I was rereading the article Digital Memories in an Era of Ubiquitous Computing and Abundant Storage by Mary Czerwinski and friends and it really annoyed me. I am not really sure why it bothered me so much but I think it had something to do with the fact that I had recently (less then 24 hours ago) erased my entire hard drive and lost everything that I have created and saved in the past 3 months (including pictures of my trip to Notre Dame this weekend). Abundant Storage ha, I wish; I have added 2GB of memory to my laptop computer and it still run a little sluggish when I am using multiple programs. I guess I could buy a new computer or an external hard drive but I don’t really have $2,000 to be upgrading something that isn’t necessarily broken. I have an external hard drive I got it after my computer crashed the first time! I was going to be on top of my data, I was going to backup my files every night and never delete another file ever again, or until two years later. The external is now extremely cumbersome and not something I want to bring around with me. So now that my computer is so fresh and so clean, I decided this time I will backup my files all the time (well I’ll make an effort for once a week) I went back and bought a new sleeker external hard drive this was a start of something new, something this article talked about, the start of “Abundant Storage.” Well I got home today and plugged in my new external hard drive and guess what? It didn’t work, after 30 minutes trying to navigate Western Digital’s website to find a contact number I finally called the service line and was connected to some support staff. All he had to say was, Oh you need an additional part for the hard drive to work we will send it today, it should be there in five to ten business days. So here I am working on a computer that has nothing on it but the operating system with a hard drive that doesn’t work. All my digital memories are gone and so is my music! The authors don’t say anything about this in their article. I know there has been many times through out college that I have met someone who has lost all their data because of their computer crashing or something like that. So when you put so much emphasis on electronics and computers for storing your information what is saving you from loosing it all? The only think that I can recover from the past three months are some of the songs I bought from iTunes, the response papers I have written for this class (because they are online) and anything else pictures wise that I poster on the Internet. I am happy that I salvaged that work but I question if I really want to put all that information out on the Internet. We talk a lot in class about Google having records and files of everything you have searched, wrote, posted, viewed and bought on the Internet. That thought has kind of bugged me a lot lately, knowing that somewhere there is a file about me and my life on the internet makes me feel uneasy and very skeptical about what I want to sign up for and sites that I want to visit.

I can attribute these feelings also to that fact that I have been reading the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and other articles on Eco-Activism from Rolling Stone. It is interesting to read both of these articles together and just see the two sides of the spectrum, a more simplistic, less materialistic world and a world where your entire life is recorded and measured. In the end those who go out into the wilderness do not survive as long as those who bring a camera around but who do you think live a life of less stress and more freedom? Is freedom and happiness knowing if you have a temperature and the trends that occur in your life? Or is it just being one with nature and living among God’s creations in the wilderness?

Text messages

 

I think the United States missed the boat on text messaging. I think it was in class that Prof. Alex said that it was because the phone plans charged so much for text messaging that it really had not caught on like it has in other countries. We are getting better now though. You see those silly commercials from AT&T add unlimited text messaging to your plan! I am glad I have unlimited text messaging, I text about twenty times a day or more. I agree with the article Shibuya Epiphany, I usually text the same five to six people a day. Rarely do I text everyone in my phone list or even people outside those select few people. However, those I do text I text a lot and I love getting responses back. Text messaging is very much like Instant Messaging, which I grew up with in jr. high and in high school so it is familiar to me. I find it less of a hassle to text someone something that call them and tell them. Especially when it comes to directions, phone numbers, or just quick answers. I hate talking on the phone and this is the perfect way to talk to multiple people without getting to personal or to involve with the conversation. It is also easier to text someone than it is to have a conversation. I feel like there are things you have the courage to say that you would not if you were conversing another way. You can text someone and they can receive the message and respond with little to no interruption in their life. This is great but at the same time it also has strained our relationship skills and our ability to deal with face-to-face interactions. I used to think that we were regressing as humans but after taking this class I wonder if we are just in a transitional stage where a new way of communicating and connecting to people is evolving and changing. I don’t know where the trends of communicating are leading to but I think that we may be able to see them by looking at Japan’s fast forward approach to new technology and trends. Just look at this article it was written in 2001 and it is discussing things that only now are going on in our country. Is text messaging the new future? I went to buy an i-Phone the other day and when I looked at the service plan I wanted unlimited data and text and I could care less about the talk minutes. Another reason I know that text messaging in not a trend but a way of communicating in the future? My parents are sending me pictures via text messaging and texts instead of their usual calls.