Understanding the Catfishes

     Communication is a hard task in the 21st century. I've once read a piece of miscellany where this writer depicts the awkward situation of two girls, each a friend of other, facing each other in a lunch parlor while each talking on their own cell phones. It seems like the real small talks are more and more losing their own values, while more and more people are getting into their own cell phones or Facebook accounts so much that those methods eventually make them pretty numb to the real world situation.
     Let's talk about this TED speech. Okay, I admit that at some points the speaker is trying to make her points seem larger than real. Even students right here in KMLA are some kind of multiplayers: they don't have any problem in associating with others while still enjoying themselves with Facebook or text messages. However, let's think of this peculiar case: the film Catfish. Don't know if it's staged or real by myself, but the film at least addresses some of the major issues of people creating a deceptive identity of themselves. Why would that be so? Internet is a space in which everything is so easy; all you need to do to make a new friend is simply typing some few vain words like "hello" or so and posting some photos of yourself. If you're not very proud of yourself, just pretend you are a cool guy with good appearance. Most of those who talk with you would never even try to guess out where do you really live.
     Simply put, think of what you talk about through text messages or messenger services. Are they really that meaningful? Mostly not, if you and the other are not that close acquaintances. Even though you are the popular one on the Facebook, that's it. In reality you feel that nothing's changed, and that you became isolated because all the others are the same as you - being logged in their own accounts. So you become very anxious whenver the computer is away from you. Cell phones are very similar. They are slowly becoming the only powerful (and also dangerous) means of communication for many.
     I didn't feel that surprised while watching the whole Catfish, since I've heard a similar story from one of my friends before. Now this is a story which can occur to us in everyday lives. I actually sympathize Angela in the story - maybe the Internet was the only space for her where she felt like she was having the privileges that she didn't think of beforehand. People are lonely today, since while the Internet gifted convenience, it also brought away with it our very old kind of communicative mind. So, to sum up (I know my arguments are a bit messy though), I do think that technological development is making people lonlier than before.

CR Topic.

I'm really, really sorry for being so late to post our new CR topic. I have no excuse for my being unable to heed the deadline, and I hope all my peers and Mr. Garrioch forgive me for my sluggishness.

Critical Response: Development in communication technology makes people more lonely.

     Now, this was a kind of clue given by Mr. Garrioch while I was still finding my way, and the fact is I really got into this speech. It's not a hard task, in fact, to see friends or family members or some other acquaintances so engrossed in text messages or some chatting apps in the iPhone. Seemingly, such a drastic development in communication technology tightened our relationships with each other; we can now talk more freely with our friends while comfortably lying on a bed, which is a blissful thing for a more convenient conversations. However, it actually brought some drawbacks as well, as the lecturer here, Sherry Turkle, mentions; we are also very prone to a new kind of loneliness created by this strange mood. What is the real conversation for? Isn't it that we are too obsessed with our own cell phones that we are so anxious about feeling lonely when they may disappear?

     I believe that this issue is not only concerend with cell phone text messages or e-mails, but also with social networking services such as Twitter or Facebook. I have worried a bit that whether those ways of communication are really used as online media of "real talks" or simply a place where you feel that you are commnunicating by simply "liking" somebody's photos and so on. I want you all to seriously think about if the communication technology today is really making people closer, or making them simply more vulnerable to loneliness.