David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect, pages 1-106

Much similar to the movie, The Social Network, David Kirkpatrick's The Facebook Effect; The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World tells the story of nerdy, socially awkward Mark Zuckerberg as he discovers the social phenomena, Facebook. This first third of the book continues on a much similar path of the movie, in which Zuckerberg's personality is revealed and the beginnings of Facebook are documented. Kirkpatrick describes Zuckerberg as the quiet introvert type, although surprisingly enough, he seemed to attract girls because of "...his confidence, his humor, and his irreverence" (Kirkpatrick 20). He appeared as somewhat of an elitist, easily bored with the conversations of strangers and ridden with a super-ego; "... if you went (talked) on too long or said something obvious, he would start looking through you. When you finished, he'd quietly mutter 'yeah,' and then change the subject or turn away" (Kirkpatrick 20). This description of Zuckerberg remains consistent with that of the movie, in which he is portrayed as a cocky nerd, resentful to those who he either finds too boring, or to those who he feels don't pay him the proper attention.

Later in the first part of the book, Kirkpatrick describes how Facebook, or called in those early days, Thefacebook, derived from Zuckerberg's earlier project(s), Facemash. Facemash was similar to websites such as Hotornot.com, in which the viewer judges two different girls and decides which one is "hotter". However, after getting dumped by his girlfriend at a local bar, Zuckerberg went back to his dorm at the Kirkland House and created this new website Facemash, in which viewers judged two or more different girls and decided which one was hotter (very similar to Hotornot.com), however in this case the girls actually belonged to the university. Zuckerberg, or "Zuck", hacked into the Kirkland House's directory, and uploaded pictures of the girls who belonged to the house onto his site, and coded it so that students all over the university could judge these girls from Kirkland House and rate them (Kirkpatrick 24). The difference between random girls from other known sites and Zuck's Facemash is that the students who actually rated the girls, knew the girls in real life. Students were judging online girls that they possibly knew, or interacted with, or just saw, on a day to day basis around school. This local, and familiar aspect of Facemash was crucial to the development of Facebook. On Facebook, as most of us all know pretty well, the user interacts with people he or she knows in the real world, his friends. This aspect of Facemash built the fundamental social networking idea that Facebook is built upon.

The rest of this portion of the book describes how Thefacebook grew out of the Harvard campus, and by the end of the summer of 2004, was now on over 34 schools and over 100 thousand members (Kirkpatrick 41). Also, Kirkpatrick introduces Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake, the boy-band superhero, in the movie), one of the co-founders of Napster, and documents Parker's early contributions to Thefacebook.com. Although a little silly, one of the major contributions Parker made to Zuckerberg and his growing company was to drop the 'The" in Thefacebook.com.

I think that beyond a shadow of a doubt Facebook was driven to success by the ambitions of Zuckerberg, and also by his cocky and self-righteous attitude he had towards himself. Zuckerberg, already early in the makings of Facebook, would undergo a law suit filed by the Winkelvoss twins, who had come to Zuckerberg early in the 2003 school year to hire Zuck as a coder for their own idea of a social networking site. Also, he would lose his bestfriend and CFO of the company due to legal issues surrounding Saverin's shares in the company, and disputes Saverin had with Parker about control of Facebook (Kirkpatrick 87).
 

Andrew Dalby's The World and Wikipedia, pages 114-225

Andrew Dalby continues to unveil to the reader just why Wikipedia is so appealing to the public, and also the reasons to which it cannot be used as a proper academic encyclopedia. In the beginning of the latter part of the book, Dalby explores the reasons unto why we (the people, as stated by co-founder Jimmy Wales and later reemphasized by the author) love Wikipedia so much; "We love it because it is a virtual nation, or rather a virtual world. We, the people of this virtual world, can be as shy and anonymous as we like, and yet our work, good and bad, is listed and others can explore it"  (Dalby 120). Dalby's assertion that Wikipedia exists as a virtual world further illustrates the direction in which society is headed in the technological age. I think that the reason why Wikipedia has become so popular is that contributors can remain anonymous, while still providing scholarly work to the global community. The fact that contributors, if desired, can remain anonymous is a huge factor both to why so many people frequent the site, and also to why internet games and sites remain and are growing increasignly popular. This is for one basic fact; contributors to sites such as Wikipedia can publish work to a much larger community than they could if they were revising and creating articles in a printed encyclopedia, and probably more fundamentally important, these people can contribute without their identity being known by anyone as they so choose, a distinction that could not be made outside of the "virtual" world. Aside from the appealing aspect of remaining hidden yet probably contributing to a much larger network (more people frequent Wikipedia than any individual encyclopedia (Dalby 9), the contributors to the site often come in contact with each other, an inevitable trait of Wikipedia itself. This sort of networking is beneficial because contributors are able to acquire peers that would otherwise be impossible if the internet, and the encyclopedia itself, did not exist.


However, there are still some concerns surrounding the user ship of the site. With any contribution by non-professionals, there is bound to be at least some degree of bias within the articles (Dalby 157). Dalby claims that the, "articles, which are supposed to be definitive and stable, are in reality endlessly mutable; an added detail may very soon disappear again, and article histories are seldom visited" (Dalby 164). In other words, contributors that have a hidden agenda in editing articles for political purposes ultimately is detrimental to the survival of these articles on an unbiased, definitive level. The publication of certain articles revolving around political figures are bound to stir controversy, because the analysis of political events are without a doubt opinionated, and although the articles are supposed to remain neutral and present the facts, a certain level of bias always seems to arise in the publication of these types of articles.

Andrew Dalby's The World and Wikipedia, pages 7-113

Andrew Dalby and his work, The World and Wikipedia; How We are Editing Reality, demonstrate the power and accessibility of the world's fastest growing online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. In the openings of the book, Dalby gives the reader a good idea of what it is like to take part in the Wikipedia community: he takes a handful of users and documents their activity on the site over a course of a few hours, mentioning what articles they created, modified, or in the case of KeyKingz13, a deliberate attempt to sabotage the hard work of other Wikipedians. Other than this, the first chapter consists largely of the work done by Wikipedians, and demonstrates the power and long-lasting reach Wikipedia has on the online community, as well as the world. The roots of Wikipedia, as told by Dalby, are founded in ancient texts that imitate modern Encyclopedia's, such as Gaius Plinius Secundus's, or Pliny's, 'Survey of Nature' (Dalby 20). In the third portion of the book, Dalby goes into great detail of the reception of Wikipedia in its earliest stages by botht he public and the press. According to Dalby, "Wikipedia had attracted more than a thousand new entries a month from everything from astronomy to the visual arts. It is clear, without even reading Dalby's documentation of the history of Wikipedia, that it is a an extremely influential tool and effective tool for any sphere of the public. Otherwise unknown editors, anonymous and named users have the ability to edit millions of articles on the online encyclopedia, with a specific interest in a field available to the editor.

The site, and other sites like it, have greatly changed what it means to be connected to the internet. It is one of the first sites that peers on the internet actually work side by side to achieve something greater than themselves, in fact the goal they achieve is not actually measured by any official party, rather the public's viewing of the Wiki pages grants the ultimate satisfaction of the Wikipedians work.

Neil Postman's Technopoly, pages 92-199

Postman starts out the latter part of his book, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by citing Americans tendency to aggressively diagnose and treat patients with medicine. A phrase that correlates with Postman's thesis about the aggressiveness of American physicians, most likely due to the abudance of machinery available and the amount of potential capital earned by using such machines, highlights the attitude towards American medicine both in the time it was written, and even today, in a technologically brimming society: "Desperate diseases require desperate remedies" (Postman 97). Postman writes; "...American medicine was attracted to new technologies. Far from being 'neutral', technology was to be the weapon with which disease and illness would be vanquished" (Postman 97). The effects of such technologies in the field of medicine had subsequent results, of which are still just as relevant today as they were when these technologies were first introduced into the field: "...interposing an instrument between patient and doctor would transform the practice of medicine; the traditional methods of questioning patients, taking their reports seriously, and making careful observations of exterior symptoms would become increasingly irrelevant" (Postman 99). With the introduction of technology to the practice of medicine, the methods in which doctors diagnose and treat patients has completely transformed, although we, the present society, have not really noticed this transformation as we have only existed in society that has had availability to such technologies. Of course, as Postman mentioned in the beginning of his work, not all technology is bad, in fact in most cases specific technologies are developed to benefit mankind in a certain aspect, otherwise their creation would be useless and the practice of such technologies would be obsolete. However, that is not to say that all medicinal technologies are beneficial, in fact Postman highlights this in the beginning of this chapter by citing statistics in which American doctors seemingly overuse such technologies, conducting unnecessary X-rays and performing C-sections to an nth degree, etc.  However, in the present society, there really is no stopping this overuse and American aggressiveness with medicine, rather the emergence of this technology has become so integrated in our society that it would be hard to imagine modern medicine without its practice.

Postman later goes on to describe the machine like attributes of language; "But in many respects, a sentence functions very much like a machine, and this is nowhere more obvious than in the sentences we call questions"(Postman 125). He later goes on to give an example of the difference between a fill-in question and a multiple choice question, highlighting the concept that students would be "smarter" at the latter question than at the first because it gives us choices. Although not a machine, language does similarly reflect some of the most basic functions  that machines do. Postman makes us aware of the modification of language, and how this modification can differ our perception of the world around us. He gives us an example of a Japanese professor/doctor at MIT, who addressed his country men to reason with science in the English language, because it contains an "ideological bias" that helps deal with the reasoning of science more effectively than Japanese (Postman 124).

Neil Postman's Technopoly, pages xi-91

Neil Postman begins his book, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by recounting the legend of Thamus and Theuth, told through the ancient philosopher Socrates. In this legend, Postman highlights a key error that Thamus makes when considering Theuth's new invention, writing. Thamus decides that the invention of writing will force those who "...rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources" (Postman 4). Postman points out Thamus's error; "We may learn from this that it is a mistake to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect" (Postman 4). Thus, by taking from Postman's argument, it would be irresponsible of us to only view new technologies in a one sided manner, rather noting the pros and cons of each developing technology is the only healthy way to predicting its impact on culture.

Postman later goes on to develop his theory of our culture emerging as a technocracy, or "a society only loosely controlled by social custom and religious tradition and driven by the impulse to invent"(Postman 41). Postman marks the date of America rising as a technocracy with the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, in which Smith defines humanity as an "Economic Man", "born with an instinct to barter and aquire wealth"(Postman 41). Smith's theory of the Economic Man, and Postman's deliverance of it to his book highlights the direction in which our culture, one explicitly revolving around the development of new technologies. With this emergent culture, and Smith's Economic Man, it is easy to see how our day to day life is becoming more intertwined with these new technologies and how they benefit our capitalist society, rather than the individualistic society that has been lost with the emergence of our new technological culture, or technopoly.

Towards the end of the chapter, Postman describes his social scientific experiments, in which he claims something outlandish to see if his colleagues would believe him. Although it may appear rather silly, Postman's experiments actually underline a very crucial aspect of our culture; we almost believe anything that seems outlandish, or more specifically something that seems outlandish that has to deal with science, because we do not have the information ready to disprove such concotions of the imagination, and thus we have become more susceptible to new and somewhat outlandish technologies in our society that may have no real purpose or use.

Giles Slade Made to Break (pages 83-185)

Much of what Slade tells us in his book, Made to Break, is a history of certain technologies that became outdated due to new technological innovations. For instance, Slade gives us an account of the silk industry, primarily how the American Great Depression affected the manufacturing of silk in Japan. Due to the hard times found in America, and all over the world, in the 1930's to the eve of World War II, the Japanese silk industry was failing, and a call for a new silk replacement was being heard (Slade 116-118). Slade tells us because of this, later developments in technology gave way to synthetic silk, the future of the silk industry.

Slade later goes on to note the practice of "planned obsolescence" during the Cold War era, in which Vance Packard introduced "manipulation ism"  to the American economy, and new technologies were being produced to replace older styles of living. The Cold War, a time in which the traces of the modern computer were being developed, and new manufacturing methods were replacing antique ones, was a turning point in technological obsolescence in America. As civilization has made technological advancements in the past 200 years that exponentially exceed those of humankind's prior existence, it is no wonder that new technologies replace those developed just 5 years ago. We can only speculate as to what Slade will cite in the last part of the book, noting the obsolescence of technologies we all use today, even this moment, and the future of these technologies in a world where today's technologies are being expanded upon for tomorrow's new and cool developments.

Giles Slade Made to Break (pages 1-81)

Glade begins his account of the obsolescence of technology by informing the reader on some pretty scary statistics.  For example, Americans discarded about 100 million cell phones in 2005, amounting to about 50,000 tons of now wasted equipment (Slade 1). Every year usable cell phones are simply thrown away, amounting to what Slade calls "a toxic time bomb" (Slade 2). Obviously the fact that all these cell phones being discarded raises a serious environmental issue, but it also underlines the rate in which new technology is being consumed, and what we call "old" technology being placed on the shelf. By understanding Slade's statistic about the average life of a PC (Slade claims Americans use their computers for only two years), and how he later states that this life span is being continually cut down each year, we can gain an accurate view of how fast we discard today's technology and how eager we are to consume tomorrows new invention. I think that this fact also goes hand in hand with our shortening attention spans; we need something to do, and something new to "play" with almost every day it seems. The more bored we get, the stronger our desire is to fulfill this boredom, and consuming new and cool technology seems to be our generation's way of fulfilling our boredom, whereas our parent's generation might go outside and play with the neighbors, or turn on the TV. It is no wonder that our generation's viewing of TV has decreased significantly than from our parent's generation, due to all of this new and wonderful technology available at our fingertips.

Slade later highlights our tendency to discard technologies by giving a brief history of the two automobile giants of the 20th century, Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan. In short, Sloan's GM had more success than Ford because Sloan envisioned his products to have obsolescence after about half a decade of use, whereas Ford produced his cars to have durability and long-lasting value (Slade 39). Sloan adopted a business mindset of an "annual model change", in other words he would produce new modeled cars each year, each car having a new, and direct audience in mind. For instance, he utilized lighter colors and less rigid model designs to appeal to a female consumer base (Sloan 46). Although the discarding of early Model T's might not have affected daily life in the 1930's, or even really caused such an environmental dilemma, modern-day technology certainly has. This idea of an "annual model change" has been widely adopted by the heads of corporate companies, producing new models of similar products to appeal to a slightly different audience, thus boosting sales, and unfortunately causing the obsolescence of certain technologies. Take for example, the iPod. Apple produces iPods each year, and each year their mp3 player is slightly different than last year's model, although virtually providing the same service as their older model did. The iPod nano, a smaller and more compact version of the classic iPod, serves an audience of children and of certain people who do not have such a wide taste in music. It also comes in different colors; pink, green, blue, etc... Each color serving a slightly different consumer: pink might appeal to a small girl, while a teenager might think blue brings out his masculinity. The idea here is that different models of virtually the same product brings in new audiences, and more sales. These sales in turn cause the older models, such as the hulky classic iPod (who has one of those nowadays?) to be forgotten by society, thrown away into the never ending trash basket that is our Earth.

So far, Slade has provided us with a history of the obsolescence of technology in America, giving the reader an account of the automobiles of the 20th century, and the discarding of luxuries during the Great Depression. His summaries can provide the reader with a view into the future, setting the stage for a bleak outlook of trash yards filled with Mac's and Alienware's, iPhones and Blackberries.