Sleeping with another person. Whether its a five year old who has a bad dream and goes into their mother's bed for comfort. Or two people who have just made sex and are now cuddling together intimately while sleeping. Sleep is a very intimate thing, that allows closeness and togetherness. At our age, most of us don't share a bed with a partner, and if we do its usually not the way we would like to. But almost all of us sleep with our phones right next to us in bed! The problem with America today is that relationships are so superficial. Not that we are fake with our girlfriend or boyfriend, but its that digital media has reduced relationships to a sort of cyber-relationship, where we say the most intimate things in a text, or I-M. We actually have names for it, like "sex text". Meaning that people know what their doing, but are too wrapped up in the addiction of cyber-intimacy to come out of it.
In my past relationships, and a lot of my friends relationships, a big problem between the couple is that they don't spend enough time together. When in a relationship, at least one of the partners always wants to be with the other. I know thats how it is with me. Obviously no one can spend every second with a person, yet we do it with our phones. People are so over protective of their phones that they don't let anybody see them. They won't let anybody use them. They want them all for themselves. They share information with their phones (pictures etc.), don't want anybody to use them, and sleep with them. Sound like a girlfriend or boyfriend?
If possible, I'd like you to organize the thesis and arguments.
ReplyDeleteI think its going to be hard to write a whole paper based on one specific piece of technology, but it seems like you are loaded with information based on cellphone usage. I also like that you are connecting our connection with our phones to relationships with our lovers. It helps us make connections while deepening our insight.
I'd just like to see all of this in a organized format, and also your thesis that you will be writing your paper on. I personally wouldn't be able to write a whole paper on cellphones, but it seems like you have a deeper judgement about it being a problem than me, so I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Jace, first of all: get your mind out of the gutter =P Are you going to write your whole paper talking about people and children sleeping with each other? I do agree in a way though, with your arguments. Phones help us to keep in touch with people, and they fit as a digital representation of reality. I will give you credit though for using sleeping with a phone as a topic, while I wouldn't of thought anyone else would write their paper around this.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your EQ? Maybe you should use the one Andy said, which I'm trying to use. "Finally, what is it about these representations or simulations of reality (variously defined) that is so fascinating for us? Is it partly because our consciousness is itself a kind of representation of reality?" One spelling error that's annoying me is in your thesis, you wrote "their" instead of "they're".
Keep up the good work Jace! I look forward to reading your paper.
-Hannah