Frame Analysis Sources
Getting Lazier as New Technology Develops
By Jackie Z., wilmington, MA
It seems that every day new gadgets are getting put onto the shelves. These gadgets are made in order to make our lives easier and more convenient, such as the iPod, the iPhone, the refrigerators with computers built right into them, cell phones that are able to search the web faster than some internet connections, and a remote that can do everything from turn up the volume and search the channels with a click of a button; the list goes on. But as new technology develops, the lazier people get. The fact that people need refrigerators that actually tell them when they are out of stock on a certain food, or that people need the internet on their cell phones proves that people are getting lazier.
It seems as if these gadgets are the centre of some people’s lives. I see more people on their cell phones while driving than actually paying attention to the road. I even see many kids texting other kids while in school. I mean are they that lazy that they can’t wait until lunch or the next break to talk to that person? Oh, and my favourite, a car that you actually don’t have to put the keys in order to start the engine. The car actually can sense how close a person is and automatically turns its engine on. Some cars also allow the driver to push a button instead of turning a key to start the car. Is it really that difficult to get in the car, put the key in the ignition, and turn it? The result is the same whether you push a button or not.
Some gadgets are just not necessary, such as the refrigerator that can tell when you are out of stock on something. A person can certainly open up their refrigerator, look in it to see what they are lacking, and make a shopping list. It concerns me that mostly everyone in the United States of America needs a gadget, whether it’s an iPod or a refrigerator with a built in shopping list. I have actually seen some children, as young as the age of eight, talking on a cell phone! It is unnecessary for a child that young to have a cell phone, unless their parents are too busy playing with their new gadget at home to be with their kid.
The world we live in today consists of cell phones, iPods, and computers. It is a society filled with technology and newer, more complex gadgets. These gadgets seem to attract everyone from the age of eight to the age of seventy six (like my grandmother who has an iPod…). I see fewer people walking around Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield and more people talking on a mini earpiece in the car. Even on nice, summer days, more people are on AIM than hanging outside with their friends. I fear that if this process continues the world as we know it will rely on technology and will be obsessed with new gadgets. The world of “do-it-yourself” networks and hanging out with friends outside of the house will no longer exist.
Getting Lazier as New Technology Develops
By Jackie Z., wilmington, MA
It seems that every day new gadgets are getting put onto the shelves. These gadgets are made in order to make our lives easier and more convenient, such as the iPod, the iPhone, the refrigerators with computers built right into them, cell phones that are able to search the web faster than some internet connections, and a remote that can do everything from turn up the volume and search the channels with a click of a button; the list goes on. But as new technology develops, the lazier people get. The fact that people need refrigerators that actually tell them when they are out of stock on a certain food, or that people need the internet on their cell phones proves that people are getting lazier.
It seems as if these gadgets are the centre of some people’s lives. I see more people on their cell phones while driving than actually paying attention to the road. I even see many kids texting other kids while in school. I mean are they that lazy that they can’t wait until lunch or the next break to talk to that person? Oh, and my favourite, a car that you actually don’t have to put the keys in order to start the engine. The car actually can sense how close a person is and automatically turns its engine on. Some cars also allow the driver to push a button instead of turning a key to start the car. Is it really that difficult to get in the car, put the key in the ignition, and turn it? The result is the same whether you push a button or not.
Some gadgets are just not necessary, such as the refrigerator that can tell when you are out of stock on something. A person can certainly open up their refrigerator, look in it to see what they are lacking, and make a shopping list. It concerns me that mostly everyone in the United States of America needs a gadget, whether it’s an iPod or a refrigerator with a built in shopping list. I have actually seen some children, as young as the age of eight, talking on a cell phone! It is unnecessary for a child that young to have a cell phone, unless their parents are too busy playing with their new gadget at home to be with their kid.
The world we live in today consists of cell phones, iPods, and computers. It is a society filled with technology and newer, more complex gadgets. These gadgets seem to attract everyone from the age of eight to the age of seventy six (like my grandmother who has an iPod…). I see fewer people walking around Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield and more people talking on a mini earpiece in the car. Even on nice, summer days, more people are on AIM than hanging outside with their friends. I fear that if this process continues the world as we know it will rely on technology and will be obsessed with new gadgets. The world of “do-it-yourself” networks and hanging out with friends outside of the house will no longer exist.
The Job – the worst thing that ever happened to you – Deskilling!
Blog Post
http://robsfastforwardblogposts.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/the-job-the-worst-thing-that-ever-happened-to-you-deskilling/
Posted on September 10, 2011
Everyone wants a job today – but they are not coming back – for when no REAL skills are required, you can be replaced by a machine, a computer or a person who is happy to earn 1/4 of your pay. The job demands deskilling – that is why the job needs managers. This period is ending. This is why.
We all worry about getting or losing a job. When we meet people, they ask us what we do and we give them a job description. When we apply for jobs, we get all fussed about the “skills” we need. When we have a job, we have to be managed and so have bosses. Politicians all talk about getting more jobs. School is all about getting jobs.
But the “Job” as we know it is a 19th century idea. In America very few people as a percentage of the population had job before 1905. Here is a core idea, especially as we all fuss about skills etc. The whole purpose of a Job is to DESKILL people. What do I mean?
This picture is the key. Before Henry Ford, making a car was an artisanal activity. Really skilled people created each car. With the production line, tools and algorithms were used to enable the owner to use unskilled people. Yes each person could get good at assembly but that is like saying that because I am good at putting Ikea furniture together that I am a cabinet maker. The men who made the Stanley Steamer could make anything. They had the metal working and engineering skills to be artisans.
This process of DESKILLING has taken place in all parts of your lives.
Today we can all offer our friends and family an excellent meal. Many of us are Foodies. But in reality, most people today cannot cook. They can assemble but not cook. They have no deeper skills.
Yes it takes a certain amount of skill to do this. Chances are if the tractor breaks, it has to go to the shop. But think of the skill behind this! The plowing is only a fraction of the skill. Farmers in the day knew what was really going on. Today agribusiness is no different from a production line. It’s all external process and algorithms. It’s Ikea. It’s the same with white collar work. Sales people are all scripted. All core processes are scripted. There is no room to think or create outside the very narrow range allowed in the Chicken Box each of us live in. We are all working at Highland Park.
So all the skill aspects of the “job” are in effect about knowing how to follow Ikea instructions. They are “assembly” and obedience skills. What is not wanted are people who really are engineers, or farmers or cooks. The assembly line has no room for thinking outside the proscribed process.
This is why when so many people lose their jobs, they are lost. They are lost because they have no real skills. Anyone can put an Ikea desk together which is why your job can be outsourced or replaced with a machine. Your only chance is to find another “assembly” line that still needs what you can do. Today that will never happen.
This too is why the Manager is a dying breed too. Managers are in reality factory assembly line foremen who job it is to meet the quota and the rules of the process. Theirs is not the job to think of new ways of doing things. Their job is to keep it all moving and the sheep from straying. But with fewer sheep, who needs the manager? Again the biggest farce of all are all the managerial skills that are in demand. All those managers that are truly innovative get asked to leave. What is demanded is to be able to keep control. The skill that managers need to rise, is not to have results, but to be expert politicians. Anyone who has been an outstanding manager who has constantly delivered results knows that this means little compared with others who climb over them.
This system was OK when it really was Highland Park. Then all of this was in the open and accepted as such. People also got paid well. Now all of this is obscured behind a touchy feely facade. On the surface we are all one big happy family. We need your ideas. Innovation is what it is all about. We are all going to cooperate. We are all leaders. This will be bottom up. And worst of all, it doesn’t work anymore. Highland Park revolutionized how things were done in the world. This process worked very well for a long time. But it doesn’t work for any one now, not even the owners.
Blog Post
http://robsfastforwardblogposts.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/the-job-the-worst-thing-that-ever-happened-to-you-deskilling/
Posted on September 10, 2011
Everyone wants a job today – but they are not coming back – for when no REAL skills are required, you can be replaced by a machine, a computer or a person who is happy to earn 1/4 of your pay. The job demands deskilling – that is why the job needs managers. This period is ending. This is why.
We all worry about getting or losing a job. When we meet people, they ask us what we do and we give them a job description. When we apply for jobs, we get all fussed about the “skills” we need. When we have a job, we have to be managed and so have bosses. Politicians all talk about getting more jobs. School is all about getting jobs.
But the “Job” as we know it is a 19th century idea. In America very few people as a percentage of the population had job before 1905. Here is a core idea, especially as we all fuss about skills etc. The whole purpose of a Job is to DESKILL people. What do I mean?
This picture is the key. Before Henry Ford, making a car was an artisanal activity. Really skilled people created each car. With the production line, tools and algorithms were used to enable the owner to use unskilled people. Yes each person could get good at assembly but that is like saying that because I am good at putting Ikea furniture together that I am a cabinet maker. The men who made the Stanley Steamer could make anything. They had the metal working and engineering skills to be artisans.
This process of DESKILLING has taken place in all parts of your lives.
Today we can all offer our friends and family an excellent meal. Many of us are Foodies. But in reality, most people today cannot cook. They can assemble but not cook. They have no deeper skills.
Yes it takes a certain amount of skill to do this. Chances are if the tractor breaks, it has to go to the shop. But think of the skill behind this! The plowing is only a fraction of the skill. Farmers in the day knew what was really going on. Today agribusiness is no different from a production line. It’s all external process and algorithms. It’s Ikea. It’s the same with white collar work. Sales people are all scripted. All core processes are scripted. There is no room to think or create outside the very narrow range allowed in the Chicken Box each of us live in. We are all working at Highland Park.
So all the skill aspects of the “job” are in effect about knowing how to follow Ikea instructions. They are “assembly” and obedience skills. What is not wanted are people who really are engineers, or farmers or cooks. The assembly line has no room for thinking outside the proscribed process.
This is why when so many people lose their jobs, they are lost. They are lost because they have no real skills. Anyone can put an Ikea desk together which is why your job can be outsourced or replaced with a machine. Your only chance is to find another “assembly” line that still needs what you can do. Today that will never happen.
This too is why the Manager is a dying breed too. Managers are in reality factory assembly line foremen who job it is to meet the quota and the rules of the process. Theirs is not the job to think of new ways of doing things. Their job is to keep it all moving and the sheep from straying. But with fewer sheep, who needs the manager? Again the biggest farce of all are all the managerial skills that are in demand. All those managers that are truly innovative get asked to leave. What is demanded is to be able to keep control. The skill that managers need to rise, is not to have results, but to be expert politicians. Anyone who has been an outstanding manager who has constantly delivered results knows that this means little compared with others who climb over them.
This system was OK when it really was Highland Park. Then all of this was in the open and accepted as such. People also got paid well. Now all of this is obscured behind a touchy feely facade. On the surface we are all one big happy family. We need your ideas. Innovation is what it is all about. We are all going to cooperate. We are all leaders. This will be bottom up. And worst of all, it doesn’t work anymore. Highland Park revolutionized how things were done in the world. This process worked very well for a long time. But it doesn’t work for any one now, not even the owners.
Murdered Phone Booth by Banksy
Anonymous street artist Banksy might be best known for his two-dimensional stenciled paintings, but he’s actually a sculptor, too. ‘Murdered Phone Booth’, an unauthorized outdoor art installation which appeared in London’s SoHo Square in 2006, is just one of the famous artist/documentary director’s three-dimensional works. The British Telecom telephone booth was bent and pierced with a pick-axe. BT later jokingly offered to purchase it and place it in their lobby as a “stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.”
Anonymous street artist Banksy might be best known for his two-dimensional stenciled paintings, but he’s actually a sculptor, too. ‘Murdered Phone Booth’, an unauthorized outdoor art installation which appeared in London’s SoHo Square in 2006, is just one of the famous artist/documentary director’s three-dimensional works. The British Telecom telephone booth was bent and pierced with a pick-axe. BT later jokingly offered to purchase it and place it in their lobby as a “stunning visual comment on BT’s transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider.”
Technology is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction
January 24, 2012
Melissa Nilles
http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/01/technology-is-destroying-the-quality-of-human-interaction
I had a terrible nightmare the other night. Instead of meeting for a quick cup of coffee, my friend and I spent 30 minutes texting back and forth about our day. After that, instead of going in to talk to my professor during his office hours, I emailed him from home with my question. Because of this, he never got to know who I was, even though he would have been a great source for a letter of recommendation if he had. I ignored a cute guy at the bus stop asking me the time because I was busy responding to a text. And I spent far too much time on Facebook trying to catch up with my 1000+ “friends,” most of whom I rarely see, and whose meaning sadly seems to dispel even more as the sheer number of “connections” I’ve made grows.
Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream. This technological detachment is becoming today’s reality.
Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation in today’s society. Instead of spending time in person with friends, we just call, text or instant message them. It may seem simpler, but we ultimately end up seeing our friends face to face a lot less. Ten texts can’t even begin to equal an hour spent chatting with a friend over lunch. And a smiley-face emoticon is cute, but it could never replace the ear-splitting grin and smiling eyes of one of your best friends. Face time is important, people. We need to see each other.
This doesn’t just apply to our friends; it applies to the world around us. It should come as no surprise that face-to-face interaction is proven by studies to comfort us and provide us with some important sense of well-being, whether it’s with friends or friendly cashiers in the checkout line of Albertson’s. That’s actually the motivation behind Albertson’s decision last year to take all of the self-checkout lanes out of its stores: an eerie lack of human contact.
There’s something intangibly real and valuable about talking with someone face to face. This is significant for friends, partners, potential employers, and other recurring people that make up your everyday world. That person becomes an important existing human connection, not just someone whose disembodied text voice pops up on your cell phone, iPad or computer screen.
It seems we have more extended connections than ever in this digital world, which can be great for networking, if it’s used right. The sad fact of the matter is that most of us don’t. It’s too hard to keep up with 1000 friends, let alone 200. At that point, do we even remember their names? We need to start prizing the meaning of quality in our connections, not sheer quantity.
One of my best friends from my hometown has 2,241 Facebook friends. Sure, her posts get a ton of feedback, but when I asked her about the quality of those relationships, she said to me that she really has few friends that she can trust and spend time with happily. Using a strange conundrum like this as a constructive example, we should consider pruning our rampant online connections at the very least.
Past evolutionary psychology research by British anthropologist and psychologist Robin Dunbar has revealed that people are actually limited to a certain number of stable, supportive connections with others in their social network: roughly 150. Furthermore, recent follow-up research by Cornell University’s Bruno Goncalves used Twitter data to show that despite the current ability to connect with vast amounts of people via the Internet, a person can still only truly maintain a friendship with a maximum of 100 to 200 real friends in their social network.
So what are we doing with 3000 friends on the Internet? Why are we texting all the time? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Let’s spend more time together with our friends. Let’s make the relationships that count last, and not rely on technology to do the job for us.
January 24, 2012
Melissa Nilles
http://thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu/2012/01/technology-is-destroying-the-quality-of-human-interaction
I had a terrible nightmare the other night. Instead of meeting for a quick cup of coffee, my friend and I spent 30 minutes texting back and forth about our day. After that, instead of going in to talk to my professor during his office hours, I emailed him from home with my question. Because of this, he never got to know who I was, even though he would have been a great source for a letter of recommendation if he had. I ignored a cute guy at the bus stop asking me the time because I was busy responding to a text. And I spent far too much time on Facebook trying to catch up with my 1000+ “friends,” most of whom I rarely see, and whose meaning sadly seems to dispel even more as the sheer number of “connections” I’ve made grows.
Oh wait, that wasn’t a dream. This technological detachment is becoming today’s reality.
Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation in today’s society. Instead of spending time in person with friends, we just call, text or instant message them. It may seem simpler, but we ultimately end up seeing our friends face to face a lot less. Ten texts can’t even begin to equal an hour spent chatting with a friend over lunch. And a smiley-face emoticon is cute, but it could never replace the ear-splitting grin and smiling eyes of one of your best friends. Face time is important, people. We need to see each other.
This doesn’t just apply to our friends; it applies to the world around us. It should come as no surprise that face-to-face interaction is proven by studies to comfort us and provide us with some important sense of well-being, whether it’s with friends or friendly cashiers in the checkout line of Albertson’s. That’s actually the motivation behind Albertson’s decision last year to take all of the self-checkout lanes out of its stores: an eerie lack of human contact.
There’s something intangibly real and valuable about talking with someone face to face. This is significant for friends, partners, potential employers, and other recurring people that make up your everyday world. That person becomes an important existing human connection, not just someone whose disembodied text voice pops up on your cell phone, iPad or computer screen.
It seems we have more extended connections than ever in this digital world, which can be great for networking, if it’s used right. The sad fact of the matter is that most of us don’t. It’s too hard to keep up with 1000 friends, let alone 200. At that point, do we even remember their names? We need to start prizing the meaning of quality in our connections, not sheer quantity.
One of my best friends from my hometown has 2,241 Facebook friends. Sure, her posts get a ton of feedback, but when I asked her about the quality of those relationships, she said to me that she really has few friends that she can trust and spend time with happily. Using a strange conundrum like this as a constructive example, we should consider pruning our rampant online connections at the very least.
Past evolutionary psychology research by British anthropologist and psychologist Robin Dunbar has revealed that people are actually limited to a certain number of stable, supportive connections with others in their social network: roughly 150. Furthermore, recent follow-up research by Cornell University’s Bruno Goncalves used Twitter data to show that despite the current ability to connect with vast amounts of people via the Internet, a person can still only truly maintain a friendship with a maximum of 100 to 200 real friends in their social network.
So what are we doing with 3000 friends on the Internet? Why are we texting all the time? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Let’s spend more time together with our friends. Let’s make the relationships that count last, and not rely on technology to do the job for us.