In the fifth chapter of The Second Self, author Sherry Turkle explores the role of the computer, in both professional and personal environments, and the effects that computers have on their users. An interesting point that was established from the beginning of the chapter was the difference in the use of the computer, especially in more technical users, in the workplace or professional setting and at home or as a personal computer. The example that she gave for this was programmers and how their programming in a work environment was much different than the programming that they could do with their personal computers at home. At the time many programmer’s jobs were to write small parts of individual code for a greater program, but the freedom to start and finish a complete program was not a reality. That is why personal computing became much more enjoyable for these programmers because they could actually write programs the way they wanted to. One of the people interviewed for this chapter, named Cark, said this about professional versus personal programming,
“If you never or rarely get to finish things at work, if your job is basically to make little pieces and its somebody else’s to make them fit into a whole, then working with a computer at home can give you an experience of getting it all together.”
With the highly technical population, especially with programmers, the personal computer became their “creative outlet” and after a day of programming at work all day, it was still desirable to be able to have a computer at home to use however they wanted.
Another point that Turkle makes is the role of the computer in influencing the development of the person as well as society as a whole. Turkle states, “ A relationship with a computer can influence people’s conceptions of themselves, their jobs, their relationships with other people, and with their ways of thinking about social processes.” For a computer just being a “machine” it sure has huge influence on people and their lives. An example of this is the idea presented in the chapter saying that personal computers possess the ability to one day be the sole source of education. I cannot imagine a time where children no longer go to school anymore and their access to education would be through a computer.
Turkle also mentions that, at the time, many computer users “demanded a sense of understanding the machine.” This statement is so clearly contrasted by most people who use computers solely for personal use today. The majority of people who use computers these days have no idea how a computer works, whether its the parts that comprise it, the programs used to run it or the code behind those programs. For many users, the solution to any type of computer malfunction is: reboot! While I don’t consider myself completely illiterate in terms of computers and how they work, and I am curious as to how all of the inner-workings of the computer come together, I don’t find myself “demanding” this knowledge to feel fine with using a personal computer.
While this chapter makes solid arguments about how computing, and especially personal computing has changed the individual and society as a whole, some of the future outcomes were not as predicted. Education is not based around computers and schools are still the most prominent forms of education for children, and a lot of the paranoia about having a personal computer has dissolved but along with this loss of the magnitude of computers some of the appreciation and large desire to learn about them has been lost by most of the population. Most users would prefer to have as little technical logic or understanding behind a computer and prefer to use it for its convenience.
No comments:
Post a Comment