My fictional neo-luddite is called Sophie …
After waiting around for 20 minutes on her own for a print out of her timetable, Sophie went off to her first seminar. Unlike everyone else, Sophie couldn’t access her timetable online because she didn’t know how to. As she walked through campus she heard groups of people laughing and joking about new photos and applications on Facebook, she didn’t have an account so didn’t know what they were talking about and couldn’t join in. Once in her seminar room, Sophie was relieved there weren’t any computers – at least she wouldn’t have to ask for constant help on how to log on etc. once the introduction to the module started, 50% was an essay, the other 50% was a group presentation. As she confessed to her new group that she wasn’t very computer literate, everyone was shocked to learn she didn’t have one at home. Moreover, when it came time to swap numbers and Facebook names, how embarrassing was it when Sophie had to explain she didn’t own a mobile. Therefore, the group decided to have a meeting the following Wednesday at 12….
Wednesday at 12 – Sophie waited for an hour but no one turned up. She had to wait until the next week’s seminar to find out that the two other people in her group couldn’t make the meeting due to certain situations.
This is only a brief look at certain situations a neo-luddite could face. It also highlights a few of the elements of university that we take for granted when having to access information etc.
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I agree with you Cara, your ideas imply just how much we take for granted when it comes to technology. It's weird how we don't notice how lucky we are and how much we depend on new technology until we have to consider ideas like this.
ReplyDeleteIf the internet went down for not just a couple of hours but for actual days or so many businesses, universities, companies etc would have a large problem tyring to deal with finding an alternative to enable things to continue to run smoothly through meatspace. xx
I know, this is shown generally for example when it snows, and the whole country shuts down (to some extent). When it comes to new technologies, if we become so dependant on them, when they do go down, do we have the experience on knowing how to cope without the new technologies for however long it may be? x
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