What I took away from the class

This class really brought to my attention how dependent we are as a country on technology and globally what we have done to ourselves. We can blame no one else but ourselves for constructing our society the way it is which is dependent on something that is going to kill us some day. The best way to describe it is a drug attic that is dependent on his drugs, that is what we have done is made it so our society (the drug addict) is dependent on technology (the drug). Before this class I guess it never really occurred to me how much of a problem this actually was. This class opened my eyes to the issue and honestly put some fear in me because I don’t know how and if it is even fixable.  The demise of our environment is certainly on its way unless we make significant changes.

Before you know it we will not care about reality we will be far more tied up in online worlds and our multiple identities or ourselves to care about how we appear in real life. We are so concerned with presenting our ideal selves online to other people that it is almost sickening. The reason we are able to do this is the amount of control we have over our presentations online we can literally post exactly what we want and how we want to appear. The study of these social networks and online dating sites has proven how common it is to show a false presentation of oneself over the internet. Seeing that we practically live in these online worlds this is pretty scary.

This class has really made me take a step back and look at myself in the mirror and make sure that I do not fall into the trap of becoming so in love and addicted to technology where I lose sight of what reality really is. After taking this class I am really going to try to change my approach to technology, I actually modified my face book and took most of the personal information that I have about myself on it off because I really don’t feel comfortable anymore with people constantly looking at my personal information every day. I also am never getting a new phone until my current phone is completely incapable of working anymore because there is no need to do so. I have severely cut back on my texting and when I am headed out to classes and to study I don’t even bring my phone with me anymore. It is actually quite funny to see people’s reactions when I see them and I don’t have my phone and they have been trying to contact me, people get pissed off and it just makes it more evident to me how much we rely on technology. I am glad I took this class because it really opened my eyes to a major issue and helped me learn about the up and coming of social networks and the power that lies within these different networks such as facebook.

Blog #3 about final paper

For my final I did question number 2 which dealt with Slade’s text “Made to Break”. After writing the paper I realized how hard it is going to be for not only our country to continue with the going green movement but how hard it will be globally. The arguments that are evidence that is presented in the book is only just a start to the reasons of why it will be so hard. After doing a little outside research on the topic and understanding the mindsets of other communist countries I really do believe that our environment is in serious danger. Although the only way to fix our environment is to go green I really don’t think it is logical or economical, globally we have gone too far and it is going to be very difficult to turn it around.

            I do also think that it can be done with recent research being done on how to eliminate so many of these different toxins to our earth.  In order to succeed with the movement we need people all around the world to by in and not just people in our nation because our nation is just a fraction of the whole equation. The part that is so scary to me is the rate that other countries are becoming so dependent on technology like are country. Slade has a brief portion of his book where he talks about how fast china, one of the most populated countries in the world, is becoming dependent on technology more rapidly than any other country ever has. Seeing that other countries that are far more populates are becoming so reliant on all of this technology that is available is going to make it even more difficult.

            Even getting people on board in the United States is going to be so hard. All producers are doing is giving the people what they desire so it is interesting to see how many people just point the finger at the producers when the people who are pointing the finger a lot of the time are purchasing these products that are producing all of this e-waist. If we really want to go green we need to stop cold turkey with purchasing products that have harmful chemicals in them that can potentially ruin our environment. The problem to this is it will be so difficult to control in other countries that are so rapidly forming such a strong addiction to technology.

Survey conducted for final

I decided to conduct a survey on the Rutgers campus in order to help me provide evidence for the question that I am answering. I am answering question 2 and I conducted a survey in front of Brower. I thought up a short question that would take minimal time to answer to attract participants. The question was made to show the dependence on disposable products in our society. The question was "List 1 disposable product that you use every day and rely heavily on?” I made the question short and the answer so it would literally take up about 10 seconds of their time and prove my point. I made sure I asked an even number of girls to guys, it ended up being 15 men and 15 women. The answers were very close to what I thought they would be. Every single woman admitted that they relied heavily on disposable razors, which was the most common answer for most women. For men a lot of them stated that they used disposable silverware, plates, bowls, etc. in their apartments in order to cut down on washing dishes and such. Some of them also states that they went through a new role of paper towels almost every other day. Some men also said that they used disposable razors as well. The reason that I conducted this survey was to prove how heavily our culture is on disposable products. Even though this is only a minor aspect of what the book talks about it still proves a good point seeing how heavily people rely on disposable products. I will discuss the findings to my survey much more in depth in my paper I just wanted to show how important products like this are to our society.           

This just shows you how hard it will be for our society to “go green”. Most people don’t really pay much attention to going green and only go green when it is convenient for them and would never go out of their way to help the movement. It is almost funny to me when I see water companies such as Poland spring trying to make their water bottles more “green” by using less plastic. Most people buying these products don’t even know that they are contributing to the movement of going green and could really care less. I am not against the movement I just think it will not succeed seeing how our society is run by technology and we are constantly replacing technology that we own with new technology. The motives in our society are far to money based for people to go green. If our country is going to change then it has to be a forced change that makes people go green instead of just hoping people will jump on the band wagon. I know from personal experiences that people are far too caught up in making money and having the latest technology to care about the idea of going green. People are actually more concerned of self promotion of themselves online than in real life which is another reason why I think going green will not succeed.

First blog on process of final

For my final I decided to answer the question that deals with the book “Made to break”. I personally found this book to be one of the most interesting ones that we have read. Another reason why I want to do this is because I am big on saving the environment and I believe that our environment within the next 150 years if we continue to stay at the pace that we are at with a disposable society will be completely destroyed.  Also the fact that we continue to throw out electronics that contain toxins to our environment is also going to contribute to the demise of our ecosystem. I am really interested to do some outside research in finding out what college students around Rutgers think of the situation. I also want to conduct some surveys to find out just about how much waist an average person generates. I honestly believe it is too late to try and start going green because people are far too caught up in their online worlds to even care. I think most people contribute to the going green movement only when it is convenient and most people would never think to go out of their way to contribute. Our society is far to based off convenience and accessibility to the internet to care about going green. The only way we would be able to save our environment somewhat is if technology was built to last for about ten times the time it is currently built to last for. I am looking forward to looking into this question much further in depth and learning much more about the topic. Hopefully there is not a set “death date” with our own environment.