American Culture And Its Technological Leadership Of Web Based And Consumer Technology

Neil postman was a jack of all trades, he was an American Author, an educator at New York University, media theorist, and cultural critic. (PressThink 1) In 1985 Neil Postman published a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourage in the Age of show Business. The book provides a look at what happens when politics, journalism, education and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death Postman says that the content of a culture is contained in its communication, and that the content of communication is affected by the medium of communication. In other words, Postman is saying that a culture is defined by its connection of people, and the connection of people is afflicted by technology. Sherry Turkle is another author that has written a book called Alone Together published in January 2011. Sherry Turkle is an award winning professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she focuses her research on human technology interaction. Alone Together is the results of Turkle’s nearly fifteen year exploration of our lives with technology, she describes new unsettling relationships between friends, family, parents and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community. There is a third author named Julia Angwin that has developed a book that connects with Postman’s argument. Julia Angwin is an award winning investigative journalist at a news organization called ProPublica. (About)

Status Updates author Alice Marwick is an experienced academic observer of American online culture who subjectively weighs in on the new era of media and where this social media phenomenon is in this country let alone the world. This book takes you on a personal journey sheading light on old and new ideas such as, dot com era, Web 2.0, self- branding, Neoliberal capitalism, the up rise of micro celebrities, and online personas. Although precisely written and full of extensive qualitative research, this book is mostly over opinionated and anecdotal. A good amount of what Marwick is preaching isn’t necessarily true and full of negative rhetoric towards men such as Gary Vaynerchuk, a self-branding guru who she actually dedicates a part of her book too along with others. Most of the book is full of her first hand experiences in northern California tech start up hotbed areas where most of her work was done by good journalism.

Digital trends allow people to interact internationally and globally. “Nowadays, music, sport, and culture spread easily across the globe.” (“A Way To Explore and Build Relationships We Wouldn’t Otherwise Form”) Noa Gafni Slaney gives us examples throughout the article showing us how trends begin locally and slowly begin spreading globally. For example “ Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is the darling of the art world. Shakira’s fans go beyond Latin America. And even Black Friday sales are now a global phenomenon. “, said Noa Gafni Slaney. The Internet seeks out opportunities to connect with others.

The evolution of technology is constantly occurring in order to be more helpful in society. Therefore, a new gadget comes out within months or a year because of how it’s constantly evolving and how clients always ask for more. Andrew Sullivan wrote an essay in 2005 and talked the once popular iPod. In his essay, “Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld,” Andrew Sullivan uses the rhetorical triangle, visual imagery, and one of the rhetorical appeals, logos, to achieve his purpose of how technology has impacted human interactions.

Postman divides history into three types. He begins his argument with discussion of tool-using cultures. In these cultures, technology has an "ideological bias" to action that is not thought about by users. He says that this

Technology and music have always been interlinked. As technology improves ways of recording and distributing music improves. Over history we have gone from scratchy records to clear and portable MP3s. New and innovative technology have helped to shape America’s culture as a nation.

The American culture is rapidly progressing to become a technologically dependent place, and it is causing the

Nicholas Carr’s “How technology created a global village -- and put us all at each other’s throats”, conveys the message that technology was contrived to join people together, but all it is doing is disjointing them. Conversely, a dark place was shaped online, over the years, and there is no sign of the situation resolving.

This text is published by a media company called Mic. Their target audience is young people and they cover a wide variety of subjects such as News, Arts, and Technology (Mic /about). The author of this article is Sophie Kleeman, who, according to her profile on Mic.com, covers the “intersection of tech and culture” (Mic /profiles/152573/sophie-kleeman)

American culture is being remodeled by the technology around us. Television, radio, and the internet were once great mediums for news and knowledge, now the focus is almost entirely centered around entertainment. Technological expansion has been a marvel of human accomplishment, but we seem to use it for all the wrong reasons. Technology is constantly advancing and easing everyday life, but are we actually hurting ourselves?

In her blog “ The Fakebook Generation,” later to be published in the New York Times on October 6, 2007, Alice Mathias enters the topic of the most used social networking service worldwide, Facebook. Mathias debates on Facebook’s claim of being a forum for “genuine personal and professional connections” (438) and tries to influence her readers to ask themselves if the website really promotes human relationships. Alice Mathias, a 2007 graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire has wrote several more columns before, in which one of them was even awarded the Waterhouse Research Award.

It’s quite fascinating that in the early 2000’s social media wasn’t even invented; yet statistics show that Facebook has accumulated users surpassing the entire population of the United States. The

The film “ Digital Nation” is an exploration of diverse people's views on digital media, in today's world. Some of the most important topics were on the virtual world, and the pros and cons of technology within different groups like gamers, students, families, teachers, administrators, children, military and businesses, as well as the experience of general people. In the movie, Prof. Sherry Turkle said, “Technology challenges us to assert our human values. Technology is not good or bad, is powerful, and it is complicated which means first we have to figure out what they are”. Currently, technology has taken over, wherever one, goes one will find it. Over the past years, social media in particular have spread worldwide; from Facebook to Instagram. There is constantly something new, extra advanced and creative. Overall, the technology has evolved the way humans interact with each other. In particular, technology influences by motivating students towards learning, saving time, building literacy and communication skills.

At the end of David Fincher’s film, The Social Network, Sean Parker sums up the progress of today’s society “we lived on farms, then we lived on cities, and now we are going to live on the internet”. Narrated through parallel story lines; the process of creating Facebook and the resulting lawsuits between Zuckerberg and Saverin and the Winklevoss Twins and Diva Nirendera. The film re-tells the story of the birth of Facebook, created by Mark Zuckerberg and his associates, Eduardo Saverin and Sean Parker. The idea of human interest is explored throughout, in the lasting consequences that jealousy, greed and betrayal has on relationships. Through this Fincher provides a critique of how today’s society connects. The realism of the film, created thorough costuming, dialogue and lighting accentuates the need for real relationships, messy and vulnerable though they are, compared to disconnected virtual ones which lack warmth and authenticity. Fincher provokes the audience to question their own lives and asks if a society that lives on the internet is a good direction to head.

Today, the world is much different than it was fifteen years ago, much less fifty years ago. The progression of technology has been even more significant than ever before in the last several years, but has ultimately lead us astray from our core character. The production of cell phones, social media updates, websites, and technological tools is constant, but these new and improved technologies have left the world with very few longstanding advancements. Though the internet has brought the world innumerable innovative opportunities, life before technology was much more efficient, filled with many more promising benefits: responsibility, socialization skills, and controversy.