1501ART Essay

The meme of all meme’s: ‘Online-ism’-
Infecting today’s youth; or setting them up for a lifetime of knowledge?

The meme of all meme’s; sounds a bit outlandish doesn’t it? In terms of the description of the word…meme- an idea that functions in the brain the same way a gene or virus functions in the body. (Lecture Notes) it does seem a little bit out there and a bit more then a child should have to comprehend, but when you think about it, it really isn’t that crazy. Being online can and does fall into this category of ‘meme’. One may argue that it is merely just a phase today’s youth is going through, this need to be online, and it will surely pass, much like the ‘Baby Boom’. But likened to a virus, a meme can live within your system completely undetected. Children are catching onto this ‘virus’ very quickly, with a number of websites dedicated to children as young as 7 (Disney, nickelodeon, hi5 all have WebPages with interactive chat rooms and activities). This may not seem harmful, but each new media technology brings with it “great promise for social and educational benefits” and great concern for children’s “exposure to inappropriate and harmful content” (Wartell, Jennings)

Held up on such a high pedestal, it seems technology, which is not “something new, it is more ancient than the stone circles at Stonehenge” (Nye, p.6) has become something today’s society can no longer function without. In a world where children as young as 7 are using the internet, is today’s youth is rapidly becoming infected by this thing we call ‘online-ism’? Or is the internet setting them up to become more and more knowledgeable in most aspects of life?

Because of their ‘incredible ability to adapt’ (Tapscott, p.78) children have become known as increasingly knowledgeable in relation to the internet and today’s technological advances. This paper reflects on children and the interactive world they revel in and whether or not they are being infected by this ‘online-ism’ or simply just adapting to the environment that surrounds them in the form of new technology.

A recent study by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), surveying 751 family households with children between the ages of 8 and 17, showed that “about 91 per cent have internet access, 76 per cent have access to broadband services and 77 per cent have an electronic gaming console in the home.” (Morello) The survey also found “the average child watches about two hours of TV a day and is on the internet about 1.25 hours a day”. These revealing pieces of information are more often then not discarded and not used to inform parents, teachers and even children themselves of the increasing amount of time children are spending wandering around different realms of virtuality.

Too much time in front of a screen can deprive children of time for organized sports and social activities that are beneficial to a child’s development. This development may be affected by a child’s increasing desire to hop online and play around the virtual world. “Excessive, unmonitored use of computers, especially when combined with use of other screen technologies, such as television, can place children at risk for harmful effects on their physical, social, and psychological development. Children need physical activity, social interaction, and the love and guidance of caring adults to be healthy, happy, and productive.” (Behrman, Shields) In addition, children may be exposed to violent, sexual, or commercial content online, which can have long-term negative effects on them. The healthy use of computer technology in the home and at school can only be achieved if the children’s exposure to online content is carefully monitored and certain limits are set their time online. The possibility that a child’s exploration on the Internet might lead to inappropriate content, aggressive advertising, or even dangerous contact with strangers has given rise to a number of efforts to create “safe zones” for children—that is, places in cyberspace where children can be protected from both marketers and predators. (Montgomery)

Social development is “the process by which children develop role-taking skills, learn to comprehend the motivations and consequences of behaviors, and come to understand human relationships in the social world” (Alexander, Lemish, Waretlla, p33-34) with online interaction, it may be hard for a child to develop normal relationships, as there is a physical barrier between them and their acquaintances. It is clear that e-mail and chat rooms have changed how young people communicate with each other. Also, computer and video games are a source of conversation and interaction among many children today, so in a way, the virtual world may act as a platform on which, relationships can be formed.
In results from a survey released by Pay TV Company ‘Cartoon Network’, in which children aged 7-15 participated in, it was revealed that 62% of these children used the internet daily and a whopping 96% watch television daily. Along with these results, children were asked who they most want to be like, with parents coming miles ahead of sport stars, musicians and movie stars. (Beveridge). This response shows that children between the ages of 7 and 15 are instilled with the realistic notion that their parents are great role models. And in a world where the internet brings us closer and closer to our favourite sport, movie and music stars, it is comforting to know that children still hold their parents higher than these performers and athletes.
Virtual reality is seen as the “technology to change the world, or better yet, replace it” (Moser) So maybe children of today aren’t so much as infected by online-ism, but merely learning from the information it brings and adapting to the ‘new world’. Tapscott suggests that the “virtual world contains so much of the worlds knowledge”, no longer do kids have to go outside and turn over rocks looking for insects to play with, they can just hop onto the world wide web and ‘Google’ or ‘Wiki’ something, and in an instant (depending on your internet connection) the information is right there before your eyes.
References

The Australian Communications and Media Authority “Media and Communications in Australian Families 2007”

Beveridge, John. 2007. “Tech-Savvy Kids Logging on” http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,22937106-5014116,00.html

Behrman, Richard; Shields, Margie.
“Children and Comupter Technology: Anaysis and Recommendations” www.futureofchildren.org

Lecture Notes New Communications Technology Week 2.

Montgomery, Kathryn C. “Children’s Media Culture in the New Millennium: Mapping the Digital Landscape”

Morello, Vincent. 2007. “Kids Have Healthy Tech Use” http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E6DC1E3AF931A15754C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Moser, Mary Anne. “Immersed in Technology – Introduction” MIT Press, Cambridge 1996.

Nye, David. “Technology Matters: Questions to Live With”. MIT Press, Cambridge. 2006. “Book Review” Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society, Vol.5, No.2: pp. 132

Wartella, Ellen; Jennings, Nancy. “Children and Computers: New Technology- Old Concerns”. www.futureofchildren.org.

Wartella, E., Alexander, A., Lemish, D. The mass media environment of children. American Behavioral Scientist (September/October 1979) 33–34.

Topic 8

Lecture

Are computer games a waste of time?

Types of games

- arcade games (replay, timezone etc etc)

- consoles (ps2, nintento etc)

- computer games (warcraft, AOE, counter strike etc)

- MUDs 

-MOGs

=Particular types divided into different genres based on their platform (hardware or software)

=Sub-Genres: e.g First Person Shooters to Adventure Games

= People used home game consoles for computer games a long time before they used them for writing documents or keeping track of finances or web browsing.

= Military uses video games as training tools- development of hardware to power their training simulations (Stockwell and Muir 2003 for more info)

Video games- the academic approach. (Some theoretical considerations)

Media Effects and Games; The Persistence of Effect; Games and Utopia; Thinking about video games as a new form of cultural practise... in the same way we now think about old media like newspapers, radio, television, films... 

= Serious academic study of video games is a new discipline. 

= Like new media and internet studies, people have approached video games from a range of existing disciplines. 

= When studying video games, negative aspects are usually focused on (addiction or anti-social behaviour)

Other ways to look at video games

Narratology- study of video games from a perspective of them being stories or literary works.

studying video games the same way that art or music or books are studied.

Ludology- not concerned with the stroy elements of the games but rather the Game Play elements.

argue that the story element in many games are only there for decoration and is incidental to just playing the game.

= We can look at video games in a technical sense, as coming to us in the same era as computers... hence the often confused term 'computer games'. Video games is the larger genre, of which computer games, console games etc, are smaller sub-genres.

= If we think of video games as mediums of communication, or expression, it is tempting to view them as having a history that follows film and cinema, and television. 

=Early video games did contain some cinematic elements (such as cut-scenes) but the act of playing the game was usually dramatically different.

Games. They draw a history through the ages to all forms of abstract games... chess & backgammon. Are video games similar to or different traditional games?

= They have rules, instructions that you must follow to play the game

= A story is sometimes present in the game, allowing you to have a background information on the game and its characters

= The study of the video game can lead to questions such as

- Should we be studying the game itself, on its own as a self contained system of rules?

- Should the focus be on the player of the game who affects and controls the flow of the gameplay and narrative in accordance to the rules

- Or a combination of both of these things which can be hard to balance?

= Aesthetics, the virtual space/world in which the game is played.

= What makes it fun?

= Virtual Philosophy

- How are games virtual worlds?

- What is real and what is virtual??

The studies and philosophies of video games are very interesting. It's very refreshing that there are other ways to look at at video games other than the negative standpoints mentioned earlier. But I have a very psychologically and humanity driven mind and the fact of the matter is, is that video games are sometimes the causes of bad grades at school, relationship failures and anti-social behavior. They can be fun and exciting if you don't let it take over your life. Spending all your free time engaged in a make believe world of virtuality can really take a huge chunk out of your life. So take off your virtu-goggles and take a look at what reality can offer you, you never know, you might find yourself enjoying what the real world has to offer. 

Topic 7

Cronenberg- Cinema and Technology.

Screening 

'eXistenZ'

- David Cronenberg's 1999 film, based around the dangers of runaway technology.

- Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law and Willem Defoe

- Video games in this movie are delivered directly into the player's nervous system

- The game sends electrical impulses through an umbilical cord into the player 'bio port', a hole drilled into the base of their spine.

Among other topics, this movie represents the subject of gaming addiction. In todays society, with many different outlets for a gamer to release their need to be in a virtual world and play video games, addiction is definitely present. With xboxes, nintendos, wii's, ps2, ps3, game cube, internet, arcades... these technologies allow gamers to be someone else, to disconnect from the real world and lose themselves in a world where violence, gore and things one usually wouldn't encounter in the real life. 'eXistenZ' was an interesting movie, it really did shed light on the whole virtual reality genre. Compared to similar movies such as 'The Matrix', eXistenZ takes a more intellectual approach to exploring the evolution and mental implications of interactive technology.

Readings

the military-entertainment complex: a new facet of information warfare.

Stockwell & Muir

Topic 6

"I NEED A COMPUTER!!!!" - Johnny Demonic

History of the Computer

The Men Behind the Computer

- Charles Babbage
- 19th Century "Difference Engine" (first computing machine)
- Designed to calculate and print maths tables

- Alan Turing
- Studied quantum physics, probability and logic
- Wrote crucial paper clarifying the computability of numbers
- he and his team devised the first working computer, 'The Bombe' (which was used to break the german 'Enigma' Codes.

IBM (international business machine) was the first company to commercially produce computers, in the 1950s.

Xerox PARC developed concepts like the mouse, graphical user interface and pull down menus.

1975- the personal computer (PC) was released. it was called 'O'.

Bill Gates started writing a language called BASIC for this PC, so it could be used for programs like word processing, accounting and some games. in order to market his program, he started a little company in his garage- Microsoft. by the end of 1975 more companies had joined the PC industry.

Apple- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak produced the Apple I (single circuit board, no case and no keyboard)

- Retail price, $US660.60
- they sold 50.

2 years later Apple II was launched in 1978.

IBM & Microsoft

-Open architecture (buying shelf products from a range of other companies and putting them together as a package)
- There are two things needed for the running of a computer- Operating System and the language.
- Gary Kidall (head of Digital research, Imc)
- Bill Gates (owner of Microsoft)
- Kidall wouldn't sign, Gates found and bought an OS (something IMB needed, but he could not give them) which was developed by Tim Patterson for $50,000, and sold OS and language to IBM.
THE INTERNET

"DAWN OF THE NET" anything is possible...

- A network of networks
- Servers, mainframes, PC's and other devices that use CMC (computer mediated communications) technology, interconnected by telephone system, and most recently broad-band cable and satellite services.
-links people around the world into an information-sharing sysytem.

LAN- local area network
- uncontrolled place
- Carries all types of information
Router- Takes information to where they want to go
R/Switch- Directs the the information
Newtwork interface- sends the info to the next level of the internet
Proxy- the middle man
- opens the package of info being sent out to the network
- Acts as security as well
Package- contains the URL
Firewall- serves 2 purposes
- prevents things from coming in and also from going out.

the Cycle

You --> firewall, router --> internet --> your firewall --> find the URL --> and then sends it back to you with the info that you were looking for.

Early internet Applications

-email
- file transfer protocol (FTP)
- IRC (internet relay chat) msn...

More recent

- IM
- Skype
- Peer 2 peer (p2p)
- mp3
- podcasting

I love the internet!

Walter Benjamin

How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media?

Art started becoming, less manual and more technological, a long time ago when the camera as invented, and the ‘freeing’ of the hand of its most important artistic functions and handing it over to the action of the eye looking into the lens.

There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?

- Art is defined by the opinion of the artist - Artists don’t have to make art that fits a certain prerequisite; they can just get an image and manipulate it on their own terms. - Digitally produced art is easy to make, but very difficult to master or to make a really excellent piece of artwork.
Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?

No, by altering the image, it becomes replicated and therefore it has become reproduced. The aura of the image has changed. The technique of reproduction takes away the authenticity of the image and erases all meaning of it beforehand, allowing for new meanings and opinions to be made about the newly reproduced image.

Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)? Images taken by a digital camera and music that has been layered with different types of sounds, are not considered to have an ‘aura’ according to Benjamin. Are these digital things unique?

No. digital cameras have automatic flash operations, automated light enhancers, etc. Mp3 files, are layered with different formats, and even the sounds themselves are produced using different sounds, therefore, they are not unique things. they are purely the completions of several processes of reproduction.


"...We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art..."
--Paul Valéry, PIÈCES SUR L 'ART,
[Quoted from Paul Valery, *Aesthetics*, "The Conquest of Ubiquity," translated by Ralph Manheim, p. 225. Pantheon Books, Bollingen Series, New York, 1964.]

Topic 5

Lecture- "Why I hate wikipedia"

• information being left out of articles
• made up/false stories
• anybody can be anyone they want on wikipedia
• how do we know the truth?
• conjured up conspiracy theories
• at what point does a theory become the truth?

Authors on Wikipedia base themselves around the open admission of "I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm unsure, but here's a link to something that might be useful to you"

"what is real? how do you define real? if you're talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell or see, than all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus. (The Matrix)

What has become of our 'reality'? And what has become of our perception of reality? Is it true? Is it false? With all the surrounding replicas of reality, plus the new technologies we have become familiar with, how do we know what is real?

virtual reality. the goggles, the gloves and the vests. when you become engaged in this world of virtual gaming, do you realize you are battling against robots? a machine. something that is not real. How does this affect you?

Readings

Jorge Luis Borges, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.

- Jorge and Casares were having dinner one night and came to the conclusion that mirrors have something monstrous about them especially in the late hours of the night.
- Casares recalles that one of the heresiarchs of 'Uqbar' had declared that mirrors and copulation are abominable, because they increase the number of men.
- Jorge asked Casares of the origin of his statement, he replied that it was in the Anglo-American cyclopaedia's article on Uqbar.
- So they looked it up in the Anglo American cyclopaedia's last pages of Volume XLVI and the first few pages of Volume XLVII. they found 'Upsala' and 'Ural'. No Uqbar.

- They found it the next day. The first encyclopedia they looked at had 917 pages, but the second one they found had 920 pages. 

- The extra 4 pages containing UQBAR!

- Both encyclopedias were reprints of the tenth Encyclopedia of Britannica. 

"Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply and disseminate that universe"

Tutorial

Essay Ideas!

- Music industry and the internet

- Are we becoming a virtual youth?

- The internet made me famous!

- Computer games and children

- 24 hour computer game cafes

- Networking over the internet, are we becoming cyberholics? Can we live without myspace, bebo, facebook, msn etc etc.

- iPod, therefore I am.

- Is cyberlife better than real life?

Topic 4

Lecture [screening of Alphaville]
This film combines French new wave sensibility with a science fiction story line. At first I felt that this movie was a bit too much for my brain to handle, but then as it progressed, with the voice over man guiding me through, I began to slowly conjure up some sort of idea as to what this film was about. A man who is on a mission to stop some sort of evil, technology driven, computer world in Paris. This film almost felt like an old school, badly remixed version of James Bond, and I say almost, because well, it obviously wasn't quite 'Golden eye'. There were guns, sex and a smartly dressed man who oozed suave and charm. The storyline wasn't clear to me until around the middle of the film edging towards the end, this is probably due to my lack of understanding to start off with. I wish that I could've understood the film more in its technical and historical core rather than just its outer casing.

Readings

Film and Screen Glossary
General Information
Film Review
Critical Essay
French New Wave Cinema
Jean-Luc Goddard]

Tutorial

Communication between friends and family via technology.

msn, yahoo messenger, blogs, chatrooms, myspace, bebo, facebook. The list is goes on and on. With these types of communication devices so readily available to myself, I have found that i know more about what is happening in my family. I see their pictures from the weekends, I can see who they are friends with (and who they are not friends with) and I can read their comments (solely for the purpose of making sure they're not hanging with the wrong crowd- no gossiping involved here!) I can see a side to my brother, my sister, my cousins, aunty's and uncle's, i have never seen before, the side where they are hidden behind a computer screen and keyboard, the side where they can be whoever they want to be. And all thanks to this thing we call the world wide web. through these communication mediums, I can keep in touch with family overseas, reconnect with childhood friends and long lost family and also to just hang out online and catch up on what everyone has been up to. I love it.

Through the influence of my older brother and friends, I started using msn when i was 13 years old and i have never looked back! i became a member of myspace at the same time, bebo a year later and facebook just last year. On all these different platforms i have reconnected with a friend from grade 2, an uncle whom i have never met, but have heard alot about from my dad and i have also managed to track down my grandads second wife's children. Did i mention that i love it?

The fact that all this information was handed to me on a world wide platter at the click on the mouse is incredible to me. to look back on how far we've come since the days of telegraphs, telegrams, morse-code, LETTERS! It's amazing where technology has taken us today. To imagine a world without it would be torture. No internet, computers, no msn. NO MYSPACE! i can hear my brain shrieking and my fingers trembling with the fear of never having the joy of typing witty comments. I think it's safe to say, technology has taken over our lives. Well, my life.