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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Blog 8: 2040

“Not yet.”
This is, more often than not, the first thing that pops into my mind every day. My cell phone goes off every morning the same way, with that incessant damn beep! I turn over and look at the time display on the phone’s front screen. September 12, 2040, 9:00 AM. With a mighty yawn, I order the phone to tell the coffee maker to start brewing. “Brewing,” it obediently replies.
“Phone”
“Ready for order,” responded the phone.
“Cereal,” I demand.
“Preparing”
Ah, you gotta’ love technology. I know I do. Just last year the school added the latest in food service tech, a machine that transports food from the campus’s dining hall right into my kitchen. Lovely. After getting dressed and walking to get my breakfast, it dawns on me. September 12th, my research paper on the bilateral commission report on non-renewable resources is due in 20 minutes! Not to worry, I thought, I wrote it. Didn’t I? I think I did. I must have. No way would I have forgotten. Right, I think, I remember I did it before going out last Saturday. Yeah. No, wait, I played virtual Frisbee instead with some friends.
Oops.
I quickly run over to my cell phone once again and order it to enter computer mode. The phone quickly unfolds from its super slick phone mode to full fledged 18” laptop mode in ten seconds flat. Since I didn’t do my paper, I would have to hire someone to do so, specifically the most intelligent paper writing robot on the web at www.writemypaper.com. All I have to do is give him the instructions and he will return a paper to me in 10 minutes. Sure it costs $70, but that’s a small price to pay considering that without this paper, I will be paying a lot more to take the class over again next year. After printing out my brand new paper and swallowing my breakfast in under 60 seconds, I hop on my hover scooter to zip off to class to turn the paper in. After finishing that and the rest of my classes at 4 PM, it’s time for fun!
Dashing home as quick as my scooter will take me, I quickly demand my poor cell phone to please me yet again. Snapping into television mode, the phone quickly unfolds into yet another shape, specifically a 36” HD3D TV, the latest craze. Immediately turning the channel onto CNN, I watch a report on the recent war in Uganda. “Immersion mode,” I say aloud, which instantly warps me onto the battlefield. New cameras used today not only provide 3D technology but also take a full 360 degree view of the surrounding area, which viewers can easily be superimposed into at will. Awesome.
I watch TV until the signal gets fuzzy and goes dead. Odd, I think, this has never happened before. Suddenly, a tall man with thin eyes, a large forehead and a crescent shaped mouth appears on the screen. I hate sci-fi, so I quickly changed the channel only to be surprised that he is on every channel. I figure it must be some sort of major ad campaign for a new movie so I listen. It soon becomes apparent that I am wrong and that this is no future film; it appears that aliens from the Andromeda galaxy have taken control of our planet in order to save the earth from humankind. Interesting point, I think as I remember the recent stories about gas, coal, food, water, and energy shortages. I guess this had to come sometime. I put my phone back into plain old cell mode, set my alarm and decide to get some rest. I have a feeling I’m going to need it for tomorrow.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Blog 7: Pictures in Our Heads

Pictures in Our Heads, by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson is a very interesting article. It provides studies of the effects television has on society.

George Gerbner conducted a study about the effects of television on the way society perceives itself. Gerbner and his associates found that "the world portrayed on television is grossly misleading as a representation of reality," and "we take what we see on television as a reflection of reality." They also did studies on the beliefs and attitudes of "heavy" television viewers and "light" television viewers. For example, they found that the heavy viewers express more racially prejudiced attitudes. They also concluded that the heavy viewers are more pessimistic about the world, while the light viewers are more happy about life and optimistic.

Political psychologists Shanto Iyengar and Donald Kinder conducted experiments about evening news shows. They varied the contents of evening news shows watched by their research participants and came to the conclusion that whatever news story the participants were exposed to (because they were only exposed to one specific problem facing the United States) they felt more passionately for.

That evening news study helps to support Gerber's research by proving that society is indeed influenced by what they watch on television. It corrects by proving that it might not mean that people watching more television is a bigger influence, but by what exactly they watch.

Television is a great source of information about what is going on in the world, and a great form of entertainment, but it can also have its down-sides by being misleading or showing false "pictures" about the world today. We just have to be careful about what we watch and how we take in these "pictures in our heads" and perceive them.