Fail

            Klosterman intended to be a little provocative by trying to view technology from The Unabomber's stance and in doing this sheds light on his views that rarely gets talked about when discussing him. He goes on to explain why Ted Kaczynski did what he did, Kaczynski thought that this was the only way to get his anti-technology views to be seen. Klosterman is against what Kaczynski did but thinks that he had a point, that any voice saying technology is damaging us is treated as crazy. Pointing to the main talking point that people bring up when discussing Kaczynski, his anti-technology manifesto. Klosterman then goes on to agree with Kaczynski even more, saying that our thoughts have been altered by the media we take in through these devices, altering our ideas of things in the real world.

Baym and Social Cues

Part 1: Baym's writings really helped make more clear to me, the different viewpoints people have regarding technology's evolution and our place in that evolution. In doing this she brings up stances that people take on the matter, the first being Technological Determinism, which is a negative view of technology stating that technology is an external agent that acts upon and changes us. People who view technology through a Determinism lens tend to think that it causes social isolationism and that people won't get “real” interaction. Baym goes on to talk about this at length, mainly arguing against it. She states that this viewpoint goes back to Socrates not wanting a written alphabet and that it “tends to be formulaic and hyperbolic”. She then moves on to Social Constructionism, which is the vie that technology arises independent of social contexts and only then do we morph them to reflect the culture. People are seen as the agent of change in technology. Baym also argues against this, as she believes that technology is created to work within existing social contexts, going on to say that Technological Determinism and Social Constructionism are both very reactionary and extreme ways to think about new technology. From there she gives a third stance, Social Shaping, which is a middle-point between Determinism and Constructionism. It's view is that the consequences of technology arise from “affordances”, which are the social capabilities that technology enables, good or bad. Social Shaping goes hand in hand with the domestication of technology in that once the technology is integrated, it is no longer novel and we can truly begin to look at the positive and negative implications. Baym writes the article from a Social Shaping point of view and it's very clear. She embraces technology but is not afraid to look at the effect it has on us.

 Part 2: I tend to use very stand offish social cues in my Facebook. They reflect me in a way but tend to be ironic or used in a joke. I often try to seem very aloof or stupid on Facebook, mainly to make myself or others laugh. Using Facebook as a vehicle to try and convey my complete personality has never really appealed to me.