Marie Wocher Annotation-Cyburbia

Cyburbia The Dangerous Idea that is changing How we live and who we are. James Harkin chapter 4/5

In the late sixties, begin seventies there were two movements that were interested in the idea of 'equate organic social systems to the technical network' ( Poole, S (2009) ‘No Title’ in The Guardian, Sat 21 February 2009). The academic social network theorists and the hippies. The social Network Theorists where only interested in the human as a sender and receiver of information. And the hippies, who moved to San Francisco in the late sixties to set up more egalitarian communes, establishing a new communication technology. The fifth chapter is a theoretical treatment of the history of the cyburbia until the present, referring to Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics and other philosophers and sociologists who reflected the idea of the network in the 80ies and 90ies. Now, the impact of Cyburbia to our lives is huge, our social behavior is directed by cyburbia, by machines. The prime example of being influenced by cyburbia is the membership of Facebook. 'Unlike the hippies, they had no alternative ideas about politics and culture but an alternative idea about how to use new technology' (Harkin 2009 p. 100) Bringing together million of people without the given hierarchy structure in real life, changes life incredibly. The observation of people, presenting oneself, sharing information became more important than anything else, even more important than porn (the porn-industry shrinks a third after the new registrations on Facebook exploded in 2007). But not only facebook, also other peer-to-peer communication like Youtube, Google and File-sharing sites has changed our behavior. Harkin doesn't skip any web 2.0 curiosity, he writes about tagging to be found the best, changing your avatars sex in Second Life, Wilfing ( what was I looking for?) the phenomenon that you get lost by browsing through the web, character assassination via spam mails and persuing a career with the help of Youtube. Cyburbia changed the conduct of our society, within and outside web 2.0.

Poole, S (2009) ‘No Title’ in The Guardian, Sat 21 February 2009)