Cellphones have become a neccessity for many people throughout the world.Today's cellphones are not only capable of placing and receiving phone calls but storing data ,taking pictures and can even be used as walkie talkies ,when cellphones first arrives in the market they were bulky ,expensive ,early cellphones could only be used in certain locations and not others ."As cellphones improved and became simple to use their importance increased "(Rosen,7) .Cellphones are the perfect way to stay connected to others and provide the user with a sense of security ."First generation cellphones were called luggables'' rather than ''portables'' ,they were often compared to bricks ,only the wealthiest people owned them,but all this changed in the 1990's ,when cellphones became cheaper ,smaller and more readily avaliable" (Rosen ,11)."In countries where cell phone use is still limited to the wealthy having a cellphone is a symbol of wealth and prestige ,but to the rest of the world cellphones have become a technology for the masses ". (Rosen,13)
Why do people use cellphones? The most frequently used reason is convenience.Allot of cellphone users report that owning a cellphone makes them feel safer . Individuals use their cellphones to call for assistance when their car breaks down , popular culture endorses this image of cell-phone-as -life -line ."Many parents have reponded to this perceived need for personal security by purchasing cellphones for their children"
.(Rosen,18) what you never used to expect ,but must now endure is a stranger arguing about how much he does indeed owe to his landlord, .I've heard the details of bussiness deals .We are no longer overhearing ,which implies accidently stumbling upon a situation where two people are talking in presumed privacy .Now we are all simply hearing ,the result is a world where social space is overtaken by anonymous ,unavoidable background noise ."In the past cellphone users ,men and woman have been stabbed ,escorted off airlines ,pepper-sprayed in movie theaters ,ejected from concert halls as a result of bad behavior on their cell phones "(Rosen,10). Writting about the impact of cellphone technology in The Mail and guardian in 2002 ,James Meek noted that,with modertate horror ,that cellphones now encourage British people to do what "British people are not allowed to do : invite strangers ,spontaneously ,into our personal worlds ."We let everyone know what our accent is ,what we do for a living ,what we do in our non-working hours" (Rosen,3) .
In the event of an emergency,having a cellphone can allow people to reach you quickly and can possibly save lives ."Modern cellphones are capable of internet access ,sending and receiving photo's and files and some cellphones are equipped with GPS technology ,allowing for use in most locations around the world and allowing the cellphone to be found or the user located in the event of loss or emergency" .(Rosen,4) "Finding a dependable service provider is no longer an issue for cellphone users ,the importance of cellphones goes way beyond the ability to make or receive a call" (Rosen ,18) .Cellphone users can instantly send data to the home or office ,check the important email ,use their cellphones as a calender and store photo's which can be easily transfered to a laptop computer or PC.The avaliable options gives users the choice of purchasing a basic cellphone to use simply for making calls ,or choosing a complex ,technologicaly advanced cellphone that can perform alot of tasks,the increasing importance of cellphones has made almost a neccessity for most people .The importance of cellphones has increased the competition in the wireless service provider industry ,making cellphones very affordable and user friendly ,cellphones have become almost a status symbol in addition to the conveniance and security that comes from owning them ."We live in a cellular generation there is no way of escaping them,they are eveywhere ,at the movies ,restuarants" (Rosen,9) .It seems like everywhere you turn there is giggling ,gasping and gossiping . Cellphones provide us with a new ,but not neccessarily superior means of communication with eachother.They encourage talk, not conversation ,they link us to those we know ,but remove us from strangers who surround us in the public space.No matter where you live or what you do in all likelihood you will eventually find yourself unwillingly listening to someone elses cellphone conversation ."Today more people have cellphones than fixed telephone lines ,there are more than one billion cellphone users in the worldwide,but if this ubiquitous technology is now a normal part of our lives ,our adjustment to it has not been without consequences ,we are rapidly approaching a tipping point with this technology "(Rosen,11). How has it changed our behaviour ?what new rules ought we to impose on it's use? but most importantly how has the wireless telephone encouraged us to connect individually, but disconnect socially ,ceding ,in the process ,much that was civil and civilized about the use of public space ?We are strenthening and increasing our interactions with the people we already know at the expense of those who we do not ."The result according to Kenneth gergen ,is ''the erosion of face- to -face community ,a coherent and centered sense of self ,moral bearings ,depth of relationship ,and the uprooting of meaning fom material context :such as the dangers of absent presence" (Rosen,5) .
Nation wide cellphones still frequently interrupt movie screenings ,theater performances and concerts,wireless technology is booming so quickly and wireless phones have become so popular ,the rules on wireless etiquette is still evolving , one could say that we are in the midst of a period of adjustments ."We still have the memory of the old social rules which remind us to be courteous towards others ,especially in enviroments which are confined ,but it is clear from the way most people on cellphones behave in public spaces that cellphone technology itself has disrupted our ability to insist on the enforcement of social rules".(Rosen,7)
Retrieved from : www.thenewatlantis.com/archives /6/rosen.htm
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Cinema ,Connection ,Meand You and Everyone We know
There is such a strong relationship between film and life ,ther is a relationship our everyday experiances and how we make sense of the world and the way we engage with cinema,cinema brongs people together .
Douglas Sirk observes that the cinema ''is blood,is tears,violence,hate death and love ,it is the stuff of our lives and in that sense it will always be of importance another point of interest is the fact that cinema can offer us simulateously ,'grounds for desperation'and also grounds for hope,even when a narrative of a film appears 'hopeless',our experiance can still be joyous and engaing (McDowell, 15). "Balaz saw in the cinema a pictorial language that would unite humanity" .(Mc Dowell) .In the moving pictures he believed he has found a kind of language that would return to us universality that the invention of the printing press and loss of oral culture had helped to destroy, apparently forever."The cinema would return to us vitality ,emotions and intensity because it would again allow us to engage with the expressiveness of human beings" (Mc Dowell,11) .We identify ,respond and emphatise and even relate with the faces of human beings -with expressions of laughter and tears ,cinema is a form of participation ."Mortimer notes that in the cinema we ''live in a state of double consciousness,participating and sceptical'',we participate in it's drama,we experiance it as genuine , in a sense we feel that it is real even though we know at the back of our heads that it is not" .(Mc Dowell,12)'The never ending story"', As it is in heaven,Mermiads, so many of these writtings suggest that the nature of cinema is mythic,magical and archaic.I believe that more than any other medium ,film is an art of connection ,and this connection happens in a number of ways ,there is a connection between the audience and the artwork,which is the aim of most artworks .The incredible feeling of relating intensely to a song ,a book,is one of the main things that keeps us watchng or listening -searching for the next experiance that speaks to us in an indescribable way .A film is not made by one person ,such as a poem ,a guitar or other artworks but cinema audiece want so desperately to believe in the myth of the one creator of a film .If one feels a special relationship with a film ,the cinema lets you feel connected to a director ,a writer , the misenscene and the cinematographor all at once ."There is also a connection between you and all the other people who have been affected in a similar way by the work of art, just knowing that the film has touched or spoken to a number of viewers perhaps not in an identical way or for identical reasons ,but none the less as personally ,and by the very fact that there are a number of us who have thought and felt similarly while experiancing the piece ,the reactions stop being merely personal ,becomming instead -not exactly universal ,but something bigger and more inclusive" (McDowell,13) .Film is a mass medium no other medium touches so many people ."Millions of people around the world will see the same film -the same images ,sounds ,movements ,words,feelings ;they will be moved to react ,think ,communicate with and about the same object" .(Mc Dowell,14)
The sadness,happiness ,the stories ,tales of goodness-overcoming-badness-defeating -goodness,the vibrant and alive characters ,the stupidity and intelligence ,the shared glances ,the striving ,the failing ,the pain and the beauty we know that it will all be experianced by countless others just as it is being ecperianced by us .(McDowell, 2) "To buy a ticket for a film is thus to become part of a community;it connects us to everyone else who sees the same film and connects them to us."MC Dowell,4)
"There is the scale of the potentially world -wide audience ,and than there is the scale of the physical act of watching a film in a cinema :a large room filled with ten thousands of people laughing ,pondering the same images ,movements and sounds"(McDowell,7) .Film is not like other art forms which are all largely solitary or smaller social experiances eg: poetry,or viewing a painting or television ,a cinema screening brings together disparate people in a simultaneous moment and requires that we stay side by side with these strangers from beginnining till the end (McDowell,11 ).You will probably never see them again ,but you will nevertheless have shared something with all these people . "Cinema almost idolises the humans it portrays ,making them literally larger- than -life ,and literally timeless"(McDowell 16) ."Cinema shows us people moving and speaking exactlyt as they do in real life ,however layered on top of this realistic world is all the ''unrealistic'' cinematic apparatus :closeup,zooms ,slow motion ,the manipulation of sound and lighting ,musical accompaniment -all designed ,not to make us believe that we are looking at an image of reality ,but simply to make us more fully experiance and feel the worlds and lives shown to us on screen "(McDowell,18) .
Cinema communicates immediately ,viscerally and is geared towards making us emote .Dowell thinks that think that cinema is structured around human connection because it is the very essence of what a story is.'Boy meets girl,boy losses girl,boy gets girl '-that most basic structuring concept of fiction -is itself a story of connection made ,connection lost,connection found (McDowell,19) .Regardless of how indirect the connection the connection between us and others who watch the film is it is still there and it is real .If you have ever just got talking to a friend about a film that you have both seen,you will hardly be able to deny the joy people show when discovering others who are just as fascinated about cinema ,and art as they are . It is at this point that art stops being art for it's own selfish reasons and becomes part of human relations and community .An art form like cinema is the perfect instrument with which to connect the millions of people in this world who can never physically meet ,but long to be bonded emotionally ,spiritually to one another .
retrieved from: http://www.alternatakes.co.uk/by: James McDowell
Douglas Sirk observes that the cinema ''is blood,is tears,violence,hate death and love ,it is the stuff of our lives and in that sense it will always be of importance another point of interest is the fact that cinema can offer us simulateously ,'grounds for desperation'and also grounds for hope,even when a narrative of a film appears 'hopeless',our experiance can still be joyous and engaing (McDowell, 15). "Balaz saw in the cinema a pictorial language that would unite humanity" .(Mc Dowell) .In the moving pictures he believed he has found a kind of language that would return to us universality that the invention of the printing press and loss of oral culture had helped to destroy, apparently forever."The cinema would return to us vitality ,emotions and intensity because it would again allow us to engage with the expressiveness of human beings" (Mc Dowell,11) .We identify ,respond and emphatise and even relate with the faces of human beings -with expressions of laughter and tears ,cinema is a form of participation ."Mortimer notes that in the cinema we ''live in a state of double consciousness,participating and sceptical'',we participate in it's drama,we experiance it as genuine , in a sense we feel that it is real even though we know at the back of our heads that it is not" .(Mc Dowell,12)'The never ending story"', As it is in heaven,Mermiads, so many of these writtings suggest that the nature of cinema is mythic,magical and archaic.I believe that more than any other medium ,film is an art of connection ,and this connection happens in a number of ways ,there is a connection between the audience and the artwork,which is the aim of most artworks .The incredible feeling of relating intensely to a song ,a book,is one of the main things that keeps us watchng or listening -searching for the next experiance that speaks to us in an indescribable way .A film is not made by one person ,such as a poem ,a guitar or other artworks but cinema audiece want so desperately to believe in the myth of the one creator of a film .If one feels a special relationship with a film ,the cinema lets you feel connected to a director ,a writer , the misenscene and the cinematographor all at once ."There is also a connection between you and all the other people who have been affected in a similar way by the work of art, just knowing that the film has touched or spoken to a number of viewers perhaps not in an identical way or for identical reasons ,but none the less as personally ,and by the very fact that there are a number of us who have thought and felt similarly while experiancing the piece ,the reactions stop being merely personal ,becomming instead -not exactly universal ,but something bigger and more inclusive" (McDowell,13) .Film is a mass medium no other medium touches so many people ."Millions of people around the world will see the same film -the same images ,sounds ,movements ,words,feelings ;they will be moved to react ,think ,communicate with and about the same object" .(Mc Dowell,14)
The sadness,happiness ,the stories ,tales of goodness-overcoming-badness-defeating -goodness,the vibrant and alive characters ,the stupidity and intelligence ,the shared glances ,the striving ,the failing ,the pain and the beauty we know that it will all be experianced by countless others just as it is being ecperianced by us .(McDowell, 2) "To buy a ticket for a film is thus to become part of a community;it connects us to everyone else who sees the same film and connects them to us."MC Dowell,4)
"There is the scale of the potentially world -wide audience ,and than there is the scale of the physical act of watching a film in a cinema :a large room filled with ten thousands of people laughing ,pondering the same images ,movements and sounds"(McDowell,7) .Film is not like other art forms which are all largely solitary or smaller social experiances eg: poetry,or viewing a painting or television ,a cinema screening brings together disparate people in a simultaneous moment and requires that we stay side by side with these strangers from beginnining till the end (McDowell,11 ).You will probably never see them again ,but you will nevertheless have shared something with all these people . "Cinema almost idolises the humans it portrays ,making them literally larger- than -life ,and literally timeless"(McDowell 16) ."Cinema shows us people moving and speaking exactlyt as they do in real life ,however layered on top of this realistic world is all the ''unrealistic'' cinematic apparatus :closeup,zooms ,slow motion ,the manipulation of sound and lighting ,musical accompaniment -all designed ,not to make us believe that we are looking at an image of reality ,but simply to make us more fully experiance and feel the worlds and lives shown to us on screen "(McDowell,18) .
Cinema communicates immediately ,viscerally and is geared towards making us emote .Dowell thinks that think that cinema is structured around human connection because it is the very essence of what a story is.'Boy meets girl,boy losses girl,boy gets girl '-that most basic structuring concept of fiction -is itself a story of connection made ,connection lost,connection found (McDowell,19) .Regardless of how indirect the connection the connection between us and others who watch the film is it is still there and it is real .If you have ever just got talking to a friend about a film that you have both seen,you will hardly be able to deny the joy people show when discovering others who are just as fascinated about cinema ,and art as they are . It is at this point that art stops being art for it's own selfish reasons and becomes part of human relations and community .An art form like cinema is the perfect instrument with which to connect the millions of people in this world who can never physically meet ,but long to be bonded emotionally ,spiritually to one another .
retrieved from: http://www.alternatakes.co.uk/by: James McDowell
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