Jan
23
Introduction to New Media Studies.
Filed Under Uncategorized
It is oftentimes hard to comprehend and grasp the speed at which technology has progressed throughout recent years to the point where what we take for granted has subconsciously become not only a necessity, but something that our very livelihood depends on. One only needs to remember the blackout that hit New York City in 2003, the largest loss of power in American history. In the dark and powerless city, every cellphone, every laptop, every server, every form of electronic communication had effectively been cut from use. The result was a time of confusion, disarray, and fear in a post-9/11 atmosphere. In those dark hours, a whole city was prone to chaos in the form of riots, murder, looting, and rape. With no power, some feared the worst. In the most extreme of circumstances, the city was very much susceptible to a nuclear attack where surveillance cameras served as nothing but decorations on street corners and where the NYPD’s electronic communication devices were as useful as a NYU student’s laptop. Granted, the rest of the country had electricity, and thus it was fairly easy to provide aid to the city that needed it. However, imagine if the whole country, or worse, the whole planet lost electricity all at once. To clarify the point, the problem isn’t that we depend so heavily on electricity as the problem of a lack of light can easily be mitigated by a candle (not to ignore that the fact that computers and electricity do go hand-in-hand). The problem is that we have built our foundation of modern society on a large hardrive that will inevitably crash when we least expect it. So the question we may want to ask ourselves is, will computers ever take over the planet, or have we already surrendered ourselves to their will?