You are not a gadget, Jaron Lanier Irene Jones Dr. Roberts September 20, Jones 1

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1 You are not a gadget, Jaron Lanier Irene Jones Dr. Roberts September 20, Jones 1

2 Jones 2 Abstract When it comes to technology and the world wide website so much needs to be improved and worked on. Today the web is full of nothing but spams, scams, and a lot more. The purpose of this paper is to better understand personhood and the transition to a digital world with the help and analyzed arguments by Jaron Lanier. We are not gadgets, but according to Lanier he feels we should and can be our own person. He feels that we should be able to use our own independent ideals when it comes to the web. Throughout the novel Lanier basically discusses personhood and the transition to a digital world..

3 Jones 3 We seem to settle and take the easy way out when it comes to technology. Lanier states The attribution of intelligence to machines, crowds of fragments, or other nerd deities obscures more than it illuminates. When people are told that a computer is intelligent, they become prone to changing themselves in order to make the computer appear to work better, instead of demanding that the computer be changed to become more useful. 1 This goes back to we as humans settling for whatever is offered to us, we take things as it is instead of improving it and making better using our independent thoughts. If it s free, easy to play around with it then in our minds it s fine to use. For example Facebook, twitter, and instagram all are popular in the web today; everyone is using at least one or all of those sites. But let s take Facebook, According to Lanier Facebook and many other of the new software s is nothing like how it should be. He states in the book Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990s had the flavour of person-hood. MySpace preserved some of that flavour, though a process of regularized formatting had begun. Facebook went further, organizing people into multiple-choice identities while Wikipedia seeks to erase point of view entirely. 2 In that quote Lanier feels that Facebook doesn t have much flavor of personhood, in other words it s not giving a good reputation of how personhood on the web should be presented. There is not enough creativity in Facebook like how MySpace had back then. From the line organizing people into multiple choice identities 3 I also get that Lanier feels Facebook doesn t lets us use our personal creative mind ideals, we have to choose and use what they give us. Siva Vaidhyanathan is another powerful author who speaks on other aspects on individual personhood and the digital world. Lanier and Siva both give good arguments, but Siva has us look at the use of technology a little different from Lanier. Siva states in his article Remote Control: The rise of Electronic Cultural Policy The relationship between digital technology and creative imagination is becoming more complex and less predictable every day. While once it seemed obvious and easy to declare the rise of a network society in which individuals would realign themselves, empower themselves, and undermine traditional methods of social and cultural control, it seems clear that networked digital communication need not serve such liberating ends. 4 Lanier feels as though technology needs improvement and that there is not enough of individualism, but according to Siva the electronic cultural policy has a lot to do with controlling software designs. Since the 1990s according to the reading the policy has been trying to get established and has been going through the process since then, but the policy has been going through so much criticism that many people have turn against it. Another concern of Lanier s is the fact that we are being locked into technology. Lanier uses the file in the book to show how we are being locked into technology and how we see technology. No one was really in there lab to help the idea of file better. The file was never originally really expanded or researched, the same way Google and Microsoft took it and made it into something with storage clouds with people in the lab they could have done the same thing. The same way file still stands as it is today shows how locked into the file became which also compares to how locked into we as humans are when it comes to technology. Lanier gives another statement saying I fear that we are beginning to design ourselves to suit digital models of us, and I worry about a leaching of emphaty and humanity in that process. 5 In this statement Lanier fears that we are becoming like the file and staying locked into the use of technology. We also act if though the computers controls, or in other words e not as smart enough that we follow and do what digital wants us to do. 1 Lanier, J (2010) you are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff 2 Lanier, J (2010) you are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff 3 Lanier, J (2010) You are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff 4 Vaidhyanathan, S (2010) Remote Control : The rise of Electronic Cultural Policy 5 Lanier, J (2010) you are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff

4 Jones 2 I agree with a lot of what Lanier argued about but seem to question some of the things he may have stated. Yes, I do agree with the fact that we as humans can be very lazy when it comes to technology. There is so much offered to us but we do tend to turn it down and just settle with whatever and not the best. But there was one thing to me Lanier fell to expand on really was cyber security. The web is not secured enough for us that there is so much hacking of computers going on that it makes it hard for us as humans to do whatever we pleased on the web. Cyberspace has its ups and downs, there is a negative and of course positive side. It is so easy these days for one pc, mac, or even cell phone to be hacked. Yes it is very much possible for someone out of state to hack someone in state. All these new updates, new software s, and applications being downloaded is all so fun and easy but at the end of the day it s making it easy for hackers to come. More and more systems are becoming easier to open up and get into no matter if it s from the government or any other organization. The government and the president need to appoint stronger and people who are willing to work to get the cyber security system under control. In You are not a gadget, Janier Lanier quotes something in the beginning of the book that simply sums it all up on how he feels. He states "You have to be somebody before you can share yourself." 6 Now, the question is it too late? Or are we still at lost in technology? It all depends on us, we have to help and try make that change, but at the end of the day we as human does not have full power over that issue and will need the president and government to be involved. Going back to the quote Lanier couldn t have said it any better you can t tell or try to be someone until you truly know yourself. We will continue to settle and be locked into technology until cyber security or the government secures things, to prevent hackers. 6 Lanier, J (2010) you are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff

5 Jones 3 References Lanier, J (2010) you are not a gadget. New York, Alfred A. Knuff Vaidhyanathan, S Remote Control: The rise of Electronic Cultural Policy The Annals of the American Academy of Political Social Science :122

Disclaimer: This is a sample. I was not hired to write this, but it demonstrates my writing style.

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