Smartmobs=Pod People

Reingold’s theory of smartmobs is a booming new creation sprung out of technology that connects many people at one time without the necessarily knowing that they are connected to one another. Just the summary of Reingold’s theory shows enough implications that are provided within these new media worlds we live in. Today everyone and their mom (literally) text messages, and I believe that it is not necessarily seen as a problem within our society, however as Reingold states it is forming a new infrastructure as means for communication. However, one must question what happens when we lose our face to face communication. What happens when we are all connected by microchips and we no longer have to waste time, energy, and resources to interact with each other.

I think that text messaging is a great invention. I use it for it’s discreetness and convenience. I no longer have to have awkward short conversations on the phone to ask a simple question, and I really can ignore just about anyone I don’t want to talk to through text messaging. However I see that new technology can take us over and put us in our own pods so to speak.

This is where my personal experience comes into play. First we had the invention of the walkman, then the diskman and now the ipod. I remember my older sisters getting disk-mans when they first hit the market and I didn’t understand it’s purpose until I saw them constantly using them. Again, when I was in middle school, Ipods hit it big on the scene and I simply didn’t understand why you would want an Ipod when you could have a diskman. But soon enough I came around and realized I just could not live without my very own ipod. With an Ipod I could escape my noisy classmates, my parent terrible choice in radio stations, and the sound the neighbors crying newborn. The point is the ipod allowed me to escape into my own world. Eventually I think this will happen to us all of smartmobs continue. We will become so involved in our virtual lives lived out through new technological devices that we will lose touch with each other.