{"id":662,"date":"2021-11-02T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2021-11-02T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict21group10\/?p=662"},"modified":"2022-05-11T12:37:09","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T12:37:09","slug":"technology-and-us-so-close-yet-so-distant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict21group10\/2021\/11\/02\/technology-and-us-so-close-yet-so-distant\/","title":{"rendered":"Technology and us: so close, yet so distant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this final academic post, I will elaborate on my previous entries, including comments and feedback received from fellow coffee and data lovers to reflect on this interesting blog experience.<\/p>\n

Touching upon data and ICT, this post will be focusing on the relationship we have with technology. While doing so, I will incorporate the discussion into a more academic discourse around development. Taking into account that technology mirrors the society that creates it (O\u2019Donnell & Sweetman, 2018), I will shine a light upon the nature of online inequalities.<\/p>\n

The breakup letter<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In \u201cWe need to talk: a breakup story<\/a>\u201d I share my personal experience with technology in the last 20 years of my life or, to put it in other words, since my very first contact with the digital world.<\/p>\n

At that time, Internet and the World Wide Web were moving their baby steps in our lives and just like some of our blog readers I can consider myself lucky to have benefitted from a nearly tech-free childhood. Back then, Internet was a nearly empty playground in comparison to what it is now, and creativity, freedom and exploration made it magical.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way we lost that magic, and instead of feeling free we now feel controlled and influenced, if not even manipulated by new technologies. This issue seems to be rooted in digital communication.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rettberg (2014) argues how participatory media like blogs and social media can be seen as a double-edge sword. As much as they can be used to liberate people, they can also oppress them. People not included in dominant groups, the so-called \u201csubalterns\u201d according to Spivak (1988), can construct themselves as a subject in a digitalized world and find their own voice. But if participatory media have this liberatory potential allowing the oppressed to rise in their fight for freedom, it is also true that they allow for an increase in control and surveillance (Ruttberg, 2014).<\/p>\n

I will get back to the topic of this controlling technology later, making use of the comments received in the Round Table Discussion when talking about the relationship we have with our smartphones. For now, let\u2019s focus on why Internet has turned from that healthy democratic playground to a dystopian science fiction world.<\/p>\n

Is Internet a democratic tool?<\/h6>\n

We can argue how Internet creates unlimited opportunities and can be interpreted as a tool for progress and advancement. Who benefits from it, though? Noble argues that:<\/p>\n

\u201c[d]espite the widespread beliefs in the Internet as a democratic space where people have the power to dynamically participate as equals, the Internet is in fact organized to the benefit of powerful elites. (2018:49)\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"TomSince Internet is a<\/span>n inexhaustible source of information, whoever controls that flux of information eventually wields power.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a capitalistic economy where market forces dominate, big companies and corporations can get control over data, manipulate outcomes, and impose their will power to further increase their status. Hence, as Noble asserts (2018), data is biased and perpetuates oppression toward marginalised groups in favour of commercial profit, generating social inequalities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the breakup letter I expressed my resentment in the shifting from subject to object as an internet user. While in the past the choices of the contents I would get access to lay with me, now the feeling has reversed, and I have become a target of what the web wants me to be exposed to.<\/p>\n

Algorithms are loaded with power and digital technologies are implicated in power relations, being these on the matter of race, gender, sexuality, economy, politic and so on.<\/p>\n

Considering how \u201c[\u2026] technology mirrors realities in society, with the power to exacerbate or enhance\u201d (O\u2019Donnell & Sweetman, 2018), we can argue that the problem lies not with technology per se, but with the society that creates that technology. It is evident how, particularly in the last decade, technology has undergone a process of alignment with the capitalistic society we live in, exploiting its neoliberal values.<\/p>\n

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Coffee break <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Before entering a deeper discussion about communication and technology though, I think we could all do with a coffee break.<\/p>\n