Inside Iowa State

Inside Archives

Submit news

Send news for Inside to inside@iastate.edu, or call (515) 294-7065. See publication dates, deadlines.

About Inside

Inside Iowa State, a newspaper for faculty and staff, is published by the Office of University Relations.

March 9, 2007

Presidential lecture plugs into technological age

by Mike Ferlazzo, News Service

One glance at a student illustrates how plugged in many are with today's technological advancements, and how tuned out they are to others around them. Michael Bugeja sees something else in that picture - how increased technological use has fed a growing interpersonal divide that now threatens higher education.

Michael Bugeja

Michael Bugeja. Photo by Dave Gieseke.

The director of the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, Bugeja examined that problem in his book Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Bugeja will update his research as it applies to today's most pressing technological issues during this spring's Presidential University Lecture on Wednesday, April 4, at 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Sun Room.

While his topic will address today's technology, Bugeja will intentionally use no technology other than a microphone. Easels throughout the room will display photography by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dennis Chamberlain and quotes from Bugeja's talk.

"The idea," he said, "is to create a mixed interpersonal art show preceding a talk about new media and technology."

In his talk, Bugeja also will discuss how the Digital Age, which was supposed to give society a global village, has reneged on that promise.

"We found the village, all right, and it is peopled with as many jesters, peddlers and pickpockets as with wizards," he said. "We have inherited a global mall - so much so, in fact, that we talk, think and behave according to the demographics and psychographics of consumer profiling, even with mobile social networks whose 'affinity groups' read like direct mailing lists."

The promise that information technology was supposed to expose us to different cultures and viewpoints also is a myth, according to Bugeja.

"Increasingly we cluster in virtual environs with like-thinking consumers while true diversity is happening outside our real front doors rather than our Internet ones," he said.

During his presentation, Bugeja will expose corporate profits reaped from Internet addiction - a modern-day illness that afflicts 1 in 8 Americans. By comparison, he reports that 1 in 13 Americans are addicted to alcohol.

He also will discuss "interpersonal intelligence" - knowing when, where and for what purpose technology may be appropriate or inappropriate.

"This means shutting off the portable devices that endanger us while driving, that distract us in class or at conferences, and that interrupt us during outings and vacations," Bugeja said.

He also will refute the claim that technology is just a tool, calling it instead "an autonomous system whose interfaces and applications are means to economic ends."

In spite of his overall concerns about today's technological use, Bugeja still advocates its educational and informational benefits. He is careful to state that he will be discussing consumer technology - iPods, laptops and the like - not scientific technology.

President Gregory Geoffroy created the Presidential University Lecture Series in 2003 to highlight the expertise and excellence of Iowa State faculty.

Quote

"We found the village, all right, and it is peopled with as many jesters, peddlers and pickpockets as with wizards. We have inherited a global mall - so much so, in fact, that we talk, think and behave according to the demographics and psychographics of consumer profiling, even with mobile social networks whose 'affinity groups' read like direct mailing lists."

-Michael Bugeja