It strikes me that life of the Girly Geek is a busy one, one that is much improved by our (over) use of an array of technological devices designed to ‘organise’ our jumbled lives. So amongst the blah blah blah of social noise; from that email to send, poke to make, wall to post on, oh and that Twit to tweet, are we spreading ourselves and our minds too thin?
Think about it, how much is it an automatic and reflexive gesture when asked to recall personal information – how many emails, phone numbers, addresses etc do you know off the top of your head? There are enough digits involved in the recollection of my own thank you very much! So does this mean that my brain, now liberated from having to sustain such information is a ‘freer’ and happier space with room for a higher intellect? Or have I just replaced all the ‘mindless’ data with other fragments of less than enthralling knowledge?
This links to something that I have been ‘struggling’ to get a hold of theoretically; in terms of memory where does mine end and the information that is held about me, by me and of me begin? I guess we could call that the ‘memory of the machine’, rooted in a cyber brain drain. So as the divide between on/offline is becoming increasingly united and I would pronounce that I am never actually ‘offline’, rather I have moments of disconnection, but you can still find me and poke me – whose memory is the ‘true’ one? My point is that, as the recent book by James E. Katz has titled, these are ‘Machines That Become Us’, or have we become them?
My cyber brain has changed how I communicate, can recall and source information, be in touch with friends at the touch of a button and I LOVE it! In my view this is about maximising my continual immersion within networks and technology– essentially are not these the skills that can offer additional intelligence! ☺
Somewhere amongst all this there is a bind between my organic and cyber brain – which one is the more intelligent and charming I’ll leave you to work out. They both, thankfully, can recall my pin number.
About Dr Mariann Hardey
I hold the position of Lecturer in Social Media Marketing at Durham Business School. I also spend too much time enjoying social technologies, media+ stuff. That'll make me a Geek then. And a gal.
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