Assignment #3 : Nowadays in Our Society

    Nowadays in our society, you are expected to be able to use the computer in your everyday life. We use computers for almost everything now. I use all of the adobe programs for my design classes, my friends update their facebook "status" from their mobile phones, and my mom can chat with my older brother (who lives hours away) via webcam. The Internet and computer together have shaped our daily lives and will continue to do so throughout the future.
     Because the Internet has become such a dominant form of communication for our culture, it is more important than ever for everyone (old and young) to become capable of using the basic computer and Internet programs available. I believe that the more computer savvy you become, the better you will adjust to future technological advances, and the better you will thrive in our society. Since I want to be an advertiser and create brand logo work, I have to be computer literate in multiple programs. I can't expect to graduate college and get a decent job without knowing the basic computer programs that I will need to successfully succeed in the workforce (i.e. indesign, dreamweaver, illustrator).
      Part of being "computer savvy: is having the most up-to-date computer/PC. Better systems and applications are developed all the time and in our market economy there is a definite competition between competing brands. Two of the major brands that we all have come to know and use daily are the Mac and the PC. The ever-growing rivalry between these two types of computers has been displayed in a comical manor through Mac's television commercials. The commercials point out areas where the Mac computer is better/more efficient than the Windows PC computer. The commercials always portray the two different types of computers by representing them as humans. The PC is usually an older man with glasses who is dressed up in some form of business attire. The Mac computer is a younger man with a more relaxed and easy going feel about him.   
    This campaign is called "Get a Mac" and it was launched in 2006 by Apple Inc. I've seen numerous versions of the campaign via commercial ads throughout the past two years. The one commercial that sticks out in my mind the most is the commercial about the "surgery". In the commercial, the PC is dressed in a Hospital gown and is waiting to have surgery. The so-called "surgery" is the PC's upgrade to Windows Vista. The PC tells the Mac that he is worried about the difficulties that might come with the surgery (like crashing) and the Mac tells the PC that with Mac computers you don't have to worry about round about upgrades because all Mac Upgrades are completely straightforward. Why upgrade your PC, when you can just get a Mac?  
     I think that this whole campaign that Mac has created relates back to a central theme that we find in William Gibson's book, Neuromancer. In the book, Gibson writes about the relationship between humans and computers by writing about a sci-fi type of world where the characters are interchangeably computer/human. In this futurist novel, the characters constantly interact with/and become a part of technology. The Mac commercials tie into this "relationship" that Gibson writes about.
     Obviously the producers of the campaign thought about this same concept of increasing human to computer contact. They literally show this relationship in the Mac commercials because the people actually are the computers speaking in the advertisements. The commercials are intriguing to viewers because we all can relate to it in some form, since we are all using the computer now more than ever.
    We spend just as much if not more time on the computer than the television nowadays. We can't go a day or two without the Internet before we start to freak out about not being able to check our e-mails, the news, or finish online assignments. We all know that feeling we get when the appalnet goes down; we rely on the computer and Internet for our basic everyday lives. It has become a primary form of communication.
     On the face, the Mac commercial pokes fun at the increasing competition for the "best software for your everyday life”. Competing computer brands have even made their own similar campaigns in reaction to the Mac commercials (trying to increase their consumer sales). However, when you look deeper into what these commercials are really about you tend to wonder if having so much technology in our lives is always a good thing.
    The personal relationship that we have with the technology around us helps to define who we are as people. The gap between technology and humans is constantly moving closer to becoming one. In Sherry Turke's, Life on Screen, She talks about the relationship between humans and computers as well. She too believes that the gap between artificial intelligence and human life is becoming harder to distinguish from one another. The Internet and computer have allowed humans to take on separate identity roles different from the roles they have in everyday life. Machines are increasingly becoming smarter and humans are relying more heavily on them.
    The advances we have made in technology have helped shape our society today. As of right now, I think that this technology is good because it helps us more than it hurts us. I do think that their may come a time in the future though where technology may be taken too far and we may loose touch with what we now call personal communication. We can't allow the technological world to over dominate our lives to the point where we abuse it. I don't want to live in a world where you can’t enjoy the everyday things that only we as human beings can appreciate.