Responses

First, it does my heart good to see that people enrolled in a course about technology are maintaining such a healthy skepticism. Like all of you, I love my tech toys. As a former monophobic who has been forced to live alone for the past six years, I think I would have lost what little mind I have left if I hadn't been able to "talk" to people via technology.

Like you other posters, though, I am also overwhelmed, and I thank the powers that I didn't reach this point in life twenty years ago when "getting somewhere" mattered to me. I've reached a point where I just want to find a way to earn a very modest living for what is remaining of my life, and I don't care much what that way is. If I were in my twenties or thirties and saw before me a future in which I wanted to accomplish something and/or reach particular goals, I would feel so overwhelmed and so overworked that I would end up in a straight jacket. I can't keep up with my reading, much less technology. I have at least four toys -- a computer, an IPod, a Palm Pilot, and a very rarely used cell phone -- that I know I am using only a tenth of the potential of. I don't care. But if I were younger and I thought that I might be held responsible for knowing how to use all this technology and keep up with new developments, that in and of itself would scare the bejeebees out of me. I look at my students and can almost understand why they are so apathetic. How can anyone keep up, and if you can't keep up, why bother? Why play a game that you can't hope to break even in? I feel for them, and I'm glad I'm 50.

One of you wrote about the font discussion. I took a course in visual rhetoric at ISU. Here's a hint about fonts. Studies have shown that serif fonts are more readable for blocks of average-sized text because the serifs help connect the letters within words and make for clear distinctions in word breaks. Studies tracking eye movements and comprehension have indicated that serif font text is more quickly read and easily comprehended. Conversely, sans serif fonts work better for headings because the serifs aren't needed for short text in larger sizes, and the serifs actually clutter the text and slow reading and decrease comprehension. Studies have also indicated that comprehension and memory are enhanced by using common fonts such as Times New Roman and Arial/Helvetica because the fonts do not detract attention from the material. Flashy fonts are pretty, and people who work with text creation find them less boring to work with, but if you are interested in communicating a message, it is best to use Arial/Helvetica for headings and Times New Roman for body text. (Similar fonts are equally valuable, of course. Only the well-trained eye even notices the difference between Arial and Helvetica or Times New Roman and similar serif fonts.)

I found the post on cyborgs interesting. I, too, found the article thick and difficult to fully comprehend until the end, and I was appalled by the ending. No, I am NOT part of a machine. I do not have the advantages of a machine in that I am not as fast, as tireless, or as capable of storing and recalling vast amounts of information. I also do not have the disadvantages. Unlike machines, I am capable of creativity, and I have feelings. I am a human being, with all the associated faults and glories, and I will NOT be treated as anything more or less.

But I look around me and I see people who are so plugged into machinery all the time that they may as well be part of it. IPods and cell phones to ears, they walk around oblivious of the world and living, breathing human beings around them. They think it's great. I wonder if they'll think it's so great when they can't have a conversation with their family because their boss calls them every fifteen minutes with more work for them to do over the weekend on what is supposedly their time off. I wonder if they'll even realize that the world and their lives don't have to be that way. I wonder if they'll even know what they're missing. They won't be able to stop and smell the roses, but I wonder if they'll even realize there are roses to be smelled.

Ah, me. I love teaching, and I was once told by an employer that I was wrong to leave marketing to pursue an advanced degree in English because I have such a flair for marketing. But what am I actually thinking of doing with what remains of my life? Well, 30 years ago, I was a phlebotomist. I'm thinking of returning to that. I'm also looking at training in respiratory therapy. I want a job where I can punch a clock and go home. I am not a cyborg, you see; I am not a machine. There is more to life than working, and I want a job that will prohibit my spending all my time working, and you can't take patients home with you from a hospital. I lost a relationship, a family, and all of my friends because I spent all my time grading essays and researching material to teach my students, and then I was hounded out of my job because I had the unmitigated gall to fight for the idea that college students should have to meet academic standards and stepped on the wrong political toes in doing so. My career ate my life and threw me aside like an apple core. I'm not unique. We've all heard horror stories of men and women who devote their lives to corporate careers and get fired when they are in their upper 50s and are left with alienated children, spouses who are virtual strangers to them, no hobbies or interests, a great amount of debt, and no income. The technological ability to reach employees 24/7 and to expect them to work at home constantly simply exacerbates that potential. No, I am not a cyborg. I don't want to be one. I feel for a generation that is becoming something very close to cyborgs and the disillusionment they'll face when they discover that the career they've sacrificed their lives for is taken from them because employers can save a buck shipping their jobs overseas or hiring a younger person for less money to do the do work.

But then, I'm old and bitter. Still, I maintain what I said before: Technology improves; man, sadly, does not.