POST 3: Individual Work on "The Idea Of Progress"

Facebook Home : "Airplane"

After a long time trying to figure out which document I should pick for my presentation, I ended up choosing one of the most cliché topics to ever bless our generation: Facebook.

Like I said previously, this document is a video I found on YouTube and it’s a Facebook add that promotes its qualities and characteristics. The main character has to be the gentleman boarding his plane and checking his profile before the plane launches in the air. It is a comical commercial because the man in question, after looking at his friend’s updates on his phone, feels like he is sharing those moments with them in real life even though they are apart. It’s funny how we see people randomly appearing out of nowhere in the plane. Obviously, no one seems to notice those visions because everything goes through the main character’s brain, and it feels like he is traveling twice because we can see him physically going somewhere through the plain and mentally swimming in his imagination thanks to his friend’s Facebook updates.

The video ends with a hostess who asks the man to stop using his phone so the plane could launch in the airs. Before doing so, he checks his profile for one last time before drifting in his passenger seat with his friends updates still in memory.

Thanks to our new technology, in this case, Facebook, we can get in touch with people we lost contact with and we can even chat and share memories together through a thin screen that can be our telephones or laptops/computers. Nowadays, talking to people who live miles away is extremely easy if we have internet or phones, so now we can even meet new people we never met in real life or talk to persons with lost contact with through the years. Finding said people is extremely easy when we just have to remember their names and enter it on our Facebook “search” page.

Facebook is used by almost everyone, and it has a lot of accounts. We can say that it’s a huge community and having someone in front of you doesn't seem to be a necessity ever since we have the internet. It can be used for a lot of things like sharing pictures, messing around with your friend’s profiles, playing online games and of course, talk to people.

Personally, I’m not a “Facebook addict”. I hardly get online. The only time I go there is probably about the homework is missed or I simply “stalk” my friend’s pictures (not like it would change my life, but it’s a good way to pass time). I might be skeptical towards Facebook but it can be pretty useful for people who can't talk to their friends because of geographical reasons. It’s always nice to see people reunited thanks to that mainstream social media, so I shouldn't spoil their fun even though I don’t agree with the statement “Facebook it’s the greatest thing ever”.

High technology is improving really quickly and it tries its best to make our life easier, and by easier, I mean:”not leaving your house just to talk to people.”

Post 2 : Videos

1. Mr. Too much Technology Gadget Guy

Description: 

This video is structured around two main narrative voices and a character illustrating what the voice-over says while a singer often simply repeats what's just been said.

The setting is a Christian home and church, so this particular context is particularly meaningful. We can notice on various occasions that the main character is addicted to high-tech products, mostly smartphones. He is shown as a family man unable to communicate with his wife, except through texting. He is also shown as a church-goer incapable of attending worship  without all his phones vibrating all the time, marking him look like he's full of the holy spirit.

Finally, he is depicted as a computer geek whose life has become extremely complicated instead of having been simplified.

Interpretation:

Basically, this video means that high technology has become a religion for many people, even Christians who are not supposed to be materialistic. 

=> Then, in a christian lifestyle, quite a few church goers and believers tend to focus more on materialistic issues rather than spiritual ones. 

=> We can add that technology reigns supreme for many people who revere it as a God enlightening his followers. 

The question is, is this a real progress for mankind ? 

2. When Technology is too much / OR : Missing SAT Question :

Description:

Two people are stuck on an elevator in a place that seems literally empty.

The man looks annoyed. He might be an office worker walking to his job.The woman claims that she is already late, so for her, this is the last straw. At one point, she's about to cry and asks for a phone. 

In short, they both look helpless and even hopeless.

Interpretation:

 We can relate this situation to a fairly common one in real life : getting stuck on/in an elevator. The difference is, however, that in this situation, people have the right to fell panicky whereas on an escalator, there is no reason whatsoever to be panic. 

This video points out the increasing dependence of human beings on technology. If it goes missing, it is as if a crutch had been taken away from, so these two people cannot even climb the stairs which would be the normal thing to do. We could think  that technological progress makes humans lazy or at least less prone to taking initiatives by themselves.

Post 1 : A Cartoon by Chappatte

This drawing is a cartoon published in the International Herald Tribune and drawn by Chappatte, a rather famous cartoonist. The exact date of its publication is unfortunately unknown.

This cartoon which seems like an innocent attempt to provoke laughter in the audience actually holds a striking and important message that tackles a really important issue going on nowadays in our media-obsessed world. It is a much debated topic because the theme of pirating movies or music (in this case : a movie) is tackled and so frequently used that some people even consider it as "normal" thing when it should be illegal.

This cartoon is made up of 3 main characters that catch our eye from the start, it also includes a dialogue bubble, a red carpet and a huge sign that reads "Cannes". Among our main characters, we have a young a stunning lady, standing next to a young man who looks like a movie director and that said man is signing an autograph for a young teen who says "I love your movies, I've pirated them all". On his t-shirt, we can see the "@" sign, and that tell us that the blond boy is the representation of the internet.

The Cartoonist Chappatte is aiming to tell us that people nowadays tend to download movies on the internet instead of purchasing them. This cartoon raises our consciousness because it makes us aware of how deep we are in the pirating world because downloading movies illegally is an act of thievery towards the people who spend their gaining in other to achieve their goals.

Overall, this cartoon is trying to show us the way our century works by reminding us that we can find everything on the internet by "stealing" it from their rightful owners. To us, it doesn't mean anything, but for the ones who made those things, its a whole new story. It is amazing how people can download illegally and still get away with it (most of the time).

This document is not really original but at least, it gives us a simple but accurate summary or this situation. I personally find it convincing and effective because things pretty much work like this nowadays.

I have to agree with this message even though i tend to download movies from the internet most of the time (but i also go to the movie theater 99% of the time!) and i think that the cartoonist was right to choose this topic because i'm sure a lot of people will feel concerned when they see it.

This whole subject and cartoon makes me think that the progress of the internet and our technology are going a little too far. Now, people can download those movies, put them in CDs and then sell them in their shops.  I hate it when people do that because its like they are claiming all the rights of the movies for themselves, and it pains me to know that some people to these kind of pirating conspiracy in my home country. People should stop doing that and start respecting other people's hard work instead.