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.

Digital Communication

It is interesting to know that students who use 'SMS language' more had better performance in standardized tests. However, it does not surprise me. I think technologies are providing chances for students to bring the language they learn to life.

As I have mentioned in the lesson, playing online games was my brother's motivation to learn English when he was a Primary 5 student. It is because he couldn't type Chinese and sometimes he needed to communicate with foreigners. He asked me the English translation of words, ways of expressing his meaning, etc.

I think even though the students are using SMS language, they still have to know what the symbols/ letters they are using actually mean, in order to remember the meaning of them. While they are using the SMS language, they are training themselves to express the ideas in English. It is quite impossible to understand what the lady in the video is speaking without learning the phrases before.




I think it is important for the students to be able to differenciate between SMS English and Standard English. It's just like people wear different clothes in different occasions. We may not have all types of clothes fit for all possible occasions but we certainly can distinguish which clothes fit for which occasion.

Similarly, different types of language should be used in different situations. Although we may not be able to master all types of language but we can definitely notice what kinds of language should or should not be used.

Sharing and Searching

Sharing files

In the lesson, we have talked about different ways of storing data and information. I think the ways we use depend very much on what kinds of file we are going to store. And I think the ways we mentioned in the lesson, like gmail, portable hard disk are good for storing personal files. How about files that we want to share with others? I would like to share one more way of storing data or information with you. It is Google Docs.

When we are doing group assignments, most of us share files by attaching them in e-mails. Some of us may exchange the files in our flash disks when we meet each others.Two years ago, I was introduced to Google Docs which allows users to upload or create documents online. We can read, edit and download the files. Google Docs supports different formats.

Technology is so advanced that I could finish the final year group projects of my associate degree without any face-to-face discussions. All discussions are done through Skype. We could edit the same file at the same time through Google docs when we were having online discussions. Every process was like we were looking at the same computer, but we were actually sitting at home at midnight.

Here is a video demonstrating some functions of presentations of Google Docs:

Of course, you can just save your files there without sharing with others. Does it like a portable hard disk?

Searching data

Two major search engines I use are Yahoo and Google. I determine which one I use according to the kinds of information I want. I think the searching results of Yahoo are more local while those of Google are more international. The search engines introduced in the lesson are new to me. And I am surprised that there are search engines focusing on certain taype of web pages.

The power of search engines just sometimes scare me that they can find me some files are not supposed to be found. I often look for exercise for my tutorial students. Sometimes I find worksheets and examination paper from schools. I do not think they are open to public because there is no direct links in the schools' homepages.

I think keeping secret has become both more difficult and easier at the same time.  In the past, people made observation to know others emotions and thoughts. Nowadays, my friends open facebook to check how others feel and what others think. There is nearly no secrets throughout the internet. People can find almost all they want through the search engines. On the other hand, people are so used to gather data they want through internet. If the piece of data is not uploaded, people can seldom find another way to get that data. So, I think the best way of keeping a secret is keep it away from the internet.

My Digital Life

Can you imagine living without any digital products? I CAN'T.

When I was a secondary one student, I shared a computer with my younger brother. Now, there are three computers at my home, one is mine, one is my brother's, one is my mother's, who didn't know how to use it at all two months ago.

Computers are so important for us that you can see we all sit in front of our computers after dinner every night. Chatting among us are more or less like... "you know, I read a piece of news from Yahoo this morning which is about..." My brother and I often send YouTube links to each other to share some jokes through MSN. Although we are just sitting about 10 footsteps apart, we talk through MSN. Here is the recent one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lll-voUKiQU&feature=player_embedded#!

One day, when my brother asked me to go to his bedroom in the morning through mobile, I knew our life is digitalized. I won't say I can't leave home without my mobile but I would probably say I can't leave Tin Shui Wai, where I live, without my mobile. My mobile is my watch, my notebook, my camera, my calculator and my torch. My tutorial students can tell whether I forgot to bring my mobile that lesson. They said I was different without my mobile. My mobile is part of me. I think I just don't feel safe without it.

Years ago, when I have my first friend went study abroad, we bought a lot of beautiful paper for writing letters to each other. But, then, we mostly communicate through MSN, Skype and Facebook. With internet, we can talk to each other, see each other and go online-shopping together! Things are changing from impossible to possible. Who would know we can talk without paying the International Direct Calling (IDD) fee? (Do teenagers nowadays know what is IDD?)

The digital world is so inseparable from the real world. It is easier to know what the digital life enable us to do. But it is difficult to aware that what the digital life has taken away from us. I hope I can see clearer how the real and virtual world affect each another. I maybe able to tell the relationship between these two worlds as well as between the identities created and language used.