Technology Matters

A few quotations from David Nye's book, Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, to use in our discussion:

Historians contend that " . . . new technologies are shaped by social conditions, prices, traditions, popular attitudes, interest groups, class differences, and government policies" (19).

As we think about our experience of being in class in SL, as avatars, in comparison with being in class in person, let's think about how Nye summarizes Marshall McLuhan's ideas about communcation media:

"For McLuhan, innovations in communcations, notably the printing press, radio, and television, had automatic effects on society. Unlike Ogburn, McLuhan paid little attention to reciprocal effects or social inventions. For McLuhan, not only did the media extend human sense organs; each new form of a medium disrupte the relationship between the senses" (27).