At the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic really took the entire world by storm, NPR released an article entitled “Most Americans Are Lonely, And Our Workplace Culture May Not Be Helping”. According to their sources, loneliness had a relatively large leap from 2018 to 2019; this leap encompassed people from all backgrounds, though […]
Author: agently
The readings this week present a way forward. In Kelley’s article “Students Are Pushing Back Against Proctoring Surveillance Apps” we get a jumping off point from which we can follow a trail of hyperlinks on how to address issues of surveillance and privacy in education. The emphasis is on raising awareness, asking questions, rallying with […]
Ruha Benjamin’s article “Catching our Breath” once again solidifies the point that the way we are creating and approaching technology is bringing with it all the issues that are present in our society. I was intrigued with her emphasis on the fact that education alone isn’t enough, on the “routineness” of racism, and with […]
We want change to have an end goal. Even the language we use around change lends itself to sustaining this hopeful delusion: working towards a more ______ society, becoming a more ______ person, creating a world where ______ is no longer an issue. The problem isn’t the desire found in these visions of change, […]
Shoshana Zuboff’s discussion of surveillance capitalism leaves the tech user feeling stripped of dignity. As it turns out, the “lack of knowledge” that has led to a casual approach to issues of privacy online has immense consequences that many of us don’t understand the half of. Zuboff says that this lack of knowledge is the […]
When I encounter a new topic that I have no foundational information about, I start to feel the sensation of panic that arises from *gasp* not being knowledgeable about something. This is a deep insecurity that I mask with baking and researching in a chaotic fashion that usually leads to more questions than answers. […]
Rettberg’s chapter on the “quantified self” left me in a bit of a depressed mood. The idea of using technology to “interpret” and “represent” our lives through tracking software isn’t as bad as the notion that everything is never ending. Don’t get me wrong, the tracking software itself is unnerving. At first when I […]
Remember that vine with the cat ‘saying’ “yas” to wanting a treat? If you don’t, the description says it all. I remember watching this video with someone and them having a hard time fully believing that it wasn’t actually the cat saying ‘yas’ instead of someone voicing over the cat’s meow. This simple exchange […]
I’ve been reflecting a lot on how difficult it is to bridge the gap between ideas and reality. This was made clear last week in our discussing of IEHospitality and trauma informed practices, and it is clear in this week’s consideration of the internet. The ‘reading’ (podcast) for this week, “The Internet of the […]
A theme that is beginning to emerge in my contemplation of the material we are reading in NetNarr is Body. I realize the notion of Body is not a new one and there are many, many people before me that have fleshed this out. This framework of the Body started to come to me partly […]