Draft

David Nye uses many sources in his book Technology Matters. He uses them as a way to help the reader understand what point is trying to be made and clarified by him. Nye uses not just one source, but also many. With each example he uses something different. He makes it more detailed and simple by given a variety of examples. He just doesn’t dwell on one certain area to make his point. What I mean is that, he refers to different generations and centuries. We go from modern science to basic things such as tools and roads. It is how he is able to explain his thoughts and words. I will be using two sources that Nye also used in his book to explain what his views are and those that are being shared and left out.
One of the sources that I chose to use was a piece written by Sherry Turkle who is a professor of social studies of science and technology at MIT. The title of the article she had written is called How Computers Change the Way We Think. And in no debate this is a true statement. With the recent development of computers there is so much we have been able to do which would not have been able to do before or would have took much longer to accomplish. But with this development there has been a lot of debate on what has provided us with, the good and the bad. Turkle tells us that it has made us more efficient in the idea of getting things done faster and more smoothly. This however does not still prevent errors from happening.
She talks of the bad with her first encounter with ‘computers’. When calculators were first a thing for students to have and use many lost the ability to do calculations that were simple in the back of their heads. Those who had used them made many more errors than those who still did the work the long way. A simple idea that even technology can screw up even if we put in the correct data. She moves on to the idea of privacy. My generation has never experienced the true idea of privacy. Like Turkle says, “Middle-school and high-school students tend to be willing to provide personal information online with no safeguards, and college students seem uninterested in violations of privacy and in increased governmental and commercial surveillance.”
Turkle brings up the idea of chat-rooms and online gaming. Is it portraying us as whom we really are or as some person we want to be. In conclusion we, the people, do both. We act as ourselves but at the same time we act as people we aren’t, making ourselves look better. She then moves on to the idea of PowerPoint. This program is of great use and can do a lot for people. However it truly shows the person for who they are. The misuse of the program can only be blamed on the person running it. However we get a sense of that person on how they gathered their information and how well they put it together.
In general you can see that Turkle sums up the idea that technology changes us for better or worse. But she does not tell us what is the outcome; we have to see for ourselves. It all depends on how we use it. With that we are able to see how we react with the technology to see if we are in control or it controls us.
The next source that I used from Nye was by Theodore Roszak. His book is called The Making of a Counter Culture. The first chapter he has talked about the idea of Children of Technocracy. What he means is that we, or even any generation, are the children of technocracy. Meaning that even if it is not as complex as today’s time, at some point there was a technological advance that was the big thing of the time. We are run by it all no matter what. How we use it depends on the need and if it is really vital to you. This can be related to any generation like I said because technology comes out at anytime. (need more from this source)
I think that Nye has the general population involved in these sources, because it deals with everyone. No one is left out because this involves everyone and everyday lives. I feel that I will use this because one of my questions that I want to answer is how technology controls us. Is it us that controls us or not really? Such things as iPods, computers, and cell phones. It deals with all people in the world.