Blurring the Lines Between the Real and the Virtual (Blog #6)

I just finished re-reading "Facebook in a Crowd" by Hal Niedzviecki, who makes a subtle point about the increasing role of social networking and its effects on our lives.  He tells the story of feeling rather proud of his near 700 Facebook "friends," even though he realized that he had fewer friends to hang out with than ever.  So, he decided to try a little experiment of getting them all together for a party at a bar, attempting to use the "event" feature on Facebook as the organizing platform.  Unfortunately, only 1 single "friend", an acquaintance, showed up.   As he reflects on the experience, he wonders if it was his fault, or whether no one wants to get together in real life anymore.  He ultimately doesn't blame Facebook itself so much as the digital world in which Facebook thrives, stating, "For chipping away at past friendships and blocking honest new efforts, you really have to blame the entire modern world."  In other words, Niedziecki is suggesting that we are becoming less and less interested in cultivating our "real world" lives and associations and more interested in developing our "digital selves."

I'm wondering about the effects of constant immersion in and distraction by mediums that offer us the addicting bright lights, shiny colors, perpetual "notifications," and instant access to our network of "friends."  Experiencing a large portion of your life and social interactions in the virtual realm, despite what many social networking addicts or gamers argue, does not necessarily create a population of people well equipped to function in society when the screen is off.  I wonder if the social skills developed through a social networking medium can be productively applied to actually help create the better real world to come (which needs a lot of work right now).  The rules you must abide by in the real world are limited compared to the digital world, but the stakes are much higher.  If there was a way to harness that focus and creativity towards something more productive than "virtual world building", if we could apply that creativity to the problems of the real world, I might be more convinced as to their usefulness.  In the meantime, I watch images of gamers like the one in the video above and wonder if the people immersed in this new digital world will even be able to see the value in connecting with others to improve the not-so-virtual world around them.

iPod World, or What Have I Been Missing? (Blog #5)

I just finished reading "iPod World: The End of Society?" by Andrew Sullivan, an essay written in 2005 on the emergence of what Sullivan terms "the iPod people."  Sullivan suggests that the widespread availability of individualized entertainment and instant-access information may be detrimental to our social lives.  He's concerned not only about the potential for increased isolation but also a general lack of awareness or openness to the subtle beauties that are happening in the world all around us, those potential random conversations or circumstances that end up enriching our lives.  He says that constant access to music or blogs or news feeds can ultimately be addicting and lead us to forget that there's a whole world out there and "it has a soundtrack all its own."

     As I was reflecting on Sullivan's words, I thought about an experiment that was done in 2007 by Washington Post staff writer Gene Weingarten.  Weingarten wanted to do a test to see if people, while in their everyday commute, would stop and pay attention or recognize something beautiful.  So, he asked the world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell, who has received international praise as one of the most amazing living violinists, to come to the D.C. metro station and play his violin.  Weingarten writes,

"Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you?"

Well, what do you think happened?  Here's a time lapse video:



Weingarten carefully reviewed the tape, and here are the results:

"Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something. A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened...

Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look."

Wow.  Is this the possible effect of the "narrowcasting" of our own lives, as Sullivan puts it?  Are these technological gadgets and distractions preventing us from seeing/hearing the beauty in world around us?  Weingarten's uses of the Hopi word "Koyaanisqatsi," which means "life out of balance." He muses on whether Americans have got their priorities out of whack and writes, "If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that- then what else are we missing?" I found this question particularly poignant because it moves past whether or not we are "cultured" enough in our entertainment and technology-driven environment to notice great art when it stares us in the face (or bombards our hearing range), which is the typical "we've gone to hell in a hand basket" response. It's not just about whether we can recognize good music when we hear it; instead, Weingarten suggests that there might be some other cultural or psychological effects of modern society that are causing a sort of "tunnel vision" that doesn't even really let us acknowledge what's happening around us, that potentially eclipses all sorts of beautiful moments and experiences that we could "see" and share. 

      So, is it iPods and other devices of our digital world that distract us, or is it that we are, by nature, distractible?  Whatever the cause, it seems the effect is a general lack of awareness of the present moment and the external world; in other words, perhaps we are becoming unable to pick up the pieces of our fragmented attention and, as a result, we are becoming less and less aware of what is happening around us in the "right here, right now." 

Visualizing Our Writing Processes!

Our Writing Processes! (Winter 2013) - how to create a free slideshow

More on Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie!

More on Sherman Alexie:

Sherman Alexie's webpage: http://www.fallsapart.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Alexie



More on Malcolm X:

Official Website: http://www.malcolmx.com/

Literacy Behind Bars (Blog #4)

  In this excerpt from X's autobiography, Malcolm X reflects on the process of gaining literacy through self-guided study while in prison.  X  claims that he was first inspired to gain literacy because he was impressed by Bimbi, a fellow prisoner's immense knowledge and capacity to speak about nearly every subject.  X, too, wanted that rhetorical power and command over language and information.  So, he set about learning by literally copying the entire dictionary.  Essentially, he taught himself through sheer will and repetition, each day growing in comfort and deep understanding of the way words work and how they work together to form larger ideas.  He claims that this experience was extremely profound, asserting, "the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive" and that he believes few benefitted from prison the way he did.  Ultimately, he was able to take that knowledge, understanding, and ability to express himself into the realm of politics and attempt to effect change for the betterment of other Blacks during the civil rights movement.  

     As I was reading, I began thinking about my own "literacy" narrative and how it was so radically different from X's.  While hardly any of X's learning came from a traditional "school" context, almost all of my understanding of language came from school.  In fact, I was fairly obsessed with school as a child and young adult.  As I look back on it now, it wasn't that I was so interested and fascinated with the subject matter.  For me, school was my home and the teachers were my family.  They supported me, taught me important lessons, cared about my progress, gave me (mostly) positive attention and nurtured my intellectual and social growth.  My real home, on the other hand, had none of these qualities.  My mom was a single parent with five kids, and I was lucky to keep her attention for longer than a few minutes per day.  My siblings and I were incessantly fighting and struggling to share our small house, so I would find a room (sometimes the garage) and work diligently on my homework or practice my instrument and bide my time until school would return the next day.  The upside of being into school is fairly obvious, but there were some downsides, too.  For example, if I received less than an "A" on any assignment, I felt like I had sorely disappointed my "parents" (aka teacher).  I would be upset if another kid got more attention or a better grade than me.  Basically, I had bundled all of my self-worth into doing well in school, and my whole identity was constructed around the idea of being a stellar student.  Thus, a bad grade = I was bad, all of me.  I was wrong.  No good.  Awful.  Until the next test, when I'd have the chance to clear the slate and be "the best" again.  

I desperately wanted to believe that I was Matilda!

     It wasn't until college that I really started to learn to love the content of what I was reading and truly appreciate how a book could open me up to possibilities I had never experienced or encountered before.  There was a subtle shift that took place, no longer was I dependent on teachers for an indication of my "smartness" or self-worth.  I allowed myself to get lost in the literature, to travel the world with characters, to live in different cultures and different times, to go through the most amazing and the most harrowing experiences, and all through language!  I worked through the text as if it was my own life, my own problems, my own resolutions.  When I would figure out the book's meaning before the characters, I would desperately will them to see the truth.  When the character figured it out before me, I would retrace my steps to look for clues that the characters and scenes had left me; they became my guides in this process of discovery.  I began to realize that reading was more than passing a pop quiz or writing a good essay.  It was about connected minds across vast amounts of space, time, and experiences.  Interestingly, that's when I really started to take off in school.  I was able to write more creative topics than I was ever able to conjure before; I was able to notice and speak about things with conviction and clarity.

     When I compare X's experience to my own, I feel like, despite having very different paths to literacy, we both came to a similar conclusion.  Words matter and can change your life and how you approach/live your life.  But, also, we both had a moment when we realized that you have to take responsibility for your learning, and that by forging your own, personal relationship with words, you can not only read but begin to understand.

Startin' Shitty (Blog #3)

Watch this short video of Anne Lamott speaking about her writing process:

I just finished re-reading "Shitty First Drafts"again and I'm feeling newly hopeful about the sometimes arduous process of writing! In this short essay, Lamott suggests that it's not only okay to "suck" when we first attempt to write, but that it's actually a good thing! In other words, writing a sucky first draft is actually a precondition for writing more coherent and organized drafts. Lamott speaks generally about the process of writing and about how much all writers struggle when attempting to turn their thoughts into a tangible piece of writing. She states that most writers need these shitty drafts in order to really understand what they are attempting to say, and describes in some detail an example of her writing process when she was writing food reviews for a magazine.

As Lamott was describing her process, I recalled countless times I too had sat, staring blankly at the computer screen, waiting for the magic bit of inspiration to come. Of course, it rarely did, and I would end up frustrated, writing and re-writing the same awful sentence, eventually just charging forward because the paper was due and it had to be done. What I realize now is that I never really gave myself the time and space to create that first "child's draft." Lamott says the first draft is a child's draft "where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it..." I love that image.

I always saw writing as a process that began with me sitting down, turning on my computer, typing until I couldn't any longer, printing it, and turning it in. Now I look back at that time and think about how, even though it seems like a longer process, I may have saved myself a lot of time (and definitely a lot of energy and frustration) by just pulling out some paper and writing down my ideas or talking it out with some friends and classmates. And then maybe I could've waited a day and come back to it, allowing it to be a mess and not judge myself or feel too panicked about it. Lamott's essay is all about accepting those critical voices in your head that say "this sucks," realizing that they’re going to be there for as long as you’re doing something creative, and then doing the only thing you can do: press on. So now when I'm doing something creative like writing, I try not to worry so much about how good it is or if anyone will like it. As a way to begin, I just try to make it the Shittiest First Draft I can. Why? Because without a Shitty First Draft there is no second draft, and that means there’s no anything. And something is always better than nothing.

The Price of Reading (Blog #2)

In the article, "The Price of Reading is Eternal Vigilance," Anatole Broyard argues that most people "read badly" and that readers should be more empowered to "talk back" to the texts they read. He suggests that often, because books are published and therefore "authoritative," we don't feel that we have the knowledge to challenge the authority of the text. Ultimately, Broyard asserts that there should be a democratization between the reader and the writer, a practice that would mean that both the reader and the writer must engage each other as equals in order for "good reading" to occur.

One of the most interesting things I noticed about this article was Broyard's use of medical terminology.  When he talks about books and how he felt around them, he uses terms like "sterile," "anxiety," fear of "cracking the spine" of a book, and that he must "wash his hands" before reading. When he describes reading/engaging with a book in these terms, he seems to be suggesting an institutionalized or authoritative power is given to published texts (that they are perfect, a science, prescriptions, facts- that the author is the doctor, and we, the readers, are his/her patients). He also describes the relationship between writer/reader as a parent/child relationship.

When I think about my own experiences as a reader, I notice that I often give books the same deference as I would a doctor/parent. I wonder why? It is because most of the texts I've read have been in the context of school, the place in which I'm supposed to be reading "the good stuff." It's the place you go to gain others' knowledge and expertise, but as I think back, I was never really asked to "talk back" while reading. Most teachers wanted me to memorize, or at least summarize, someone else's ideas, but I was rarely asked whether or not I thought the author was right. And, if I was asked, I don't know if I would've felt I had the knowledge or experience to say "yes" or "no". I have to say, I think Broyard is right when he says that we may treat books with too much respect, especially if our goal is to become thinking people who are part of pushing ideas/knowledge forward, rather than merely accepting the status quo.