Clever to be lazy

Does technology control us? Absolutely.

I am taking 4 courses in this semester. 3 of them require assignments submitted as websites. I have to make 3 websites and maintain 1 blog in total. Am I really taking an English major programme? Or I have become a computer student? The answer from an instructor is that it is not enough to have a good command of English nowadays. The advancement of technology has affected the course structures already. Technology controls not only individuals but the world.

Do we control technology? Yes.
Human being creates technology to make our lives convenient. People do not want to walk so many levels of floor everyday, so there is the invention of elevator. People do not want to wash the clothes by hands, so there is the invention of washing machine. Human invented vehicle, cook, stove, etc to help us perform different tasks that we should have done by our hands and spent much time.

Thanks for being lazy. And, I am lazy too.
Frankly speaking, I think most clever inventions are created because of human's laziness. We are lazy so we create something that can help us. Day after day, we are used to the technology. Technology is inseparable from our lives. Here is a video showing us technology is immerse in the whole world:



We have built up a set of presuppositions about the world around us. This semester, one of the courses does not provide any powerpoint notes, just like what is mentioned in the reading this week. It is really a challenge for me to jog down every main point during the lessons without a note to refer to. There are students who ask for notes in different formats every lesson. Finally, I solve the problem by technology and I found that some other students are doing the same; we take photos of the screen because we are so lazy that we don't want to or are not able to copy the content.

I think the affordance of camera also constraint our ability of recording information. When there were no cameras, people drew and wrote to record. Now, people draw because of art but not recording. People write less because we can take photos, copy and print. There are fewer people who are good at drawing and writing fast.

Things changed but human beings are still lazy. It may be good because it means we will have more fantastic inventions in the future to make our lives even more convenient!

Who are they?

How many friends do I have on my facebook? 185.
Do I know all of them? Of course not.



I won't friend any people who are totally strangers to me. Those people I added but I don't know share a common characteristic. They all have one mutual friend with me. I added them because I am afraid I just forget I know them... I have to be honest that I am very absent-minded. It is especially difficult for me to remember people. When I saw someone want to friend me, but I don't know who that person is, I will think "Maybe we have talked before, just I forget that because of my bad memory. It is impolite to not confirm. I better confirm the request."

How many of them do I actually interact with? Less than 20.

I guess facebook is a place for keeping contact. And, I really 'keep' the contacts only. There are nearly 50 primary school classmates in my friend list but I never leave them comments or chat with them. I read most of the news come to the homepage but I think it is strange to comment on the news because I don't have any connections with them in the real world.

How many friends is enough?

When Rodney asked this question in class, I suddenly remember a request from my primary student in the tutorial center I am working at. 'Give me your facebook, ok? I want more friends', she said one day. They are competing with other classmates to see who have more friends on facebook. I think friends on facebook may not be real friends to them at all.

Is the online identity equal to the identity in the real world?



Here is a video I have watched for several times already. I think it is quite funny that the characters are demanding the equivalence between facebook's and real world's identities. People are supposed to be able to create another self online, aren't they? The only reason I can think of is that, when the participants of the facebook largely overlap with those of real life, the flexibility or possibility of creating another self is smaller.