For option 2, I did do a close reading on my Dell laptop. I use my laptop for everything, whether it’s for checking emails, online television, video games, music or movies. I use my laptop to do my homework, watch movies, and download music. I also use MSN Messenger or Skype to talk to my family and friends worldwide. The laptop is a very useful machine that has no limits.
Laptops are an improvement of home desktops. Laptops can be carried anywhere and are made to fit in small spaces. Laptops are being made smaller every day, especially Macs. Laptops have changed in size ever since they were created. On a laptop, you can do infinite things. Your laptop is like your gateway to the world. It presents many resources to you through the World Wide Web. The possibilities of the laptop are countless. You are connected to friends through software and programs, such as Skype and Facebook. Owning a laptop is very important because it connects the individual to the world and many other things through the medium. The media is like an object with many signifiers. I believe the idea behind the laptop kind of shares McLuhan's thoughts, especially in his article The Medium Is the Massage. In this article, he emphasized that “the medium is the message” in terms of the electronic age, that a totally new environment has been created. The “content” of this new environment is the old mechanized environment of the industrial age. “
Understanding what you see on the laptop is very different from what you might see on television. By that I mean that for example when you’re on the laptop, there are many things right in front of you that you can engage in. But on the television, you can’t do anything but look at the images and hear the sounds.
I love my Dell laptop! I have had it for four years and have had no problems!! I also use my laptop daily. It contains many personal aspects of my life. It has my music, my pictures, and important documents. I spent a couple hours without my computer last week and it was amazing how much I could not do. I was constantly thinking about all of the things I could have been getting done the whole time I did not have it with me. Like you said, the possibilties on the laptop are countless!
ReplyDeleteI also did my close reading on my laptop. I use it for pretty much every aspect of my life: school, social, shopping, etc. It's crazy to think that previous generations did not have the ability to carry around so much information with them. I also agree with your statement about laptops vs. television.. there are so many ways to interact and engage with laptops.
ReplyDeleteI feel this reading of a laptop definitely illustrates the attachment that most of our generation (especially college students) has for computers, specifically laptops for they are portable, and its functions. It is funny, in a way, to consider how an older person who doesn't understand how/why computers have become such fundamental commodities. I too use my laptop for many uses in my daily life, but I would'nt necessarily consider their abilities to be limitless-however I understand how a lot of people have disgarded many traditional values/activities which are actually beyond the abilities of laptops. Things such as human contact, creation of art, production/distribution/use of music.... have been translated into the cyber world, but I feel that there is still something to be said about the authenticity and reality of the old ways of doing thigs (such as actually speaking to a person face-to-face, sculpting/drawing with your own hands, making music with physical instruments, and listening to music that is performed right infront of you). Laptops absolutly have revolutionized and transformed the world as we know it, however I feel that there are some negative effects that come along with allowing technology to take over each aspect of our lives. This relates to your mention of the medium being the message, as the medium of a computer may reproduce most of our daily activities, but it has different implications for what is done. I think it is great to utilize the technological advancements that are available to our generation, nevertheless, the importance of life in the tangible world deserves to be recognized and embraced as well.
ReplyDeleteYes, with laptops in our society, they have become something that is vital to us. Now, being a college student, I feel like I need to have my laptop everywhere I go because it provides me with a sense that I can instantly connect to the world anywhere I go. I use the McLuhan's theory for my close reading as well because I feel with any kind of technology today, the whole sense of the message is contained in the medium!
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