies in my life (e.g. iPhone, Skype/FaceTime, computer messaging, etc.), then I wouldn't be able to contact any of these people nearly as often as I could/do now. I know certainly my relationship has shaped my identity, but I couldn't have had it without owning a cell phone. Are my technologies only part of my identity insofar as they enable me? And disable me?
I feel weird about that. I don't like feeling like something artificial that I have the-most-but-not-entire control over (e.g. only I know the passcode, but if its battery dies on me, then I'm S.O.L.) is part of what makes me "me."
But I guess that's Slack & Wise's "distributed self," right (208)? That I'm just part of a larger assemblage, and maybe I'm at the center of my own little articulation, but everything that branches outside of me is the center of its own little articulation. And part of the assemblage that I'm connected to is the technology I use and the people I can contact with it. S & W also talk about Heidegger's notion of "transparent equipment," or technologies that we we don't notice anymore because we've become so skilled at them (which is where I'm guessing Clark took his notion of "transparent" vs. "opaque" technologies). Is that what my phone is? A transparent aspect of the assemblage I am connected to that constitutes who I am? Is this just dovetailing, like Clark talks about in "Cyborgs Unplugged" (28), and that S & W end up quoting in their chapter on Identity (211)? Is this just a natural offloading of skill/ability and that's okay because human identity, not just mine, is an identity that engages in that?
Maybe it's not a bad kind of weird... Just a weird kind of weird. I don't know. I'm still resistant to it. Maybe I'm just a huge Luddite waiting for Bernie to bring the Revolution, who knows.
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