D. Smith, Blog Post #2

Blog #2

    This week I want to address the social construction of technology in our everyday lives and what I believe is the humorous social contradiction that it has. This week we’ve seen that Baym’s depiction of social construction of technology is the complex relationship that involves questioning whether or not technology constructs humas habits or the habits we have represented as technology's functionality. More often than not the argument goes both ways, as technology has changed us, we have continued to change it. In light of this, we have also seen that mediatization of technology makes it an interwoven aspect of our everyday lives, which has thus prevented society from seeing how intrinsic it has become in our lives. The humorous example I want to bring forward is our attachment to our cell phones. We can not go anywhere without it and we use it when we should not be. When we are in class, how often do we check our phones? Why do we feel the need to be on our phones when we are supposed to be learning? Likely there becomes this guilty feeling that comes over you when thinking about it because maybe you did not think about it before and you justify it with the thought of, “everyone does it”. Yes, this is all very much true but what I have yet to understand from learning this content and discussing the course content is, why do I not check my phone in the class that discusses why we check our phones in the first place? If it is something that is so normalized, why do I still feel guilty?

Dawson Smith