Modern media and media technologies have dramatically changed the way in which human beings interact with, and experience the world. The Internet has grown to become a database of human dialogues, experiences and memories that are constantly being archived. Modern media technologies have become an extension of human functioning, allowing people to access, record and save any information, anywhere. Woolworths have recently released an app which allows shoppers to peruse the aisles of a supermarket from their phone, letting then shop anywhere and at any time. People have almost become more virtual than real-life in their existence. Modern media has presented society with the ability to store their information in a realm beyond the reaches of human physicality. Frighteningly, this information is recorded, floating around in the Ethernet permanently.
The Brain Blogger article explores the concept of brain washing, and whilst this is often associated with areas of espionage and political regimes, society as a whole is being progressively brain washed by the media they engage with on a daily basis. The collective media memory presents us with what we should know, experience and engage with, as it is in the global media memory. In this article, Daniel Coffeen explores how younger, technologically-dependant generations are experiencing higher levels of anxiety and demonstrate a more fragile state of mind. He argues that the reliance on media has bred a generation who feel they are constantly exposed and under scrutiny as their entire lives are embodied with the global memory of the media world. The extension of their own memory and state of being has produced a group of people who's identity, memory and sense of the world has been solely constructed, maintained and used through the online, technologically driven, media world.
Media memory has great potential to provide people with a range of new experiences in the would that would not normally be possible in our limited human abilities. However, it has also begun to influence the way in which society functions, creating individuals who base their existence on the information fed to them from the global media memory.
References
Coffeen, D. (2012) "No wonder the kids today are so anxious", Thought Catalog, February 17 <http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/no-wonder-the-kids-today-are-so-anxious/>
Pamoukaghlian, Veronica (2011) ‘Mind Games: Science’s Attempts at Thought Control’, Brainblogger.com, December 28 <http://brainblogger.com/2011/12/28/mind-games-sciences-attempts-at-thought-control/>
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