Thinking About Technology Differently
After reading the article by Michelfelder, D. P., it really got me to think more about what technology I choose to use in my life and whether it is really beneficial to me or not. While reading the article, I really enjoyed the section comparing a fireplace to a heater. The fireplace tells its history and what it is and where its been while also providing warmth and a place to converse. It offers a chance to build relationships with the fireplace and with others using the fireplace as well, while something like a heater inside a house only provides heat, nothing more.
The ethics that go with the development and deployment of an omnipresent technology have to take into account the freedom of the users and whether it promotes relationship building or not. Freedom is important because technology should make people want to use it, not be forced to use it. People would want to use technology more often if it was more beneficial to them, and forcing something upon people is less of a democracy and more of a tyranny. Secondly, relationship building and maintaining is important because technology shouldn’t isolate people from people and their communities, it should help make relationships and keep them. An example of building relationships would be the telephone, and how the women in Rakow’s study used the telephone to create and maintain their relationships with people in their lives and community.
After watching the personal technology TED talk by Cynthia Breazeal, I never realized how personal technology could get. It’s apparent that it’s becoming more mainstream though, with things such as Google Nest Hub that show your face and your environment when you call. Having that makes the call more immersive and helps make the interaction between the two people in the call more meaningful, which is the purpose of more personalized technology. I also found it funny how the first robot that Cynthia’s lab interacted with acted like a baby, being the first robot and all. It made sense but it was just funny because humans developed it and the first robot behaved like a baby.
