10.12.10

Task 12. New Interactive Environments. Tool or medium?

Today I will concentrate on the question whether digital world makes people different or not? Is computer technology a tool or medium?
While reading the text I had lots of other thoughts going through my mind concerning the people mentioned in the article, and the times when these texts were written by Leont'ev and Vygotski. The whole text seemed a little difficult to read, but it had a nice conclusion in the end so that one could finally gather his or her thoughts.

So - according to the article computer technology is both a tool and medium, more important is the person's view to the question. I think today some of us can actually live without computers and communicate the same way as in the olden days, but most of the people need computers in their work, leisure time, for communication, etc. - in this way to me it seems that digital world is a means for people to create an alternative means.
The author concentrates on digital world as a means for people to shape it according to their views and integrate every communication medium into it thus creating a "dominating medium".
I agree, digital media is a means to communicate and feel free to do almost anything with it, but does it make people different? While the author of the text seems to imply that it is not the computers or media that make people evil, but people themselves, then I have to disagree a little. I think that some of the "crazy" ideas still come from the media or social media. Perhaps the fact that people themselves are behind digital media and thus implicitly connected with creating the media, we might say it is true that people themselves have created the evil that comes from the medium, but it is the medium that brings quite a lot of emotions and thrill to people, and some of them take advantage of the great source like the Internet, and perform bad deeds.

In conclusion my answer to the question is that digital media is a medium with the help of which one can communicate and find out about things in a quicker way than one used to find before. It has definitely changed the behaviour of human kind, but if one wants to, he or she can live without digital technology and survive.

Source: Rückriem, G. Tool or Medium? The Meaning of Information and Telecommunication Technology  to Human Practice. A Quest for Systemic Understanding of Activity Theory. Helsinki, 2. 12. 2003.

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