Trapped in Cyberspace

In this week's reading, "Post Colonial Media Theory," Maria Fernandez makes the point that "many cybertheorists envision the future as one in which fleshed humans have evolved to greater integration with machines, or disappeared all together." She makes the point that many theorists, like Hans Moravec and Marvin Minsky, believe that in the future, flesh will be increasingly irrelevant. They predict that humans will eventually discard their bodies and replace their brains with manufactured electronic equivalents. Nothing could illustrate the author's point better than two stories I heard on the news. In one story, a Florida mother posted a message on "Twitter," as her two year old son was drowning in the pool outside. In the other story, a twenty seven year-old woman is tweeting in the midst of having an abortion.

The fact that the mother of the two year old boy, who was outside drowning, chose to use those precious minutes "tweeting," when she should have been trying to save her son, shows that there is an obsessive component to using this type of technology. This component allows people to interact with a machine as if it were something human. In choosing between her son's life and turning to the computer, she chose to turn to technology Sometimes using these machines causes people to lose track of what is real and important in life, and to become trapped in some kind of fantasy world. In this virtual reality world, they get to be the stars of their own soap operas, or dramas. The mother in this story could not really have understood that her son's drowning was the result of her being busy on the computer instead of watching him. Having the composure to be able to get on the internet in the midst of such a tragedy shows that she is not reacting appropriately to what is real.

The failure to react to real situations appropriately can also be seen in the case of the young woman who chose to "tweet," and make a video while she is undergoing an abortion. In the video, she describes how well she feels at each stage of the abortion and talks about the cramps and bleeding she is experiencing, saying they are nothing compared to childbirth. Although I am not against abortion, there is something very shocking about a person trying to turn this very private experience into a public forum. Choosing an abortion is a very serious and painful decision, and to watch an individual treat it so lightly is very surreal. The young woman describes her abortion as if she is presenting a public service message. Apparently some people can relate better to the computer, which is a machine, than they can to real live people. These individuals have become cyborgs. They don't display emotion by crying, or even getting choked up in the midst of tragic situations. They are almost like robots and choose to express themselves through cyberspace. I find these two stories and their implications for human behavior in a world increasingly dependent on the machines, very frightening...