Sunday, February 27, 2011

A visit to Paradise...

I was visiting my grandparents over winter break in Paradise, California. They are in their 80s and they are traditional folks living in a small town. They don't own a computer. There is no wireless signal to 'borrow' anywhere on their street. They watch a little bit of TV from the antenna on their roof, but don't have cable. They get news from the local paper. I had a lovely visit with them, but I spent a few days jonesing for my digital life. I did have cell service, so I could pull up the NY Times, post pictures to facebook, pull up my email, check my flight information, text to verify my ride home from the airport... and I enjoyed explaining to them how all that information lives in the air we breathe, not merely in my little iphone.

What does it mean to have a digital life?

Mike Wesch's article reminds me that we all have to be aware of this question whether we embrace or resist the digital technologies around us... simply because they are around us all the time. As he says, "There is something in the air...."

This is a pretty stunning thought if you were born in 1927.

Looking forward to talking about YOUR digital lives and working together to construct the digital ethnography projects that you will be showing in class on March 9. If you want to start thinking this through, check out Mike Wesch's website for basic ideas of what i am going to ask you to do.

1 comment:

  1. Yes, digital technologies are all around us. Unless of course you live in Paradise CA. The question is whether to embrace it or resist it. If I were 20 years younger it would be part of my growing up. Just like it is for my own kids. They are growing up in this age of technology and every present knowledge at the tip of their finger tips. Personally, I vote to live without it, well, not all of it, but much of it. But unfortuately I cannot because it is all around us and I have now cholce but to embrace it and learn from it, and become more knowledge-able of it.

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