Commentary
I really enjoyed the reading this week. It definitely showed a different side to the use of technology and some internal unconscious reasons for why humans do what they do. The introduction of chapter 1 began with the artist, Parmigianino, who made a self portrait of himself by looking through a convex mirror. The main point from the beginning was that we self represent ourselves through specific things, such as diaries, memoirs, scrapbooks, photo albums, stories, music, and now in recent technology. I thought this main point was quite interesting throughout the entire chapter. the author built off of this main point as he gained momentum in his writing. Another major point that bounced off from self representation, was that we write and show ourselves off even if we do not intend or realize it. After reading this chapter, I definitely noticed some things about myself.
Summary
The author begins with describing a majorly important artist named Parmigianino, who created a self portrait of himself by looking through a convex mirror. This shows the self representation of the human. This led into the point that there are several ways humans have self represented themselves in the past, such as through diaries, memoirs, photo albums, songs, stories, etc. and that it has now changed and combined into technology, mostly dealing with social media. We represent ourselves by showing the world who we are (or what we want the world to see or think). Times have changed for sure, and we are now in a new era of representing ourselves. This self expression is represented through visual, written and quantitative methods, says the author, and has been this way for as long as humans have been alive on this earth. We also use graphs, maps and lists to represent ourselves (humans). We use many of these things to communicate with others (such as letters, texts, etc), but it more so is a place where we represent ourselves, and share who we are and what we are doing with others.
Analysis
I completely agree with most of what the author is speaking about in this chapter, but a lot of technology is not only an area for self expression and self representation. Although a lot of social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. is a place for self representation, that is only the smallest portion of what technology has become in recent years. When I see the word technology, I think of the many areas of information and knowledge that is being shared with everyone in the world. It is not necessarily someone or a group of people representing themselves, but statistical and other related facts that are being described that makes it up.
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