Learning Made Visible: Discussion Board Letters
Technology and the Liberal Arts at Tidewater Community College

Forum Discussion Guidelines and Excerpt from Project Guidelines:

As you read Kenneth Gergen's "Social Saturation and the Populated Self" in Literacy, Technology, and Society, it's a good idea to outline the key points and to write a paraphrase for each of the terms he highlights. This notetaking process will help you analyze and reflect on the issues as you prepare to discuss these terms with your classmates.

Letters to the Whole Class

Dear Classmates
Multiphrenia is the pursuance of many goals by choice. If the quotation from _The Homeless Mind_ on page 29 is true, that the modern man struggles with an identity crisis, then this partially explains why we struggle with indecisiveness. We also struggle with indecisiveness because we have exponentially more options with technology's assistance and a non-increasing amount of time to decide which options to complete and complete them.

One of the characteristics of multiphrenia is the desire to complete all of the goals chosen. The text best describes this, saying "to want reduces one's choice to want not." The desire to complete chosen goals renders one incapable of believing that not all of them can be completed. Another characteristic of multiphrenia is self-conscious worry and guilt about progress. This involves constant observation applied to self-comparison. The third characteristic of multiphrenia mentioned by the text is mental defiance amidst frustration. This involves logic ponderings such as the ever familiar "why" questions.
An example from my own observation and experience is with my education. I signed myself up for too many goals a few semesters ago and almost met none of them because of my desire to meet all of them. I refused to believe that some of the goals could not be met because they sounded reasonable and not too numerous. So, I learned much about when to give up some goals to accomplish the others successfully.

Faith

Fellow Classmates,

Multiphrenia is the desire or need that we as humans have put on ourselves to accomplish more goals than time will realistically let us achieve. Due to technological advances we have spread ourselves thin. No longer is distance between two points an issue when conducting business with associates. The devices that we have created in order to aid is in our daily lives have also aided in the demise of our normalcy. We are forever under the gun to "catch up" and get ahead of the issues often at times giving up the interim that should be set aside for our own personal schedule to relax, slowdown and enjoy life to the fullest. With the broad spectrum of choices and information afforded to us in this day and age it is easy to feel inadequate. Not living up to what our parents expected of us or feeling inferior to what society deems as a normal person. Now that we have all of these choices before us we question as to "why". Do we make our decisions based on our own beliefs or by what we consider to be accepted by others? And if the latter is the choice we can only hope that as a collective unit we are making the right decisions to further enhance our children's future

Personally I know all to well about the "catch up" scenario. In my job I deal with every command in the Mid Atlantic region, ship or shore facility. I use to work ten to fourteen hour days to stay ahead only to come in the next day and find myself behind again. This had little affect on me except that it took time away from my daughter. I realized that some things are just never ending and that others are to precious to let pass unnoticed. I cherish the moments with my daughter so I sacrifice sleep to spend more time with her while still being able to manage my job and school commitments. It is a precarious balancing act at best. So has technology actually made our lives easier or has it burdened us further without our realization?
Carey

Letters to Individual Classmates

Dear Faith,
Time. It all seems to boil down to that one little word doesn't it. When one thinks of time and technology you would assume that technology would afford you more time, but we both know this is not the case. I too made the mistake of over loading myself between work and school. When viewed from the distance I just knew that I would be able to complete all the tasks that I was piling on my plate. I was so consumed by my desire to complete all of the tasks that I lost sight of what was important to me and almost failed in completing any of my goals. I felt that it was a failure on my part by not being able to manage my time accordingly. It was by no means a failure. In fact it was an awakening. For the first time I realized that I can't do it all. It wasn't about time management but more of prioritizing my goals. What's important and what's not. For myself it is my daughter. My whole schedule evolves around her smiling face. I guess you could say that technology has given us more time but we have just over loaded ourselves with commitments and personal goals.
Carey

Dear Carey
To answer your inquiry on whether technology has made our lives easier or burdened us further, I think it has burdened our lives as citizens. However, businesses and corporations actually benefit from technology. Not only are they making a profit by selling us products that make individuals use more time, but they ARE saving time using technology to produce mass quantities of these products. The only way that we are benefited from technology is through entertainment and quicker communications. I heard a statistic somewhere that said over 100,000 calls to 911 are made daily in our country on cell phones. That means that 100,000 people get faster assistance during an emergency daily. Pretty impressive, huh? The entertainment industry has exploded from technology. Not only are manufacturers able to reproduce realistic life-like images and sounds with high-definition televisions and speakers, but movie producers and circus directors are able to integrate computerized or visualized special effects. It makes daily work more difficult for the actors and magicians because they have to work around these imaginary objects visible only to audience; however, they make a great profit and we applaud for more. Overall, I think that common people lose more time with technology.
Faith