Digital nation questions

First I want to say that couldn't help but find it humorous how the beginning and end of that video seemed to be shot on webcam. It seems a little shocking how much technology has taken over our day to day lives. I've seen the change over my life. I've always had a computer in school but it has evolved so much in my time that looking back it's shocking. And with the tsunami of social networks it brings to mind real questions such as;

1. The video stated people who take part in P2P networks like second life or WOW are better friends with the people who they interact with online. But has it completely deminished the face to face social interaction aspect of life? I am required to be social for my job but how would that be effected if I grew up only talking to people's aviators? Would I be intimidated talking to people? Would I be the shy guy in the corner? Would I even be able to do my job?

2. With school being a dominate cactor in my life, I feel like I have to ask; has technology effected the way we approach higher education? The availability of information has become inconceivable. Hypotheticaly speaking if we took someone from a college 50 year ago and had them trade places with someone with a current student, would the adaptation of technology during that time help or hinder the students performance? Would the student sent to the past find the work load easier? Would the student from the past find the work load harder or overwhelming? 

Finally as a former member of the military I can't say I agree with the Army's use of a gaming station as a recruiting post. People in the U.S. should join a service for love of country. They should join because the want to defend our freedoms and ways of life. They should not be coerced because they spent their lives playing Call of Duty in a recruiters office and thought it was a good thing to do. 

To make a final point on how much we have been effected by this snowball effect, I typed out this post on my iphone. 

here is the 24 second animation with sound.

This work is a visual representation of a combat veterans mind set. With PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) it is very hard to focus on one simple task, similar to things just piling on top of one another in one chaotic mess. The use of personal pictures from my time in Iraq coupled with the found images are symbolic of the fact that even though we survived and came back to the world, we never fully left the combat zone. 

The word "Ttouble" is representative of myself having been in a myriad of it since my return in October of 2008. The bottom background image is a panorama of one of our operating camps while on mission. The top background image is that of a "combat jump." I have also inserted photos of myself throughout the piece as well as a majority of my interests. 

This blog was created yesterday as part of my art 245 digital media class. More to come later.