Day Four with Frosted Designs!
13 years ago
I Facebook. There, I said it. I didn’t always Facebook--in fact, for the longest time, I made fun of those who regularly scurried to their computer screens to publish the minutia of their daily existences. Still, one day, at the insistence of my daughter, I finally set up a Facebook account. At first, I did not understand the intrigue, but as I found myself reconnected to friends that I hadn’t talked with in years, I began to visit the site more regularly. Still, I was determined not to become one of “those” Facebookers. I refused to post trivial details about my day, I laughed at those who posted inappropriate pictures and comments, and I outright mocked those who became engaged in heated online arguments—what idiots! But, it finally happened--I allowed myself to become so engrossed in the “reality” of Facebook, I temporarily lost all connection to sanity--I began to act in ways I never dreamed I would.
It started when my daughter’s boyfriend (now ex-boyfriend), David, asked to be my Facebook friend. I thought it was sweet that he asked, and I accepted. For the better part of a year, there were no problems, but then my daughter and he began to experience difficulties in their relationship. They didn’t air these problems on Facebook, thankfully; still, what transpired on Facebook eventually became, for me, the “reality” of their relationship. For example, I noticed those times that David did not call my daughter when he promised he would, but I could still see him online chatting on Facebook. I began to take note of when he would tell Jessi that he was going somewhere—for example, to the library to study—but would then appear online as soon as she logged off; additionally, tagged pictures of David began to pop up on Facebook…in one of them he was hugging his ex-girlfriend, and, in another, a cute girl was leaning against his arm. David insists to this day that these pictures were innocent—and they may very well be—but that is, really, beside the point. The point is I completely began to immerse myself in David’s Facebook life. I have never been able to stomach nosey people, and yet I found myself engaging in the worst kind of nosiness—to be honest (and there is no less painful way to state this), I was cyber-stalking my daughter’s boyfriend. I didn’t start as a complete cyber lunatic—at first, quite by accident, I noticed some of the occurences I mentioned above; however, later on, I became determined to “catch” David in his “transgressions.” Further, after the pictures of David with other girls appeared online, I messaged David. I didn’t wait until I had calmed down…I didn’t wait to find out any details…I didn’t allow my daughter to address her own situation…I was sitting at a keyboard when I saw the pictures, and I immediately typed out a message to David saying that he should either respect my daughter or leave her alone. I would like to believe that I am not prone to such impulsive stupidity, yet, obviously, the opposite is true. He was, of course, both very hurt and angry that I said anything to him, and annoyed that I had been following him on Facebook. David and Jessi later broke up--not over this particular incident (I would like to think)--but I still am horrified that I acted so irrationally. Further, I am appalled that I became so involved in “their” business.
I was thinking about all of this as we covered the handout of the interview/dialogue with Albert Borgmann and N. Katherine Hayles, in class. One quote in the article, in particular, jumped out at me: “…the crucial error these days is not to think of oneself as a machine but to shift one’s moral center of gravity into a machine of sorts—cyberspace”. Isn’t this exactly what I had done with my Facebook stalking?—shifted my moral center of gravity? Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that I altered my morals, completely, in cyberspace—it somehow became “okay” for me to behave in ways, on the internet, that I never would in the real world.
In the article, Borgmann also discusses how “cultural information takes on a life of its own so that we may be deceived or uncertain about whether a real person has addressed us from within cyberspace,” and while I realize that he is addressing how individuals lose sight of the fact that they are not just interacting with a machine, I feel that this is exactly what happened during my own Facebook experience. The ways in which events unfolded online, shaped the ways I perceived the reality of the situation. Additionally, I became disconnected from David, the person, and from Jessi and David’s real relationship—it all began to take on a “cyber” reality. When I messaged David, I talked to him in ways that I never talk to a person in the real world—and was genuinely surprised when I received an angry response. It was almost as if I was jarred back into an awareness that I had not been lashing out at a machine, but a real person, with real feelings.
Borgmann also explores how "…people, when entering cyberspace, sometimes reduce themselves to the shallow, disjointed, and cliché-ridden persona that can be mimicked by information technology and so become co-conspirators of their confusions about who is who," adding that "if we keep our mooring in reality and conduct ourselves thoughtfully in cyberspace, we will not fall prey to deception." And isn’t this precisely what happens to us on Facebook? We shape the “us” we want others to see--- with flattering pictures, beautiful children, perfect lives…we think we our building ourselves up, while, in reality, we are only creating watered-down, weak imitations of ourselves. And somehow, we become so desperate to connect with others, we don’t realize the ways in which we are connecting with them in cyberspace—by ruthlessly searching for the flaws in their perfect personas-- leaves us further disconnected from them. When this occurs, they cease being real people and become what the article would term “quasi-objects”— “collaborations between nature and culture.”
In the article, Borgmann also discusses how “cultural information takes on a life of its own so that we may be deceived or uncertain about whether a real person has addressed us from within cyberspace,” and while I realize that he is addressing how individuals lose sight of the fact that they are not just interacting with a machine, I feel that this is exactly what happened during my own Facebook experience. The ways in which events unfolded online, shaped the ways I perceived the reality of the situation. Additionally, I became disconnected from David, the person, and from Jessi and David’s real relationship—it all began to take on a “cyber” reality. When I messaged David, I talked to him in ways that I never talk to a person in the real world—and was genuinely surprised when I received an angry response. It was almost as if I was jarred back into an awareness that I had not been lashing out at a machine, but a real person, with real feelings.
Borgmann also explores how "…people, when entering cyberspace, sometimes reduce themselves to the shallow, disjointed, and cliché-ridden persona that can be mimicked by information technology and so become co-conspirators of their confusions about who is who," adding that "if we keep our mooring in reality and conduct ourselves thoughtfully in cyberspace, we will not fall prey to deception." And isn’t this precisely what happens to us on Facebook? We shape the “us” we want others to see--- with flattering pictures, beautiful children, perfect lives…we think we our building ourselves up, while, in reality, we are only creating watered-down, weak imitations of ourselves. And somehow, we become so desperate to connect with others, we don’t realize the ways in which we are connecting with them in cyberspace—by ruthlessly searching for the flaws in their perfect personas-- leaves us further disconnected from them. When this occurs, they cease being real people and become what the article would term “quasi-objects”— “collaborations between nature and culture.”
Borgmann addresses what, he sees, as increased desire for people to re-engage with real people and real things--how people are ready to come out of their “technological and mediated cocoons.” I see evidences of this in my own life—I seldom Facebook anymore—and when I quit engaging in online interaction so much I felt that I had emerged from some sort of strange cocoon of my own. When I discuss this with others, I hear similar stories. At some point, many people seem to get their fill of this altered reality, and desire real-life interaction again.
I am able to apply one final quote by Borgmann to my Facebook experience with David: “The temptation to entrust one’s curiosity and desires primarily to cyberspace will be even greater than it is now. To do so is not to commit a cognitive error but to become an accomplice in the diminishment of one’s person and one’s world.” I can, definitely, relate…I have seen this temptation up close. I have experienced, firsthand, the ways in which we are diminished when we dwell too far outside of the realm of reality; but I must now disagree with Borgmann on one point: for me, curiosity “killed the cat”--the temptation is quite simply…gone.
You can begin your own stalking experience at:
I’ve heard it said that once you start studying Critical Theory, you begin to see it everywhere, and since I have been taking literary theory, I have found this to be true. I was particularly interested to find an application of theory to electronic writing in Chapter 8 of Jay David Bolter’s book, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print.
Bolter likens the departure of electronic writing from traditional writing to the “radical departures from traditional ways of understanding literary texts” of the poststructuralists and postmodernists. He amends this statement, however, by adding that the malleability of electronic technology lends to its ability to be approached through a variety of critical theories (161). Bolter explores in greater detail the applications of these theories to hypertext. For example, he relates the precision of the electronic writing space—the ability to manipulate even the smallest of details—to New Criticism, whose theorists found perfection in form (164). Bolter also explores Reader Response Theory—the idea that only readers can determine the meaning of the text in the “moment-to-moment” act of reading, and concludes that the electronic writing space is so “dynamic,” it lends itself to a wide variety of interpretations by the reader (171). Additionally, Bolter discusses how “hypertext as the remediation of print has relied on the techniques pioneered in the modernist literary revolt”—techniques which included distortions of space and time (174). Bolter explores other theories as well, including Semiotics and Deconstruction, but his ultimate contention is this: we do not lose the application of theory through the remediation of text; in fact, according to Bolter, hypertext has an even greater ability to “elucidate” theory for its readers (188).
My husband is currently taking a Criminal Justice course in which they are applying theory to the study of criminology, and I have been reading the textbook his class has been using. In that text, I have been disappointed at the broad overviews the authors have given of the various theories—they are so broad, in fact, they seldom truly represent the theory from which they are drawn (Postmodernism, for example, is simply defined as the control of language by those in power); additionally, I have been slightly disgruntled at the weaknesses of the correlations drawn between theory and criminology. Bolter, however, is not guilty of this--this chapter has greatly enhanced my own fledgling understanding of Critical Theory.
I have probably written a stack of papers during my college career, and I am always aware of the inward groans and outward sighs of my husband, Michael, and my daughter, Jessi, when I ask them to read over something I’ve been working on for an assignment; likewise, as they, too, are college students, I’m sure I’ve done my fair share of complaining when they have asked me to do the same. However, I was intrigued to discover their eagerness to review my progress as I worked on my text-to-web project for Multimedia class.
The paper I chose for this assignment was a book review that I had completed for another class, and while Michael and Jessi had both read it prior to this assignment, I don’t remember them being particularly fascinated with this simple paper, although I am sure that they provided an appropriate amount of feedback, at the time. And yet, suddenly, when I posted this paper online and coupled it with graphics, they “oohed and aahed” over this piece. “That is really interesting!” they exclaimed (as if they had never before read it), “you’ve done such a good job with this!—I love both the writing and the visuals!” In fact, they would walk frequently by my chair to look on while I worked on this website, and when I was done, they each looked over it about half-a-dozen times--I’m usually doing good to get them to read over my papers just once.
Jay David Bolter discusses this powerful interaction between prose and visual images in Chapter 4 of his text, Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print. In “The Breakout of the Visual,” Bolter explains: “Words no longer seem to carry conviction without the reappearance as a picture of the imagery that was latent in them,”(54) and after observing the reactions of my husband and daughter, I am inclined to agree with him. I am convinced that it was the marriage of the text and visuals that enabled this particular piece to come to life for my family.
Bolter’s observation that text has, typically, “contained and constrained” the images on the printed page 47) also seems valid to me as I realize just how engaging text becomes in a visual environment--I find that I even enjoy reading my own work much more when visually represented. For example, while proofreading my text-to-web project, I probably read over the content close to a hundred times, yet I never felt overwhelmed by this process. In fact, once I had broken up the text and added graphics, I could hardly believe this started out being a four-page paper. I kept re-checking to ensure that I had not left something out. Compare this to when I first wrote this book review: after re-reading this paper about a dozen times, I was ready to take an Aim-n-Flame to it.
I will readily admit that prior to taking this class, I preferred printed books over hypertext; further, I balked at the ability of the internet to re-shape and re-energize writing. After completing our multimedia assignments, however, I understand why Bolter suggests that “hypermedia offers a challenge to printed text” (47). Prose is being remediated, and it is happening, vividly and visually, in cyberspace.
Gabby Giffords Before the Shooting
...and after
Last week, my husband and I watched Diane Sawyer’s televised interview of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle (“Gabby”) Giffords (part of this interview is available at YouTube.com at: http://youtu.be/-oqIadJE6GE). In January of this year, Giffords suffered a critical gunshot wound to the head when a disgruntled constituent approached her, outside of a supermarket in Tucson where she had been rallying, and shot her at point-blank range. Giffords has spent most of the past year recovering from her injuries at a rehabilitation facility in During the course of the interview, I frequently glanced at my husband, Michael, who openly wept throughout much of Giffords’s story, and although I knew he was overjoyed for Giffords, and was very much moved by her strength and courage, I also knew that he wept for very personal reasons of his own. You see, in 1988, two years before we met, my husband was involved in a motor-vehicle accident with a drunk driver on a little farm-to-market road outside of
the truck Michael was riding in
Requiring numerous surgeries, and on life-support, Michael remained in a coma for over two weeks, and his family was told that he was not expected to survive; later, his family would be told that if he did survive he would never walk or talk again, he would most likely never be able to have children, and he would, probably, only ever have the brain function of a small child. Like Giffords, my husband baffled experts with his recovery, and, like Giffords, he was eventually transferred to TIRR, where he, too, spent months learning to walk and talk again. All during this time, my mother-in-law, refusing to accept the prognoses of my husband’s doctors, thankfully, took pictures of him, immediately after his accident and during his recovery (some of which I have included here), so that he could chronicle his progress. A year after his accident, with the assistance of a walker, my husband visited each and every church that had let him know they were praying for him, and told the members of each congregation, “This is what your prayers can do!”
...while he was in a coma
It has been almost twenty-two years since my husband’s accident, and while it has been necessary for him to undergo numerous back surgeries these past years, and while he still suffers from chronic pain relating to his injuries, he is very much alive and very much, in our opinions, a living-and-breathing miracle. We have now been married for twenty years, have a beautiful daughter who is eighteen, and, as I mentioned in a previous blog, Michael will graduate from college this December—he has proven the doctors wrong on almost all counts. When Michael walks across the stage to receive his diploma, he will be the first person, ever, in his family to graduate from college, and while this is an amazing accomplishment in itself, you might now understand why the fact that he is walking across the stage at all, may be the most amazing part of the story.
Michael and our daughter, Jessi
My family’s recent trip to the beach led to my choice of a seascape theme for this blog. Just staring at the tranquil blue-green screen helps to calm me, and I am transported away in my mind, at least for a few minutes, to a more tropical and relaxing locale. The beach is my happy place, you see…I am never more content than when I am staring out at the waves crashing against the coastline, digging my bare toes into the sand, or scouring the shore for beautiful and unique seashells--those treasures of the deep. I think it’s possible that I may have actually been born with salt water in my veins—at least I have photographic proof that I have been playing in the surf since I was young enough to be in diapers. If I could afford to, I would live at the beach—my husband doesn’t agree. While Michael enjoys visiting the beach occasionally, he is more of a hiking-through-the-mountains kind of guy. I enjoy visiting the mountains, but could never live there permanently; thus, if a bird and fish fall in love, where do they live?—in Woodville , Texas
Some of my happiest memories have taken place at the beach. When I was growing up, summers at the beach not only represented flying kites along the shore, body-surfing in the waves, gently swaying in a hammock in the warm breeze, collecting sea glass, and gathering around campfires after dark to roast hot dogs, they also represented those precious and happy times when our entire extended family came together. Everyone…aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, grandparents…gathered together at the beach to take at least a few days out of their busy lives--to play together, cook together, and to make happy memories together. It is in the salty sea air where time seemed, for me, to stand still in some wonderful alternate universe. Of course, as we grow older, family members die, we become wrapped up in the frenetic pace of our own lives, and we struggle, in today’s economy, to take such retreats--that is why I enjoyed, so much, our recent trip to the beach. My husband, my daughter, and I only went for a weekend, and only to Galveston Strand , and dined on beach-side balconies at sunset. My daughter, an avid scrap booker, documented our brief, but wonderful vacation thoroughly with pages-upon-pages of pictures, seashells, and words, and I have to believe that, if only for a few days, we made time stand still again.
Galveston Seawall
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The finish line to which I am referring in the title of my blog is my impending graduation from college this December 2011. When I finally walk (maybe dance…maybe cartwheel!) across the stage of the Montagne center, on December 17th at 9:30 a.m., and receive my Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Arts and Sciences, I will do so twenty-four years after first beginning college in 1987!—thus the crawl to the finish line. My husband of twenty years, Michael, will also be receiving his Bachelor’s Degree in General Studies from Lamar University on the same day! (at 1:30 p.m.)--twenty-one years after he first began college!—and in attendance will be our daughter and biggest cheerleader, Jessi, who is a sophomore at Lamar. While my husband and I begged the administration of Lamar to allow us to graduate in the same ceremony, they refused, stating that it would create too much of a paperwork hassle and that we would just have to be content with graduating on the same day—nevertheless, we are still ecstatic about this impending accomplishment!
CLICK HERE FOR LAMAR UNIVERSITY GRADUATION INFORMATION: http://dept.lamar.edu/records/graduation.htm
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