Socially Constructed World

In Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital, he predicts many future functions for emerging and changing technologies. While some predictions are wrong, there are some that are correct and others that could be in the future. In chapter 13 entitled the post-information age, I think he is most correct. Throughout time, emerging technologies have been able to reshape the landscapes of social, political, and economic realms, and we've seen through the printing press that boundaries of time and space become vastly different and broken down. The internet is much like this in that it takes the physicality of human interaction out of the picture, and allows the boundary of time and space to be destroyed and displaced. In this chapter he also talks about the personalization that occurs in a post-information age. This reminds me of personalized facebook ads that we talked about in class, and how further changes in technology allow for more personal and niche endeavors as well as allow for large media conglomerates to grow. This chapter by Negroponte I found to be very poignant and very accurate. One of the quotes that stuck out to me the most was on page 165 when he says "The post-information age will remove the limitations of geography. Digital living will include less and less dependence upon being in the same place at the same time." I thought that was very true of today and what I can see ahead in the future. Information can be disseminated and dispersed on a massive scale, and time and place become non-issues. In a lot of ways Negroponte's theories remind me of Marshall McLuhan and how incoming and evolving technologies shape society and the way that people use them, rather than the messages themselves. The medium is the message, and it is through social interaction with new technologies that decides the impact and change that new technologies have on our world. New technologies displace others, and become extensions to our human form and physical nature.