Cyber bullying: Technology and McLuhan

[coberst]

Cyber bullying: Technology and McLuhan

The cruel mob pursued 13 year old Megan Meier through our high tech “social networking site MySpace and called Megan a liar, a fat ***** and worse.

McLuhan has stated that all technology is an extension of a human faculty. The ‘bomb is an extension of the fist’ is a simple example.

“The Medium is The Message is the phrase that made Marshall McLuhan famous. It is a phrase most of us, young and old, have heard. Until recently this was a mysterious phrase that left me speechless.

Megan, 13, fought back, but she was overwhelmed.

Let’s get very fundamental here and go back to the invention of the alphabet to understand what McLuhan is talking about and why it is important.

“The Greek myth about the alphabet was that Cadmus, reputedly the king who introduced the phonetic letters into Greece, sowed dragoon’s teeth, and they sprang up armed men. Like any other myth, this one capsulates a prolonged process into a flashing insight. The alphabet meant power and authority and control of military structures at a distance. When combined with papyrus, the alphabet spelled the end of the stationary temple bureaucracies and the priestly monopolies of knowledge and power.

“The phonetic alphabet is a unique technology¦This stark division and parallelism between a visual and an auditory world was both crude and ruthless, culturally speaking. The phonetically written sacrifices worlds of meaning and perception that were secured by forms like the hieroglyphs and the Chinese ideogram. These culturally richer forms of writing, however, offered men no means of sudden transfer from the magically discontinuous and traditional world of the tribal word into the cool and uniform visual medium.

“All of these forms [pictographic and hieroglyphic] give pictorial expression to oral meanings. As such, they approximate the animated cartoon and are extremely unwieldy, requiring many signs for the infinity of data operations of social action. In contrast, the phonetic alphabet, by a few letters only, was able to encompass all languages.

“She felt there was no way out, Ms. Meier said.

Consider the invention of the printing press and the introduction of books to the society. A book communicates a message. Many books communicate many messages. ‘The book’ communicates the same message to everyone who comes into contact with the book. The book transmits the same message to everyone while many books transmit many different messages to many different people.

Evolution moves very slowly. We adapt to our environment very slowly. We survive because we do adapt. When we change more quickly than we can adapt we face problems that we have not had the time to make the kind of adjustments necessary.

The habits we acquire determine our state of mind. Our changing habits are part of this process of adaptation to our environment. Do not think of environment as being just the quality of our air or water but it is a broad term signifying the world we live in.

So we have changed very dramatically our habits that were part of us when we knew little and understood much. I am speaking relatively here. What happens to us as a result of this dramatic change? I do not know but I only point to the fact as worth consideration.

Examine how we sit and watch TV for several hours everyday. When we watch TV we are constantly being transported perceptively from one scene to another. Think for a minute if instead of sitting and watching TV we were physically escorted done a hallway with many doors. Then we open a door and are physically placed into this world we see on TV. Our reaction would be very different. In other words we are creatures prepared for a certain world that no longer exists. This is the definition of a forthcoming extinction if we think about the meaning of evolution.

“Mom, they’re being horrible! Megan said, “sobbing into the phone when her mother called. After an hour, Megan ran into her bedroom and hanged herself with a belt.

Has our technology become our master? I think so.

This story about Megan by Christopher Maag, “When the Bullies Turned Faceless was published in the December 17 edition of the NYTimes.

[G#Gill]

In Megan's case, in my opinion, those filth are all guilty of murder.

I escaped from a site which seemed to have quite a few of these scroats skulking around, who, for some strange reason (possibly jealousy) picked on a handful of us on a particular thread. They were sarcastic, sneering, then downright rude and threatening. Because we stuck to our guns and would not be 'chased' off the site, they just got worse, sending nasty emails to us, wicked emails in fact. I had my identity stolen (not sure how they were able to do this) and caused mischief on the site in my site name ! The site management were either unable or unwilling to bother to trace this imposter, so I left the site, deleted all my details, as did most of my friends - a couple remained members just to 'spy' on what was going on, and 'pop' in there occassionally. We were badly hurt by all this. Because we left the site we felt that 'they had won' which we had tried to avoid. It would seem that 'they' are still on that site, no doubt picking on others.

I just cannot understand what makes these 'people' tick, why they gain enjoyment from causing others such stress by their hand.

[coberst]

I suspect that technology is like a virus. We must become a good deal more sophisticated intellectually in order to control it rather than having it control us as it now does. We are very good at the kind of reasoning demanded by technology but very inadequate with reasoning required to learn to live together.

Our habits determine our fate to a large extent. Our habits, just like the habits of an athlete will determine success. Our habits prepare us for the now. Now is no time to change habits—habits control what we can or cannot do at the moment action is required. This includes especially our habits of mind. If we do not form an honest mind we will not behave honestly intellectually when the time requires it. This is what CT (Critical Thinking) is partially about. By studying CT we are creating the proper set of intellectual habits that we will guide us in the future.

[lemon_and_mint]

I have for some time had my own online stalker -

unfortunately, like a lot of people who work in quite visible spheres and have their information online, anyone can find out who and where i am.Unfortunately, a photo of me also appears on the company website, and this I fear, is the trigger.

I have tried to ignore this individual and not be drawn into conversation with - i presume a male - but i have no way of knowing.I was hoping that this would make the individual bored and they would stop, unfortunately, the inverse appears to be true - the more i ignore them, the more they stalk.

At this point, where the stalking crosses a line into the real world, and I receive personal threats, (before, it was just irritating weird stuff), I have no option but to involve the police and this is somewhat frightening.As all contact with my organisation is recorded, a conviction will be relatively easily, once a court is petitioned to find the identity of this individual, which will be requested of the phone company and isp servers.

Luckily I do not work at the main company address which is the only one shown on the website othersite i would be a lot more worried.

It happens, alas, all too easily.

[coberst]

Technology extends humans far beyond their ability to respond intelligently.

[lemon_and_mint]

i think that as in the case of megan and my own case, the perpetrators really believe that

- either as they can't be seen, they are safe to behave as they like

or - they can behave in a way in whch they would not usually, and do not believe it hurts anyone, because, "it isn't real">