I have to admit something. I am involved. Involved with machines. Most of us techie teachers get this. I know I have heard this before. I know I have read it, and I get it.
So, what do I mean? Well I am not having some kind of weird relationship with my computer!!! Or am I? I recently read two books that were significant, but since I am updating this blog post months after I began the draft, I can't remember them. The ideas were these.
On incident referred to the grief people experience, even trauma, when a computer crashes. The other book detailed the experience people have when they lose a spouse. When a couple live together for a long time they begin to depend on each other for mental processes. For example, I remember dates and events really well. My wife remembers where my keys are. We come to depend on someone else for certain mental processes. We essentially offload certain things. Our memory expands into the other person. The trauma and loss we feel when we lose a spouse through either divorce or death we lose mental capacity. With our devices we are doing the same thing essentially. We our offloading our mental capacity into a device. It serves as our memory and our reminder and we become literally, emotionally involved with our machines.
One of the things, that I have noticed about this in my self is my reluctance to offload to someplace I won't be able to access it. I am very leery of the online storage systems that are "the latest and greatest" because I worry that they will lose them.
So, I am emotionally involved with my machines. Essentially my little mobile device is acting as part of my brain.
On incident referred to the grief people experience, even trauma, when a computer crashes. The other book detailed the experience people have when they lose a spouse. When a couple live together for a long time they begin to depend on each other for mental processes. For example, I remember dates and events really well. My wife remembers where my keys are. We come to depend on someone else for certain mental processes. We essentially offload certain things. Our memory expands into the other person. The trauma and loss we feel when we lose a spouse through either divorce or death we lose mental capacity. With our devices we are doing the same thing essentially. We our offloading our mental capacity into a device. It serves as our memory and our reminder and we become literally, emotionally involved with our machines.
One of the things, that I have noticed about this in my self is my reluctance to offload to someplace I won't be able to access it. I am very leery of the online storage systems that are "the latest and greatest" because I worry that they will lose them.
So, I am emotionally involved with my machines. Essentially my little mobile device is acting as part of my brain.
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