Review Questions
These are the review questions that I posed based on the introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 10. Liz had different questions for Chapter 6, which she listed on her slides.
- What is a bias, according to Rushkoff?
- Computers are great at handling a steady stream of inputs—my typing on a keyboard, an incoming email message, a push alert, etc. How many inputs can a human being handle?
- Our class meetings are synchronous, but our home work is asynchronous. How does understanding this difference help us manage the various inputs we encounter?
- A good deal of this reading reminds me of Walter Ong’s famous argument about orality. Ong argued that writing was a technology that transformed oral cultures into ones capable of advanced thinking. Rushkoff seems to argue the opposite: that our use of digital technology in real time has ruined our thinking. How are we are using these technologies differently?
- What does he mean by “hacking” an arbitrary system?
- Missile guidance systems used for assisted driving technologies: cruise control and GPS navigation
- Missed call feature -> Text messaging
- Powerful personal computer best used as an Internet terminal
- Is learning to program the only answer?