Jon and Kate...plus an edited memory

In Chapter Five of Technology Matters, David Nye poses the question, "Are advanced technologies being used to homogenise the world, dissolving distinctive cultures into a global system? Or are advanced technologies being used to create more social differences?" (67). On page 69, Nye borrows from some of my favorite theorists to attempt to answer this question. Citing the Frankfurt School, he describes how these theorists saw how some of the facets of modern life--publishing, radio, film--"packaged, standardized, and trivialized human complexities" (69). This idea is what I was trying to articulate in class the other day, but couldn't quite "get there" on the spot. In class, we verged on the topic of the tv show John and Kate Plus 8, talking about the possible effects of growing up in the spotlight not just in terms of the exploitation of the children, but the exploitation of their memories. The question I posed is how will these children remember their lives? Will it be through "real" memory," or through some edited version of it? These memories are nicely packaged with a narrative, and the complexeties of their experiences are perhaps washed over to make room for a nice, 30 minute tv show. Similarly, Nye quotes from Max Horkheimer who states,

"You will remember those terrible scenes in the movies when some years of a hero's life are pictured in a series of shots which take about one minute or two, just to show how he grew up or old, how a war started and passed by, and so on. This trimming of existence into some futile moments which can be characterized schematitcally symbolizes the dissolution of humanity into elements of administration" (69)

I've recently joined the online social networking site facebook, and have made my small, feeble attempts of creating some sort of an online identity through posting photos. Clicking through them the other day, I was struck (and perhaps a little embarrassed) about the story these photos tell about me. I don't want to get personal, but what struck me was the extent to what these photos don't show--the daily grind of answering emails and grading papers, the impassioned literary discussions in the hallway with my colleagues, a successful meeting with my dissertation advisor, the long hours at the library reading history, the minor altercations between me and my partner about whose turn it is to clean the bathroom. None of these things "make the cut" in the flashes of moments that make up these online photographs, and yet these are the things that make up my days. I guess my question then is how has a technology such as photography changed the way we understand and contemplate the notion of "memory"?

Alternately, perhaps even something such a photograph that used to be the way in which we tell the story of our memory is beginning to fade and turning into something phenomenonally different. Listening to npr the other day, I heard someone mentioning how our digital age is drastically changing the way in which we identify ourselves through things like photographs and albums. Over break, in a fit of nostalgia, my best friend and I watched the movie _Singles_ (ask your older sibling about it), and I was struck by one scene wherein Kyra Sedgwick wanders through Campbell Scott's apartment picking up photographs and flipping through his CD collection. Where are all those things now--that stuff--that shows people who we are? That shows us who we are and where we've been. All my music is stored in my ipod. My pictures? They're all on facebook. But what of this virtual treasure trove of stuff? What happens to our consciousness and our sense of self when everything is "out there somewhere" in the virtual world of the internet? Even this blog will some day be abandoned, and even if I erase it, it will still exist in some traceable form. With all our information, our memories, our music, "out there," how has technology become an intricate part in the way in which we understand ourselves and our lives? I suppose that's the question I must leave you with. Good night!