http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/business-technology-starts-to-get-personal/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Enterprise%20Computing&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
As I read this post in the NYTime’s Bits Blog over the weekend, I couldn’t help but think of how technology in certain cases and creates the “hyperreal”. For instance, I spent this summer working in a strict corporate environment in New York; in which we were issued a company Blackberry and standard desk with two computer monitors. While we were given access to expensive and powerful software suites (such as Bloomberg, Factset, etc), our computers were nearing the end of their two-year replacement cycle and were underpowered to start with. In additional to the powerful software suite, we were also subject to strict corporate regulations in relation to our computer usage. Every email sent and received in the system was logged for 10 years in a off-site, secure computer storage facility; and multiple keyloggers and security suites were present in the building and on the trading floors. As a result, using a computer at work was a radically different experience than using the laptop I own – despite having the same software and intent in design. Even a simple task such as word-processing felt entirely different given the high security, lagging nature of the computer (we would have as many as 20 documents open as once), and sensitivity of the work. This experience related to the hyperreal as the two experiences began as a shared one – the usage of a computer; yet my computer at work slowly redefined itself in different ways than my laptop. It became an entirely different animal – subject to weekly password resets, software reinstalls, constant meetings with IT, to the point where it could have been an entirely different device. This separation between the simulation and simulacra was self-defined by the nature of each machine; a point briefly discussed in the NYT’s blog.