In class on Wednesday, the presenters brought up an interesting inquiry with their discussion questions: can the you, the reader, see parallels in Snow Crash to our current society, and do you think those connections are promising or threatening? To specific points that my group and I focused on were surveillance and how technology hinders social interaction. Regarding surveillance, the advanced technology that we see in the novel, like CIC and Gargoyles, allow people to access infinite information about others. We can see a little bit of that today with the government’s ability to keep tabs on its citizens and big corporations, like Google, to keep an eye on what people are doing online. These types of surveillance definitely have both pros and cons, however, we struggle with coming up with an answer to how far do we are willing to let this go. With technology’s affect on social interaction, the characters in Snow Crash let technology distract them from what is going on in real life around them; “He turns off the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it’s happening to him. Very post-modern” (305). We see things like this happening in our lives with our use of social media. But, even though technology can limit our amount of face-to-face interaction, it expands our ability to communicate with more people electronically.
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Another interesting aspect of the novel is its treatment of global corporate players in an eerily similar situation as modern corporations post-Citizens United. The novel plays with the idea of a corporate olligarchy, controlling masses via information collection agencies (similar to the NSA contrast we discussed in class). Corporations, called franchulates in the novel, have essentially become minor nation-states, forcing the reader to question whether corporations hold too much power over the nation.
I liked the way you phrased your last statement–even though technology is frequently looked down upon as a hindrance to social interaction, technology does improve interactions with people we may otherwise be unable to keep in contact with. I personally find that technology as a whole is a positive for our society; sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter provide platforms in which we can easily keep in contact with others and share information or photographs. I think the biggest downside to the uptick in technology usage in today’s society is less about the technology itself and more about how often we use it. I don’t think that people would be as against these new technological advancements if people continued having in-person interactions and used technology as a supplemental form of communication, but the problems arise when people use technology as a substitute, rather than a complement, to face-to-face interactions.
Ann, you end your post by stating that technology expands our ability to connect, however, I somewhat disagree with that statement. We have the capability to more easily connect to billions of people, but at what cost? In my opinion, most technology degrades the quality of the communication. One can email, text, become Facebook friends, or even have a video conference with another, but can that technological communication replace a simple handshake? It is also essential to consider if technological communications fill the social need that normal communication does. Many popular media sites quantify the amount of connections you have. However, does having 500 followers or friends, but no one in reality, make you feel any more connected than having no one? Furthermore, does having the ability to connect to more people mean that we actually will? In Snow Crash, Hiro says, “They could strike up a conversation … But they probably won’t talk to each other, any more than they would in Reality” (36). What about the world we live in today? How many of us actually use technology to connect with individuals that we would not otherwise get the chance to? Having the ability to reach out to others doesn’t mean that we will, and in my opinion most people do not, besides on rare occasions. In my opinion, technology can hinder our communication skills by allowing us to hide ourselves behind a screen, where we don’t have to speak face to face in nearly any situation. So rather than technology benefiting communication, how will technology damage communication?
I agree with this point; technology is definitely a double edged sword. In many ways, through our constant use of computers and phones (among other devices) we are plugged in and focused on a world outside of our immediate reality. We sit in class, physically present in the room itself, but our minds wander as our technological devices allow us to surf the web, chat with friends, and complete other work at the same time. While some believe in their ability to multitask, there is no doubt that the aforementioned technological devices distract us and make us less present in our respective realities. Just as Hiro was always plugged in to the Metaverse (as was frequently pointed out by Y.T.), we are constantly plugged into our own worlds as well, via our technology devices. Although some may argue that the devices allow us to still communicate with each other (and may even allow for communication in a more effective way than was previously possible), there is no question that they still remove us from the “here and now” and make us less present in reality.