Disconnection in the Midst of Connectivity

The revolutions in the argona of culture and parleys engineering curb brought the macrocosm closer. Literally, the world has shrunk because battalion from Europe can readily relegate with quite a little from Asia a daughter in the United States can easily while a carriage her p arnts in South America. The mobile auditory sensation networks, the chat rooms and instant messengers in the internet, unitedly with e-mail dupe importantly lowered the cost of inter-continental converses and film literally transcended space and time.In addition to this revolution, there is besides a great push-down list of developments in the technologies usable to manhood in doing their chores and conducting their businesses. Even the simplest task can be automated and would require only a touch of a button for it to function. surgical procedure machines, refrigerators and all sorts of electronic gadgets and equipments baffle therefore made life easier. This is particularly unfeigned in the case of essential countries where these technologies atomic number 18 readily available.Life has no hassles and lifestyles have plump as easy as energy a nonher button on the unlike control of the tv. In less developed countries, however, this is non the case. The functi iodinency is for them to rely on traditional message of doing things and conducting their business. Most of these countries in Asia, Africa, and South America doe not have access to most of these forward-looking technologies. As a result, they still run away to use their own bodily posture in conducting their businesses and going closely their periodic lives.For example, in farming, passel from less developed countries use their own muscles and animals to till the daub and harvest their agricultural products later on. On the former(a) hand, those in the developed countries tend to use heavy machinery to conduct the homogeneous set of activities. Has the use of technology conduct race and order of magnitude to be coiffe lazy, inert and disconnected to the rest of the world? What slightly individuality? Has it been enhanced or is it universe challenged by these upstart technologies? As the world is shaped by these technologies, leave laissez faire be melted into a classification of collectivity?Connectivity, Individuality, and the inter landal Vill bestride Marshall Mcluhan (41a) state that the world has proceed a Global Village. He said this pedagogy spur when the use of the internet is not and as widespread as it is now. This global village will come about as worldly concern get down increasingly dependent on electronic media and other forms of electronic technologies. Through this electronic interdependence, the visual culture created by the coming of the fall guying press and the way out of books, humans will come to use electronic media more than and more.Through the increasing popularity and acceptance of electronic media and the culture it develops, a new age will come in which humans will develop a joint consciousness and identity and individuation will be integrated into this collective consciousness. McLuhan decl ard his thesis in the early 1960s, back when the internet revolution has not yet started climbing its ascent. This is due to the utilization and because of the pass on propagated by media since according to him the medium is the essence (McLuhan, 20b).He as intimately gave warnings that this global village, if its citizens were not mindful of the impact of media and its effects on them as persons, then terror, totalitarianism or anarchy will reign in this village. engine room is, in itself, free of normative standards. When it is employ towards real ends, then it becomes an important woodpecker in shaping the concept of the individual about himself, the relationship of other hatful to him, and how he stands in relation to the society that he lives in.McLuhan assumed that target technology i s the bastion of individualism and that if it were rendered in electronic format, its effects on individualism would excessively change. (McLuhan, 158a). How do these new technologies increase the connectivity of people around the world? According to Alstyne and Brynjolfsson (4), the promote of the transmission of data and confabulations has become very quick. In addition, millions of people have access to them, therefrom increasing the connectivity among and among people all over the world.Although this is the case, the energy of individuals in absorbing and interacting with so such(prenominal) information is limited. The creation of a more or less uniform societal consciousness based on connectivity is just impossible. There argon around 33 million articles and web pages in the Internet in May 1996 according to AlaVista (Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 4). Transcending the acres Emergence of New Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson (6) in his book that sought to describe the n ation and why people were so accustomed to it describe the nation as an imagined fellowship.This friendship was conceived in the minds of people with powerful bonds and relationships that are usually defined by religion, race, or language. Anderson traced the development of the nation as an imagined community and pointed out that the printing of books in the peoples vernacular and the industry of publication or print-capitalism is instrumental in the payoff of this imagined community. The result of the diffusion of this medium of discourse is that people across geographical areas hold in by car park languages started to drew together and conceptualize themselves as members of a community, albeit an imagined one.It should also be remembered that during the period of the cash advance of nationalism, the shaper right of monarchs to their thrones were being challenged. Later, colonized people were also revolting against their colonial know in a bid for freedom and autonomy. A s such, the common struggles, common language, and other commonalities brought these people together by dint of the print media (Anderson, 7). Although it could be surmised that the people in the nations described by Anderson were still individuals, they were bound by a collective consciousness that direct to the development of the nation.From the explanation of Anderson regarding the role of print media in developing imagined communities as well as the discourse of McLuhan regarding the effects of the changes in the print media, it can be conclude that print media and more recently, electronic media have a huge impact in creating a collective consciousness. The problem of forthwiths electronic media, especially the internet, is that the substance is diverse and there is no case-by-case coherent message that is being promoted.Rather there is a hodgepodge of messages and millions of files, most of them are unrelated (Alstyne & Brynjolfsson, 5). Given the bulk and potpourri of topics in the World Wide Web, Alstyne & Brynjolfsson (5) have argued that what is happening is that there is a cyber-balkanization and atomisation of internet and technology users according to their interest. As such, there are various cliques and baseings of individuals that livelihood out others who do not parcel the same interest with them.On the other hand, crime syndicate (16) conjectured that the television is very powerful in shaping the perceptions and understanding of people about the world. Since most of the people of the world are exposed to the television, the advertisements, the shows and even the news reports among others are instrumental in the development of new imagined communities based on interest. Communication and disjuncture As people learn to send better in the setting of information and other intercourse technologies, there is a tendency for people to lose their non-verbal and non-linguistic talk skills.Because of the large amount of time played out b y individuals in communicating online or using various information and intercourse technologies, they spend less time interacting with others, and thus might lose other non-verbal communication skills. This will be a profound loss for society if information and communication technologies hamper the traditional means of communication of individuals in the society. Conclusion Information and communication technologies, as most products of science and innovation, have contributed to an easier lifestyle.However, there are tradeoffs to this. The traditional means of communication are being undermined by the excessive use of these technologies. In addition, the internet, the television and similar technologies are giving rise to new kinds of imagined communities based on common interest and pursuit. These imagined communities, however, lack a virtuoso coherent message in relation to the print-capitalism discourse of Anderson (7) that gave rise to nations as imagined communities.Instea d, what is point are a lot of some(prenominal) seemingly disconnected messages that bind certain groups of people across geographies through the process of cyber-balkanization as described by Alstyne & Brynjolfsson (4). In certain aspects, there is also an authorization of individuality in information technology, especially in the Web 2. 0 technologies that want to give more preference to the way that individuals conduct their computing and extend their social movement online (OReilly, n. p. ).In the ending of Big Brother (Orwell, n.p. ) the characters in the novel were subjected to extensive brainwashing through the mediavisual, print and even coercion. The novel also showed the potent power of media in propagating a message, even a wrong one at that. Such a scenario, however, is unconvincing to happen with the current information technologies available since there is no centralized group or person controlling these technologies. Technologies whitethorn have had negative effe cts on the communication skills of people yet individualism is here to stay.