All the first thoughts that come to my mind when it comes to media convergence are positive. In The article "The Cultural logic of media convergence" author Henry Jenkins paints a very clear picture of what media convergence is by giving several examples. One example that he gave felt as though he had been observing me personally for my entire college career. He wrote "A teenager doing homework may juggle four or five windows, scanning the web, listening to and downloading MP3 files, chatting with friends, wordprocessing a paper and responding to email, shifting rapidly between tasks." This describes my life so well, I just did not realize how common of a thing it was. A few years ago when I would be doing my homework online late at night and had my myspace page open people would seem shocked when I said I was doing my homework, as if they did not think it was normal to multitask. But over time I have seen it become more and more common among my friends. In fact it has reached the point where almost all of my friends I talk to on facebook are doing homework or are at work at the time. This has made it so we are still able to socialize with our friends and family while doing activities such as work and school, which before this new technology was not possible. Now there may be an argument to be made that our productivity has gone done because of this, but I feel this would most likely come from the older generation who have not embraced new media technology. In my estimation I would assume that as the younger generation grows and becomes managers of large companies that they will not feel as threatened by people multitasking at work (talking to friends and family online, listening to music etc.) I believe it is the way the culture is going, we are converting to total convergence.
Another positive thing I have found with media convergence is how technology has enhanced today's cell phones. Jenkins talks about how you can now listen to a music group on a phone, on the radio, on the computer, on tv etc. I remember years ago when I first got a cell phone wishing there was a technology to actually send my friends clips of funny tv shows that we had as inside jokes instead of only being able to text quotes. Now that is possible, and much more than I even thought would be possible all inside of a phone. But these new media technologies things definitely have enhanced my personal relationships.
I remember my first cell phone as well. I however never thought that it would be possible to have anything more than the ability to call out and play snake. Now that we can do almost everything we can imagine on the little thing. But, i feel as though convergence will continue to show up in future phones and we will again experience in our lifetime even more capabilities on a cellphone!
ReplyDeleteI also think that this has enhanced my relationships with people. Maybe not so much in a personal way i don't see people as much or hear there voice, its more of a text or e-mail, and occasionally a phone call I do agree with you though and feel like it has helped my relationships as well.
I am the same way when it comes to doing homework and playing on facebook. I have also noticed that many of my friends are doing the same thing. I do think that because of these social networking sites, productivity may have gone down.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I got my first cell phone, I thought it was great, it was so basic. I never thought that in the future we would be able to listen to music, get on the internet, watch tv, and do so many other things. Its amazing how this technology has chaged so much in a few years.
I do agree that we as a society are on our way to total convergence. There are so many new media technologies out there now. Most people are willing to adapt and learn how to use them, and then there are other people, possibly older generations who won't convert to new technology. It will be interesting to see what the next ten years holds when it comes to technology.