Digital Nation Paper

 After finishing Digital Nation, I found myself continuously replaying the scene with the war veteran using virtual reality technology to help him cope with his post traumatic stress disorder he was suffering. Coming from a military family in which my own father has done multiple tours overseas I have seen the effects that PTSD can have on a person. My father complained about hearing noises that actually weren't occurring during the night because he was not used to the calm sounds of the forest that are more prevalent at our home. Also if he heard a gun shot remotely within close to our home he would be down on the ground instantly in the ready position looking for his gun. Both of these are examples of the things that coming out of the high stress environment that is the warfront and into the western civilization can do. These actions were involuntary and ruined his everyday life back here stateside because his mind was still on the warfront. And so since this topic is of relevance to me I wanted to investigate it further to see what the military is doing to aid these soldiers within the realm of the virtual technology discussed in the documentary.

In an article written by Salvatore Salamone on the new virtual reality therapy for soldiers he states that, “using the system, the medical professionals can re-create a combat situation such as an attack, an explosion or an ambush, and help the veteran work through the elements of that situation that triggered the stress.” By recreating the traumatic event the therapists are able to confront the problem head on. All of the patients were severely scarred mentally from a traumatic event while fighting in the war, which is the root of the problem. This confrontational method may seem like it may cause more pain to the patient when in reality it is the most effective way to help them realize the event and move on. In the article Salamone uses an example of another experience that my require this type of therapy to get through. He describes an event where a child may be bitten by a dog and therefore develops a fear for all dogs. And so instead of avoiding them all together the therapist has the child interact with dogs in a controlled safe environment until they are comfortable with them again. By placing a soldier in a virtual environment they hope to replace the traumatic memory with a less stressful one.

But is this method working? In another study conducted by Cornell University Weill Medical College instructor Joanne Difede, Ph.D., she used virtual reality to help victims who survived the 9/11 attacks to cope with the PTSD symptoms they were experiencing. In her studies she found that, “there was an 83 percent reduction in depressive symptoms and a 90 percent reduction in PTSD symptoms.” And so these patients used this type of therapy in a non war related setting and also saw successful results. This seems to be a very successful and logical program for the military to use. In Salamone's article he states that there are already dozens of these types of labs and recovery centers using virtual reality at VA's across the nation. But what does this say about our dependence on technology to fix our problems?

If we require technology to recreate a traumatic experience just so we can get over it, is that necessarily the smartest investment for our society to be making? While it is helping veterans work through their problems it also in some ways eliminates jobs and or requires our psychologists to pick up an entirely new way of doing business. The military is almost always one step ahead of society with its technologies since they have the resources. But does this mean that this virtual reality therapy will soon enough be commercialized and soon be seen in offices and homes around the country? Only time will tell that but it would not help us to be less dependent on technology that's for sure. If we let our technologies take care of our mental states as well we are allowing them to control what we remember and what we suppress. With PTSD the virtual reality is bringing back a suppressed memory and trying to replace it with a less stressful one. Just as we saw in the documentary with the child swimming with the whales, the technology has the power to replace our truest memories and give them a new version. There is no way this can be healthy for us, is it?

As for my father, he is doing fine now but he went through traditional therapy to get to this point. I personally believe this is the best type of therapy because it allows the therapist to understand the full spectrum of what is going on in the persons mind on a personal level. While the virtual reality method may be quicker I'm unsure if I believe it is as effective or long lasting as traditional treatment. In my opinion technology is working towards making us a lazier and faster world community. Is this necessary? That is my question. What was so wrong with the way the world was before the iPhone, before this virtual reality therapy, before all of this excessive technology overload? It didn't seem that bad to me. All of these machines are trying to make a mundane task easier for us, but why does it need to be easier. So we save time to get to doing other mundane tasks? To get to use some other form of technology to help us there too? When do we slow down and take a good look at our lives to evaluate what is necessary and what is just in the way of the natural thought process. If this is the way our world is headed and inevitably will end up I think I am going to find it harder and harder to live life in a technologically controlled world and still find time to see the world for its natural beauty as well. Everything is being replaced, every task, every type of work, every word is being shortened, reworked or reinvented to fit this newer society that I'm unsure is a better one than what we had before. And wasn't that the intention of reinventing it in the first place?

Articles I got my references from:

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/39/13/45.1.full

http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Smarter-Strategies/Its-No-Game-DOD-Uses-Virtual-Reality-to-Treat-PTSD/

The Mob

As one draws further back from looking closely at a small grain of sand, slowly but surely the sand all becomes unified and looks more like a solid mass than individuals. The same concept can be applied to the connectedness created by online profiling and relationships. While the individual does exist in the internet world, quickly you get lost in the masses of information and popularity of the internet lifestyle. This can bring both positive and negative affects upon a person, but I feel the negative outweigh the positive greatly. The mob the internet can create by its sea of users has unintended negative effects on persons lives in multidimensional ways. While it is intended to bring us closer and keep in contact easier, it has become a breeding ground for misbehavior and negative use which some have taken advantage of.

Security is of great national concern in these troubled times, yet our connectedness online has set us back substantially in protecting ourselves, our neighbors and others around us. By being allowed to post, blog and upload images, texts and ideas online labeling them as ours or anonymous we are putting information out there for others to use and twist in their own interpretations. This freedom can easily be taken advantage of and breaks down the personal security we hold so dear. By posting your opinions online, creating a profile of yourself and uploading images, you are handing your identity, ideas and values over to the public eye. While you are given the option of who is allowed to view certain things perhaps on your facebook wall or profile you cannot hide or protect the fact that you are uploading this information to the internet. You may be protected under the realm of facebook, but that has no means of protection on the world wide web in general. And so, we need to understand and choose wisely what we post on the internet because once there it is near impossible to fully rid of that history altogether. There will still be repercussions and remnants of this information online for anyone to access with the right knowledge of how to receive it.

Anonymity may seem to be the most safe way to post or express your opinions online. While this may be true for your own self it does not control the actions it can inspire another person the follow through with. For that matter, what that person then posts in response to your anonymous one can cause a ripple effect outwards and create much more negative energy then you may have intended in the first place. While anonymous posts don't always end in misbehavior or negative actions, they all have the potential too. Understanding this concept is key in successfully expressing your opinions properly online.  

Today many TV shows and advertisements try to look amateurish or "homegrown" to emulate what is often seen on the Web. Do you think professional production values will continue to drop, or do you think amateur user-generated content will get better over time? WHY??


Professional production values aren't necessarily dropping all around. I think what this new "homegrown" advertising view has done is just create a new style for advertisers to use. Understanding that the viewer likes things such as Youtube and the amateurish videos, advertisers and TV shows have taken this to their advantage and made this a style of production. This way the viewer thinks it was easily created or maybe spur of the moment like many Youtube videos are, while there was actually till a lot of production value going into the work. And so I don't think the production value is dropping at all, I think that it is getting smarter and adapting to what the consumer wants to see, which for right now is something that seems to be of lesser production value. Amateur user-generated content probably won't get any better just because even though technology will continue to try to make it easier for the everyday person to create professional media they still won't take the time out to actually create a professional product.


What social media sites do you find yourself using the most, and why? In your opinion why is Facebook so much more successful than MySpace, and do you think Facebook is "here to stay" for the long term.


I really only use Facebook. I have never joined any other social media sites because at the time I didn't think it was necessary. But as I entered college I joined Facebook as a way to keep connected with my friends at home. And I have to say it works amazingly well. When I go home I still feel very connected to all of my friends because Facebook can keep me updated on their everyday life or struggles. I honestly think there are only two reasons Facebook has been more successful than MySpace. One would be the timing, it came out or at least got well known after MySpace had already paved the way of what a social media site could offer you. Second they appealed to the college kid therefore making Facebook seem like the cool "older sibling" kind of site that quickly became the desire of many different age groups. These two things fell into place and then Facebook just took off running. I am unsure if Facebook is here to stay. While part of me thinks it is because it has already seemingly stood its ground against other sites trying to take its consumers away such as Twitter, another part of me feels it will eventually grow out of pop culture. But then again people want to keep those connections to their friends and Facebook is the best way to do that, so I guess I am unsure if it will be here for a long term stay. 


Why is transparency such an important concept in the Social Media world? Is it MORE or LESS important in the offline world? Why?


Transparency is such an important concept in the Social Media world because persons opinions of one another and their activity is a vital part of how we trust them or not. When a person associates themselves with a brand that is untrustworthy then you immediately begin to look through that persons personality and begin to question if you can trust them since they associate with such an untrustworthy brand. I feel that many people have trust issues with the people around them, some worse than others, either way transparency in the social media world is a game changer in their relationships with others because it plays with their trust issues. You can be someone you are not on a blog or a facebook account, promote things that you shouldn't online and then this is the only representation you have of yourself on the web that people are going to judge you by. Transparency was more important in years past in the offline world because there simply was no online world. Therefore a person was judged on your interactions with them in person. But with the online world it is becoming more and more important as our society is growing to be very dependent of the online world itself. 

In Class Photoshop Work

McLuhan Photoshop Final Product

Above I have created an image about what I feel netflix is bringing to our society. The message I was trying to portray here was that netflix is "caging" people to their homes and encouraging them to not leave their house. I have displayed a family watching television together but have enclosed them inside a birdcage and put them inside of a room made of the netflix labels. The content of netflix includes images, audio, video, entertainment, movement and emotional impact as well as many more, but the overall message it is encouraging the buyer is that you never have to leave your house for entertainment again seeing as netflix will provide you with all of the entertainment you need for a low and affordable price. Making it even more convenient, they now allow you to upload movies instantly to your tv through your computer connection. While this is convenient it also is encouraging a society that is already lazy enough to become even more lazy and to support big corporations instead of maybe the local movie theater that could be a small family owned business. Even if the movie theater itself is a big corporation or chain movie theater, netflix is still encouraging laziness and taking "hard work" out of renting (which to me is part of the fun of renting). Hopefully the image I created displays this opinion in someway or another.

Photoshop Assignment #1

The medium I have chosen for this assignment is Netflix. While seemingly a great idea it may not be such a positive influence on our well being after all. The mediums' content is made up of things such as images, audio, text, software, paper, dvd's, ink, labels, glue, speech, and even as abstract as light. McLuhan would not be very happy with this invention since he was not the biggest fan of mediums that can ruin employment opportunities. He states, "the new patterns of human association tend to eliminate jobs, it is true (McLuhan, 7)." With Netflix this is yet another reason for persons to never leave their house. Its another commodatie that takes away the experience of leaving the house and going to the movie theater to see a movie, or renting one and supporting local business. While it makes life somewhat "easier" for people to never have to leave the house to rent a movie again, yet isn't that part of the fun in the first place? Movies are for your entertainment yet with Netflix part of the magic is lost through your assurance that you will recieve the movie in the mail and you know that you can watch it as many times as you like before you send it back. While rentals you are unsure if they will have it and it makes the experience that much more rewarding and entertaining. This is my perspective on the matter, McLuhan I feel would see a message of laziness being sent to the public. The message that Netflix is telling it's customers is something along the lines of "Let us take all of the hardwork out of renting a movie for you." Yet I have to wonder, is that making the movie experience any better? Or worse? Once again the overall message being sent here is to make our lives "easier", even though most of the technology around us is already trying to do this as well. And so with the introduction of newer technology which is just making our lives easier and easier than they were previously, taking care of the "annoying" or "hard" things we are confronted with in everyday life I just have to wonder, why do we want life to be so easy for us? Will it make it any better? Any who, I just went on a tangent there sorry. The message being conveyed from the content and the medium is an attempt to make our lives even easier and fill that void with "entertainment" through movie watching at such an easy access through Netflix online and dvd through mail.

Examples of New Media

First we have the newest version of Netflix which can now be accessed through your Wii console.

Second we have one of iTunes latest tools entitled, "Genius" where your iTunes analyzes your music and makes playlists based on similar genres and the amount of times you have played a song.

Finally we have the iPad which is almost a completely unneccessary tool that apple has somehow made extremely desired by the public.