Journal #2 Response: "The Museum of Me"

Ullman' describes a billboard that she saw which read "Now the world really does revolve around you," which she identifies as "the ultimate baby-world narcissism we are all supposed to abandon when we grow up." When she discovers that the advertisement is for a company in the computer industry, she decides, "Who else but someone in the computer industry to make such a shameless appeal to individualism?"

Throughout the entire article, Ullman makes some great introspective points and gives some social commentary that I think that anyone who was born between 1980 and 2000 could generally identify with and agree on. However, I do not think that she emphasizes enough the fact that she herself states: that "the web did not cause [asociality and disconnection with reality], but it is what we call an 'enabling technology.'"

This week my phone began to shut off at random times, and sometimes would not power back on. After fighting with it and coming to accept that I would have to get by without it, I began to realize how much I relied on it as a short-term memory storage device. I don't have to memorize birthdays, phone numbers, passwords, or other information when I have my device. I don't have to clutter my desk with post-it notes or papers, nor do I even have to save important or sensitive information in hard copy when I have a smartphone and a personal computer. In this sense, I do live in a debilitatingly virtual world.

What do you think?

Ullman, Ellen. "The Museum of Me." Ed. Catherine Lattrell. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 

     pp. 639-645. Print.