Digital Technologies and Human Life
Analysis Essay
The emphasis is on everyday digital technologies that extend the self in ways the end-user (or consumer) might not immediately recognize and with potential effects that may not have been foreseen.
“I just called”: The medium , remediation, convergence & the workplace
Read the articles on the “retro art” of the phone call (links below) and the two attached pdfs and materials to analyze the change in “hum an affairs.” Millennials are widely held to hate phone calls, but Gen Z and the switch to seemingly endless Zoom
sessions have people thinking phone calls m ight be better. While this is clearly a kind of remediation, there is more that is happening, including the extensions making work instead
of saving labour, and in particular, there is a change in “human affairs.” So, how would you combine your readings, topics raised in class and elsewhere to develop an approach that
would analyze and hopefully explain the situation detailed therein. In particular, keep in mind how the medium is the message actually works and following from that, what are the
social, political, cultural and/or economic ramifications? Who benefits? You MUST refer
specifically to the two (2) PDFs attached.
External research is not a requirement and should be done judiciously, with an eye to relevance.
Links
https://www.inc.com /m elissa-angell/zoom -fatigue-phone-calls-worker-preference-hybrid-work-from -home.html
https://slate.com /technology/2022/02/no-m ore-zoom s-please.html
https://www.theguardian.com /com mentisfree/2021/nov/16/stop-watching-me-how-z
oom-helped-m e-overcome-m y-dread-of-phone-calls
