The Technological Age

The interview went quite well! And, more importantly, my unpaid internship is now a soon-to-be-paying job. THANK GOD. Funny thing about college: it costs money!

Anyway, this whole social networking phenomenon is incredible. The way in which we connect and communicate has changed so dramatically in just a few short years, and it's continuing to change even more dramatically. The idea of "privacy" seems to be vanishing at an exponential rate. All you have to do is read someone's Twitter or Facebook, and BAM! You know everything you never wanted to know.

And while our society evolves so rapidly, our brains don't. Long, long ago, we learned that "real" things are the things we can physically sense. It worked. But now we've created this second reality, and it's not instinctive to connect this second reality to the physical reality we know.

People act differently on the internet than in person. Our brains don't connect what we see on our computer screens to the people we know in reality. Nor do we seem to connect that the things we put on that computer screen are travelling through intangible space to the people in reality. It is literally like a second life.

We say whatever we want on the internet. If it comes to our mind, we say it. The results of our online actions are not direct and therefore harder for our brain to connect. It's not like it can't; our brains are amazingly powerful, and are the reason we have such amazing technologies.

There is no self-control on the internet. And now, as the internet becomes our primary means of communication, we are losing self-control in our communication. I wouldn't blame anyone for feeling misanthropic after a few minutes on some of the nastier parts of the internet.

But technology hasn't just turned us into rampaging monkeys with no self-control (sorry monkeys!). Technology has suddenly turned everyone into a "photographer" or "musician" or something. Even people with no budget can create just about anything now it seems.

Case 1: My little brother's toys were all over the staircase today, and when they were nearly pushed aside by an unhappy foot, he wailed, "But I'm doing a shoot!!" Apparently, he's working on some stop animation movies. I'm a little worried that the (future) lawyer in the family is doing more filmmaking than the filmmaker (and the filmmaker is doing much more legal business than him, but he's only a kid, after all).

But on the other hand, people seem to think that having the equipment for something makes them a professional. Newsflash!: Taking a picture of a flower with your camera phone does not make you a photographer, like microwaving leftovers does not make you a cook, like amusing your carpet does not make you funny, like copy and paste does not make you a writer, like AutoTune does not make you a singer, like owning a car does not make you a race car driver, like being on stage does not make you an actor, like nice clothes do not make you nice, like matching your outfit does not make you a fashion designer, like owning a surfboard does not make you a surfer, like never giving more than your 18% of effort for something does not make you cool.

It really irritates me when people call themselves "photographers" after taking one poorly-lit, mediocre picture of a flower in their backyard. Worse, when they take 30 of these, and there's nearly no difference between the pictures. Photography, like all art, is not simply re-iteration; something has to happen between when the artist first takes in the information and when they share it with others. It requires thought and feeling and emotion.

If you want to be a photographer (or anything, this is just my example because I just happened to read someone claim to be a photographer on Facebook with unexciting pictures of flowers), you can. REALLY. You just have to want it. You have to work, have to fight, have to learn.

And that's what excites me and scares me more than anything about the internet and technology: how accessible learning is becoming-- and how easy it is becoming to "function" without ever learning.