The Nomadic Blog

9 Responses

1. Outside my home I feel forced to at least accept technological values. Many assignments have an online component (go to site x then …), require the use of a specific app, must be submitted electronically, or must be printed. This in ninth grade, and in some specific instances, even earlier. Almost no work product can be done in pen. With 30 minutes for lunch one must either use a microwave or eat something that doesn’t need to be heated. All of these and the forced frenetic pace, a part of technological values, result in me, when I get home, using a fountain pen, washing dishes in the sink, using the stovetop and oven, and reading physical books. Yes, at home I do things like this comment, however, it is less of my time than the slower pace I choose to do things in order to recover from the pace of technology outside the home.

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2. It seems like every time technology advances there are people champion the progress; and people warning against it. After recognizing this I have tried harder to give mental attention to the benefits and drawbacks of technology as it really is. Meaning I try to make sure my technology is working for me and I am not working for it. In the world we live in, that can be hard.
   When I perk up and break off a task because I thought I heard a message ding, allow my cell phone to interrupt a in person conversation or get snagged by an email subject line that I don’t even really have time for or care about, I know it is time to re-evaluate my values…again.

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3. The technology mindset of doing things always faster…well, some things take time and just can’t be rushed. It takes nine months to make a baby. You can’t make a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.

   I don’t remember where I read that.

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   1. That’s funny, but mostly because it is so applicable here. Thank you for sharing that Wanda, made my day.

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4. The article as well and the other comments made me think about how technological “advances” frequently make our lives easier and are considered an improvement. However, with many of these examples, the previous tool is still necessary and better at certain times.

   A backhoe saves significant time and manual labor, but there are still many times that a shovel is better. The backhoe can’t do it all. You can make the argument for other things like social media. The ease of connecting and staying in touch is a general improvement, until it completely replaces real, in person connections.

   There needs to be balance.

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5. I am definitely seeing “technological values” creeping into my world, whether I want them to or not. With schooling, many things are required to be done with the use of modern “technology.” I think this is supposed to make things “easier”… on someone. To make it easier to track, quantify, prove that the work was done. I don’t think it proves anything. This is one of the many reasons that I am insisting on much of our work being done with pen and paper, organized in a binder, highlighting texts and taking notes. I know when I see the physical evidence of all that work, and when my student sees that, he will know that he has put forth the effort in an attempt to gain true knowledge. Even if none of the knowledge sticks, he has still gained skills, trained his brain, and has something to show for his effort.
   I know that in my old work field, everything was geared toward the “metrics.” That’s all that mattered. The technology we used to generate those metrics. No need to ask the people – no need to watch them work or ask about their solution to a problem and how they came up with it and why – because all they need to see is that big metric. Actually, just the Excel spreadsheet that turns the cell green for good and red for bad if that metric is in line or not. So we went from looking at our lab notebooks, looking at results and calculations, verifying calculations, speaking to the employees and the notebook checkers – to just making sure that cell stays green! They didn’t care how the work got done or why, as long as that metric stayed green. I believe it leads to people not valuing their work, being unable to defend their work, and feeling like a “number” themselves, instead of a valued human being with a skill. As an aside… have you ever seen a bloodwork report? That technology that tells you if your numbers are good or bad? Well, hopefully you have a doctor that doesn’t take technology’s metrics at face value, and instead asks “why.” If not, you may end up on meds or paying for expensive testing when you don’t actually need any of it – all because that doctor took technology’s word for it and didn’t bother asking “why.”

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6. These technological values are definitely coming up everywhere, including in my everyday school.

   First of all, the AI overview on Google. I was trying to identify a plant by taking a picture and having similar results show up; my plan was then to find the plant’s name and read reliable sources to see if I had identified it correctly. What do I get? I get these “overviews” saying things like “this plant is most likely this species because of the following….” Now, I know this AI can make mistakes, and it does all the time, but without us realizing. If I do not check this information, I could end up labeling plants incorrectly by far, and then where would I be? The lack of asking “why” and preferring efficiency over accuracy can lead to major consequences, and these “values” are almost identical to the values of the “AI culture” (from the previous Media Literacy challenge).

   Here is another example: the company my dad works for tried to get values and numbers that showed they were a successful business. This caused a lot of chaos, trying to get those stats perfect. Most likely, no one bothered to concern themselves with the consequences on others of what they were doing; they only cared about the results.

   Finally: numbers on screens. Take social media posts. You have likes, and comments, and all the stuff in between. These numbers make people feel good about themselves, especially if they are high. They value these things, and technology’s built in system of spewing information allows them.
   But what if people do not get these numbers? They simply make more posts, record more videos, or make more exaggerated statements, giving bad examples what people should value in the process.

   These “values,” plus the domination of AI, is probably going to cause our society to have very different morals in the future, morals that, if we were to jump into a time-traveling device, would be seen as repulsive and unlike our own.

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7. This reminds me of a time when our company wanted to change email systems. We used outlook as probably everyone else does. We had several training classes on this new system and it confused a lot of us, at all levels in the organization. It was over engineered with a lot of AI tools. You had to create so many rules, settings, and so much more for this system to work. Eventually the training stopped and we didn’t cut over to this new system. Months went by without a word about it until one day more training classes were scheduled. Another round of training classes which equally confused us and then the target day to cut over was a couple weeks out. The target day came and went without a word about it. Finally after a few months we heard that someone high up killed the project. So while advancement in technology is generally good sometimes it’s best to leave some things alone.

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8. I have seen technology creep into my life in ways like watching attention spans decrease, as the world in general becomes more used to short form content, and with the rise of AI being used for more and more things.

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