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August 27, 2009
some thoughts on technophilia is danah boyd 's contribution to a Symposium for the Future hosted by The New Media Consortium. Boyd says something that resonates with me after my experience of participation in this media forum:
Technology does not determine practice. How people embrace technology has less to do with the technology itself than with the social setting in which they are embedded. Those who are immersed in a techno-savvy, technophilic community are far more likely to embrace technology than those whose social world is shaped by other patterns of consumption and communication. People's practices are also shaped by those around them. There are cluster effects to socio-technical engagement. In other words, people do what their friends do. Rejecting technological determinism should be a mantra in our professional conversations.
Boyd says that what distinguishes the groups in the use of new media technology is not just a question of access, although that is an issue; it's also a question of community and education and opportunities for exploration:
Youth learn through active participation, but phrases like "digital natives" obscure the considerable learning that occurs to enable some youth to be technologically fluent while others fail to engage...We each approach technology based on our own needs and desires and we leverage it to do our bidding. In this way, we actively repurpose technology as a part of engagement such that rarely does one technology fit all.
So we need to learn how to use social media so that it will be advantageous us.
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