The idea that a website can be more than just a portfolio or a way of presenting yourself makes a lot of sense; it's almost like a living thing that reflects and shapes who you are at the same time. Social media platforms are so rigid in what they let you do and how they let you present yourself (and they're not even really for you, they're for advertisers), so there's something freeing about the idea of a website being whatever you want it to be.
A really interesting point about how we've let the word "technology" get hijacked to only mean hi-tech, recent things (but a pair of shoes or a knife is just as much a technology as a computer). It makes you realize how much we take for granted and don't question, like the things we use every day that someone had to figure out how to make.
It is really interesting how the complaints and critiques we have today are reminiscent of those at the birth of the internet.
Early on the web used to feel almost magical (whether that was because I was a child or just because it was more, for lack of a better word, chalant); it has become less of an expressive outlet, and instead, a whole lot of junk. There is also a lack/loss of sympathy/empathy, desensitization, within people today due to the internet; it creates this distance between people's perception online vs irl (changes social dynamics/world views and alters reality and how people act and view the world [bystander effect becomes greater due to a need to film content instead of helping]). Things are also hyper-specific to an individual, leaving little to no room for privacy (algorithms and data collection).
The three dots are such a small thing but they carry so much weight; there's something uniquely anxiety-inducing about watching someone type and waiting, especially when it disappears. Text messaging has created this weird in-between space that isn't quite speaking and isn't quite writing, and we've developed all these new “social rules”/slang around it that nobody really talks about explicitly.
The parallel between the 1970s communes and the early internet is something I hadn't thought about before but it makes total sense; both were these utopian experiments in escaping the mainstream and building something more communal and self-sufficient, and both kind of ran into the same problems. It's a little bleak that the same dream keeps getting co-opted and commercialized, but also kind of hopeful that people keep trying anyway.
I feel like the lack of public focused websites is really sad, we've just kind of accepted living in bad digital spaces the same way we accept a gross waiting room. The library vs Penn Station thing is also so interesting because one's a place that exists for you and one's a place that exists to basically “process” you, and the web has become so much more Penn Station than library without much notice or consent. The Amish comparison I found really interesting because I didn't know much about them beyond the vague assumption that they're just anti technology, but the idea that they actually have criteria for what they let in and that those criteria are about community and connection rather than convenience makes the rest of society seem pretty thoughtless by comparison. The automatic need to upgrade or adopt new technologies without a second thought is very prevalent in today’s society. I like that the essay sheds more light on the morals of technology and that based on where/how you spend your time reflects the type of person you become and with more technology, society tends to care less about being present (in the sense that technology has basically become an extension of almost everyone).
- "There is so much convenience, but so little comfort." This quote captures exactly what technology is today.
- "A library is one of the few remaining places that cares more about you than your wallet."
- "What you let in will eventually form you," is probably my favorite sentence of the whole essay. It’s the idea that your inputs shape you in ways you aren’t always aware of.
- "Netflix's biggest competition was sleep." The fact that a company's growth strategy is literally competing with a biological necessity says everything about where we are as a society.
- "Our alone time with technology should truly be alone time," comes from the app survey section and is interesting because it reframes solitude as something to protect rather than fill.
- "We are in a spiral of distrust instigated by our digital environments," the idea of the web being not very safe and shows the dangers the web has on society as a whole; this can also tie to ai and the paranoia surrounding ai images