In
a topic-driven, well-developed paragraph, explain the CONNECTION between Ulrich’s
“Panopticon” drawing (with the accompanying Wikipedia entry) and the researched
opinions we have read and summarized about technology. In your paragraph
response, use summary, paraphrase, and quotations—from each source.
Gabrielle Tallman
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
ENG 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon
Knowing that the panopticon, designed by philosopher and theorist Jeremy Bentham, is a building formations mainly used for prisons, it is sometimes compared to today's technology. The unique factor about this certain type of institution is that the lay out provides the watchman to view the inmates whenever they please without the prisoners knowing. That is why, in the drawing, there is a huge eye centered above all the prisoners. What one may not notice, however, is that on the second level there are people on laptops. Recent observers have noted that technology has followed the panopticon design in its surveillance cameras and internet history as well as phone usage. Some programs allow their operators to spy on the users without them even acknowledging it. The lowest level is people reading books because the panopticon design my be used in schools as well as hospitals and daycares. As it says in the Wikipedia article, "Whereas Bentham himself regarded the Panopticon as a rational and enlightened, and therefore just, solution to societal problems, his ideas have been repeatedly criticised by others for their reductive, mechanistic and inhumane approach to human lives."
Peter Cote
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 Oct. 2015
Panopticon Comparison
The Panopticon was designed to watch over all of the prisoners just like the internet. Just like many authors believe, Ulrich shows in his picture that the internet is always watching people in everything they do. The wikipedia article shows that “ISPs”, which is an internet service provider, “are able to track users' activities, while user-generated content means that daily social activity may be recorded and broadcast online.” This is showing how the internet is constantly in every day life always watching and looking in on what people are doing. Carr explains a similar thought by saying that ““The Net’s cacophony of stimuli short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively.” (119) While Carr is stating the web is a distraction, he also shows that the web is controlling people’s lives, always watching what people are doing. Sherry Turkle also proves a point by saying that “families sit together, texting and reading e-mail.” (1) Turkle is amazed by how much technology is controlling the aspects of people’s lives. She explains how much technology has taken over and that in everyday life technology is “watching”. All of these well respected people believe that technology has become an overarching object to all things, never leaving people alone.
Breanna Roper
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon Connections
The panopticon, according to a Wikipedia article, "The concept of the design is to allow all inmates of an institution to be observed by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched". This is very similar to Carr's leading paragraph in his "The Shallows", where he references Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". A supercomputer, Hal, pleads with Bowman not to basically unplug him/it, and says that he can feel his mind going. Carr seems to feel the same. He states that, "Over the last few years I've had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry...My mind isn't going...bur it's changing" (5). The eye that is drawn observing all of the prisoners, even when they aren't watching, is a metaphor for the people addicted to their hand-held devices that are controlling and consuming their conscious thoughts without people having the realization of it. Even text messaging is changing our human language, according to Turkle, we speak in abbreviations and random mnemonics such as "LOL", or "Wyd?", in turn causing us to speak in a way that degrades our intelligence, using a very informal way of conversing with others.
Hunter Hebert
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon Comparison
According to Wikipedia, the term “panopticon” refers to a “…design…to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.” . Researchers and scholars have discussed how technology has begun to consume our lives. In comparison to a panopticon, the internet and technology are the watchmen and we are their prisoners. In reference to Carr, throughout his book The Shallows, he argues the idea that technology is altering our brains and the way we think. Carr’s ideas also coincide with the views of Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at MIT. Turkle emphasizes on how the increase in use of technology has impaired our abilities to be social, stating that people are “…tempted by machines that offer companionship”, exposing the uncontrollable addictions we have to technology. In summary to all these views, the biggest problem at hand, according to Carr and Turkle, is that we are completely unaware of the tie that the internet has on us. We live our lives as if we are in complete control, when in reality our minds and actions are controlled and watched by the ISP’s and internets of the world, much like the prisoners in a panopticon.
Devante Wrenn
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon
From my point of view I see the picture as an eye watching society evolve. The eye represents our senses in a way where we don’t see us doing it but someone else does. It shows us at the bottom reading then in the middle on computers then at the top behind bars. I believe that this shows us going from basic to no more. We ran out of stuff to do such as our new technology and now we have nothing. The technology and our evolution of stuff have made us uncontrollable and not go back the basics. We are now locked behind bars because of the obsession or non obsession of technology.
Logan Radwanski
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon Connection
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To be watched constantly but not truly knowing if you are or not is the design conception of the Panopticon. Created by Jeremy Bentham, a social theorist and English philosopher, called his design “a new mode of obtaining the mind over the mind…” Isn’t that what the Internet is doing to our minds? With the Internet and technology being such a major part of daily lives now we are constantly “under the eye” of it or the influence of it. The constant pressure or worry of if the inmates were being watched by the watchman caused them to act if they were always being watched, showing the influence and having to deal with it daily changed the inmates. In a way that is what the Internet has become today, a presence that is always there but you don’t truly realize it. Nothing really happens today without someone pulling his or her phone out especially news stories there are always video footage from a witnesses phone to go along with it. Just as the eye is “always” watching the inmates, there is something always there capture whatever is going to with or without us knowing it.
Anna Newton
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon Connection
The Panopticon was used to let the watchman look after the prisoners, without them knowing. This is used as a metaphor towards technology. Technology, and computers are the guards, and the humans of today's society are the prisoners. Nicholas Carr, a well known author of culture and technology, in his book, The Shallows, explains how technology is taking over the human brain. The internet can track every website a user goes to, without the user realizing it. Therefore, Carr is right in the aspect that we need to be very cautious because technology is advancing rapidly, and watching us carefully, just like the guards of a Panopticon.
Carter Groomes
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon
In the article about Panopticon prison, the description Wiki gives is nearly identical to what the Internet is. In this type of prison, one single watchman can see every single inmate without them seeing him. Compared to the prison, the Internet is closely mirroring that technique. People all over the world are able to come into anyone’s computer and look around without that person knowing. Nicolas Carr believes that the Internet shouldn’t be used like it is today because it is taking over our lives, and we are blind to it. Much like Carr, Franzen believes similar stating that we tend to let the Internet mold that we are as people. I believe that the Internet is a very useful source, however we as users, need to be very careful as how we use it.
Kaylee Young
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon Connection
Panopticon, according to Wikipedia, means an institutional building designed to allow all inmates of an institution to be observed by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Given that all inmates cannot physically be watched at all times by a single person, the inmates never know what time they are being watched. Therefore, they must be on their best behavior at all times. With all that being said, the picture represents this whole idea. The huge eye is the watchman’s view of every inmate. Compared to technology, we have become accustomed to it being there at all times even when we don’t realize it. Like the eye of the watchman, we are constantly being “watched” by technology. The watchman is seen as technology/internet and the prisoners are us. We have become subjective to the internet’s seduction and are constantly behaving the way it makes us.
Aidan Bish
ReplyDeleteProfessor Kirk
SWU English 1003
15 October 2015
Panopticon of Technology (feat. Carr and Turkle)
Critics of technology would compare the connectedness of the Internet to the panopticon in that it diminishes humanity in the individual and sacrifices privacy for the sake of convenience. The panopticon was a prison design proposed by Jeremy Bentham that would consist of a circular chamber with a single watchman on guard from a central chamber. He would not be visible to the prisoners, so although he could not always look at every inmate, they would have to assume that they were being watched at all times. Although Bentham considered this an enlightened and just option, it has long been considered inhumane and invasive. As technology has developed, and surveillance with it, comparisons have been made between this prison design and the way that activity can be monitored through surveillance cameras or tracked over the Internet. There is no way to tell when you are on camera, or who will see anything posted online (be it a friend, a stranger, or the government). Additionally, the constant connectedness of today’s population through smart phones and social media adds to this never ending state of observation by everyone and anyone. Carr, a renouned writer and researcher deeply concerned with the loss of deep thinking, says “there needs to be time for efficient data collection and time for inefficient contemplation, time to operate the machine and time to sit idly in the garden. We need to work in Google’s ‘world of numbers’, but we also need to be able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The problem today is that we’re losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind.” The state of constant connection, essentially, brings about a distractedness and a loss of peaceful contemplation. Critics of the panopticon said that it would be an inhumane invasion of privacy and would degrade quality of life, and Carr would argue that we are imposing this on ourselves by being online. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist with a waning optimism about the effects of technology on our social relationships, presents a very similar concept in her TED Talk “Connected, but Alone?” She says that technology offers us three dangerously appealing concepts, one of which is “we will never have to be alone”. This seems appealing at first glance. However, Turkle asserts that the ability to be comfotably solitary is an integral part of social and mental health, and the convenience of online communication often replaces very necessary “real” relationships. According to Turkle and Carr, this “panticon of technology” is stripping us of our human ability to think deeply and of our real relationships. We give these things away willingly for the tempting convenience, but it is perilous to our privacy and humanity.