Looking to the Future

This week in E-Learning and Digital Cultures, we examined visions of technology in the future as well as the metaphors we use to describe the Internet. 

In the mini-film series, we were shown two commercials (one by Corning, the other by Microsoft Office) that attempt to create a utopian vision of how their products in development will drastically improve all of our lives.

Here is Corning's "A Day Made of Glass 2":

And Microsoft's "Productivity Future Vision":

Both of these commercials demonstrate how all information will be seamlessly connected through our devices.  Information will largely become image based.  And information will be easily malleable from program to program.  Communication will also primarily take place through images and we will be connected at all times despite physical space.  Both of these commercials give us the impression that technology will lead to a utopian connectedness that is only possible though their products. 

The second set of films presents a dystopian critique those types of claims. 

Here's "Sight":

In "Sight," we are presented with a creepy vignette where the characters have eye implants, everything is now a game, and you are flooded with information anytime you look at something.  While access to information is immediate, when the system crashes, people are entirely lost since they are incapable of knowing things on their own.  What's worse is that people's minds can be controlled by the programmers of the system.  This film reminded me a bit of Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451.  Instead of the walls of your home being covered with your television "family," the walls in home featured in "Sight" displays the characters apps and achievements.  And rather than Bradbury's ear bud that constantly stream music, the character's in "Sight" have eye implants that constantly feed them product information, stats, and other information. 

The second dystopian vision is from "Charlie 13."

In this FutureStates serial, our protagonist Charlie is presented with the dilemma of  joining adult society by being implanted with a tracking chip on his 13 birthday, or with running away to search out his father who has deserted.  "Charlie 13" presents us a society where constant surveillance has become acceptable as a means for keeping people "safe."  As one character comments, the "chip makes you part of something bigger," showing how privacy is sacrificed in order to create unity in society.

In "Salvation and Destruction: Metaphors of the Internet," Rebecca Johnston explores how we use metaphors to help make sense and meaning of the Internet.  We use metaphors in order to access our previous knowledge or schemas so that we can understand new and difficult concepts.  However, metaphors can both improve as well as limit our understanding.  Johnston describes three different types of metaphors:

Structural: where one idea is used for another
Orientational: where the idea is related to a physical action
Ontological": where we change an abstract idea into a physical form

From her examination of editorials concerning the Internet over a short period, Johnston identifies several themes from the metaphors that she has located.  Those themes are: physical space, physical speed, destruction, and salvation. 

These metaphors help us to normalize ideas and to make sense of an abstract concept.  We also see many of these same metaphors play out in the films listed above.