Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] Derrick deKerchove & Technology Effects on Humans
tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de
Date: Sun 21 May 2000 - 14:28:19 MEST
From: tripathi@statistik.uni-dortmund.de Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] Derrick deKerchove & Technology Effects on Humans Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 05:28:19 -0700
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Greetings IFETS Campus,
DeKerckhove -he was the McLuhan assistant and student in the last years
of McLuhan's life -- now he is director of the McLuhan Program in Culture
and Technology and Professor of French at the University of Toronto. Derrick
deKerchove addresses Technology Effects on Humans at RCC 2000 Conference.
In a summary, which of the history of human intelligence, communication
and technology, Derrick deKerckhove raised profound questions about the
effects of human interaction with technology.
Author of Connected Intelligence: Communicating in the Web Society, and a
colleague of the late Marshall McLuhan, deKerckhove defined connected
intelligence as "the oldest human form of communication; the basis and the
norm of human communication," distinct from private and collective
intelligence. He also wrote _The_Skin_Of_Culture_ (Sommerville House
Publishing, Toronto, 1995)
He characterized the Internet as "a social central nervous system," of
human communication, offering both private and public access, and being
"neither individual nor collective but connective."
In a sometimes witty, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes serious analysis
of the new technologies of the "The Web Society," deKerckhove compared
television and computer interactivity technologies. In "the emigration of
mind from head to screen," he characterized television as the most
"external" medium, "outside the mind and body."
He also anticipates that the new technologies will be very beneficial to
education in developing countries and very important to developing global
church relationships.
"The new technologies will create 'The New Community,' deKerckhove
asserted, since "the Internet favors community maintaining rather than
building," strengthening religious communities by ending isolation for
many, and by forming "just-in-time" support groups for others. An
additional and unseen technological benefit is that the oral and immediate
history of the community will be instantly archived.
DeKerckhove said: "Spirituality is profoundly connective, and hence not
adverse to the Internet. Spirituality is independent, but not indifferent,
and each person has a connective responsibility." Because "the Internet is
not a mass culture," quality becomes the issue, not quantity, and "the
smaller voice can be heard over the larger institutional voice. There is no
greater power than language."
Acknowledging a cosmic "change of scale" involving "a huge expansion of
time and space" symbolized by the millennium and satellites, deKerckhove
noted that the personal scale is also "enlarged and all-at-once. This
technology puts the world in our hands." He ended with two challenges to
the interfaith communicators. "There is a tremendous need for a religious
presence on-line. Can we find and foster spirituality in the new
technologies?"
Then, noting the globalization of new technologies and their profound
impact on self and world, he asked: "How do we interpret these changes?"
Hope, this will add some points to the on-going discussions!
Thanking you!
Sincerely
Arun Tripathi
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