My Personal Network

I am truly astounded by the amount of time during the day in which I am consuming media. From the second I wake up in the morning until the second I go to sleep, I am using media. My iPhone alarm wakes me up, and after that I immediately check the weather app and my text messages. I then go to class, and instead of wearing a watch to see if I am on time I always check my phone. When I had to go to a meeting at an unfamiliar campus building, I plugged it into the map app and am guided step by step to my destination. After all this technology at school, I then go to work where it is my sole job to work on the computer. I do everything from entering data to making copies to researching academia, and my eyes are sore by the end of the day from the glare of technology. I haven’t even mentioned how many times throughout the day I am checking Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook for live information or entertainment during my five minutes of free time. I find myself so easily distracted from everyday tasks and craving to check my phone for new information inputs from friends. I can’t remember the last time I sat and just twiddled my thumbs, any down time I have is spent on technology in some way or another!

 So much of my attention is focused where it shouldn't be, honestly. Before starting my homework, I sometimes check Facebook for a “little bit.” That little bit then turns into hours from click to click my attention is being drawn from pictures to funny videos to stalking someone all the way back to 2008. I think it is sad how consumed I am by technology, but I feel that there is nothing I can do to stop it. In such a technology-centered society, not having a cell phone or instant access to the rest of the world is unheard of. Why is it SO important for me to be texting my friend I saw an hour ago about the kid in my class’s weird hairdo? I am so wired it scares me.

It is unreal to think about how truly dependent I am without technology. Without a simple cell phone, I wouldn’t wake up in the morning, keep myself entertained, or know what time it was. With an iPhone, the world is literally at my fingertips. I can get an app for any and every thing imaginable. There are apps for ordering food, paying your parking meter, keeping track of bank accounts and so much more. I don’t even have to use my hands anymore, I can just yell at Siri to get me any information I desire.

Readings From Week 6

The Temporary Autonomous Zone: The Net & The Web by Hakim Bey

1.) "The TAZ has a temporary but actual location in time and a temporary but actual location in space." He also mentions that the TAZ has a instantaneous and virtual place in the web. These lines confuse me. What does the author mean by this? Does the TAZ change over time and depending on where it is used? Then where is the actual TAZ? 

2.) Why is the Universal Control-system impossible? Is it because there needs to be chaos so there can be order? I find that interesting, then, that hackers and viruses and all the annoying road bumps on the web are actually necessary for its growth and continuance. 

3.) Of the two attitudes about technological internet advances "(1) what we might call the Fifth Estate/Neo-Paleolithic Post-Situ Ultra-Green position, which construes itself as a luddite argument against mediation and against the Net; and (2) the Cyberpunk utopianists, futuro-libertarians, Reality Hackers and their allies who see the Net as a step forward in evolution, and who assume that any possible ill effects of mediation can be overcome--at least, once we've liberated the means of production.".....which category do you/most people fall in? I wonder if the majority sees the internet in a positive or negative light.

Goldhaber, M.H., 1997. The Attention Economy and the Net. First Monday, 2(3). 
1.) What does he mean by "economies are governed by what is scarce?" How can attention govern an economy? Does this relate to when you have someone's attention, you  have a sort of power over them?

2.) I really like that he asks us to question if  when he is speaking aloud we are paying attention to him, or his words, or his outfit, the people around us, or the setting... it makes me wonder when I am listening to a speech, what am I really paying attention to?

3.) If we are intrinsically wired to pay attention and crave attention, (as babies we cry when we need people to pay attention to us) why is it so dang hard for us to pay attention? Currently, I am reading this article, listening to music, writing on my blog, and texting all at the same time... Multitasking is like the opposite of attention and that is the main thing our society does today.. is the inability to pay attention as fully going to negatively affect the economy in the future?