Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Does technology make our lives better? I realize there is no simple answer to this question, but I've been noticing myself asking this question more often than ever, as an ever-widening range of technology alters my routines at home and at work. In particular, the Internet, WiFi and digital technology have affected not-so-technologically minded academics, such as myself, and changed just about everything I do in the course of a day. There is no doubt these technological advancements have made things faster and more convenient; but is it necessarily "better"? Here are a few excerpts from my "technology diary," with some additional thoughts.
"7 a.m. I just got up and am making my first cup of coffee. While waiting, I pick up my cell phone--no voice mail, no text messages. I pull up my Facebook page to see if any of my friends posted since last night--yes, one of them changed her profile picture. Then, I check on my personal e-mail account--a few junk mails there, which I quickly delete."
I have used my cell phone as my primary phone line for about eight years, but I began to text back and forth with my friends and became active on Facebook much more recently. In the last month or so, I also began to check my personal e-mails on my cell, but that's as far as I go. For one thing, I don't want to be one of those people who are checking work e-mail all the time. My instinct is to maintain some separation between my professional and private lives.
"9 a.m. The first thing I do when I get to my office is to log on to my computer and check my e-mails, which I looked at right before I left my office yesterday at 5:30 p.m. I have 23 new messages; about one-third is professional junk mail (solicitations for professional training programs and such). There are a few work-related general announcements; a couple of students are requesting an appointment. The rest are the time-consuming kind that requires some thought and often a lengthy response. I quickly delete the junk and announcements, fire back several quick replies, and leave others to be dealt with later. I open the Blackboard software and access my course page to go over my lecture slides one more time."
Over the last 20 years, the volume of professional e-mails increased exponentially; today 99 percent (if not 100 percent) of my professional correspondence is electronic. It took me a long time to learn how to triage them and not feel obligated to respond as soon as I see a message. Blackboard is an online course management tool, which I started using about three years ago. All my course material is now accessed through it, and I--and the great majority of students--find it very convenient. However, dependency on technology can be a dangerous thing. On the few occasions when I suddenly lost Internet access due to equipment problems or network failure, I found it very difficult to go back to the old-fashioned way--speaking from lecture notes and writing on an actual blackboard.
"10:55 a.m. I get to my 'Introduction to Cultural Anthropology' class and open Blackboard on the classroom computer. I pull up my lecture slides and the video clip I'm showing today, and I'm good to go. It's great not to have to fuss with videotapes and DVDs..."
There are pros and cons of using a PowerPoint presentation in the classroom. It is cleaner and easier to follow than handwriting on a traditional blackboard, and many students like having a clear structure. Incorporating films and other visual material has become much easier with digital technology, and with the use of PowerPoint I can incorporate them seamlessly into my lectures. At the same time, the loss of spontaneity continues to bother me. In the context of a small liberal arts college, where class sizes are kept small to facilitate interactive learning, PowerPoint presentations often seem hopelessly rigid. For now, I use them primarily in lower-division courses where students tend to need more structured instruction.
"5:45 p.m. I'm still in my office finishing off the last e-mail of the day. It's taken me more than 30 minutes to compose this one and I'm rereading it for the third (and hopefully the last) time to make sure everything is clear. I'm pressing the 'Send' button--now I can log off and go home!"
Communicating via e-mail can be tricky, particularly in the professional arena. It is a written document, and whatever careless mistake I make can become a permanent record or lead to serious misunderstandings.
Yet, I have to do it fairly quickly--usually within 24 hours after receiving the original message--or I risk getting phone calls from irate colleagues. As a result, I often spend an hour or two at the end of the day, just to finish e-mail correspondence. In some situations requiring immediate attention, I may also check my e-mail account later in the evening, or over the weekend, for another round of correspondence or two--the much dreaded "taking work home" effect of technology.
"6:05 p.m. I'm finally out of my office. I'm tired, and need some mindless entertainment for the evening. Shall I grab a video on the way home? Alas, the local Blockbuster went out of business!"
Downloading and streaming movies has become so common, familiar video-rental businesses are being quickly wiped out. I don't know about other people, but I used to actually like the process of browsing through the shelves of the video store and finding a couple of titles that fit my mood of the moment. Soon I will have to make a critical decision: Should I subscribe to a movie-by-mail rental service, which takes spontaneity out of my entertainment choice, or bite the bullet and buy a new laptop with bigger memory so I can download movies? Honestly--who says technology makes our life better?
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Kurotani is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Redlands in California and the author of "Home Away from Home: Japanese Corporate Wives in the United States" (Duke University Press, 2005).
(Jan. 31, 2012)
check this out: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T120126004323.htm
check this out: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/T120126004323.htm
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