Paranormal Author & Historian, Debra Glass

When Art and Technology Become a Part of Us...Literally

Iraqi-born Wafaa Bilal, a photography professor from New York University's Tisch School of the arts, had a camera implanted in the back of his head all for the sake of an art project. He planned on keeping the camera implanted in his head for one year, which would take a photograph every minute and feed them to Wafaa Bilal's website as well as have the photos streamed in real-time to monitors set up in the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Qatar for the contemporary art exhibition. Bilal's project wanted to represent all the surveillance in today's society as people in various cities spend much of their time being under watch of surveillance cameras. The article from BBC News shows that the artist, Bilal, was forced to remove the camera implanted in the back of his after his body began rejecting it. Bilal wanted to have it re-implanted but doctors refused because it was too much of a risk for infection, however, he found a way. The artist went to a body piercing studio in Los Angeles to continue with the procedure where the camera was mounted on 3 posts attached to a titanium base that was inserted between Bilal's skin and skull.
I think new technologies are such a wonderful thing, but it's a little bit scary when it ACTUALLY becomes a part of us. I guess if Bilal can function normally and remain infection-free with this camera in his head, then more power to him. But according to the BBC article, he said it was quite painful even with all the antibiotics. Technology is a powerful thing, but so is the human body and we should listen to it more often!

What Does the Unrest in Egypt Mean for American Economy?

People have been questioning the role of social media in Egypt due to the protests, now people are questioning how this revolt will affect global economic recovery. An article from the Huffington Post reports that the Suez Canal in Egypt transported 2.9 million barrels of oil daily (according to the U.S. Energy Dept., 2009). As the Egyptian army increases security around the canal, trade passages will be blocked which most likely increase the price of oil and economists say that "a dollar increase at American gas pumps tears more than a billion dollars from the economy each year." Price increase (especially with oil) makes me a bit uneasy, as I'm sure it does for many other people and I think all we can do is try and not to let money issues be the cause of panic. This may be a very unfortunate situation for the economic recovery in America as high gas prices seem to hit us harder than the cost increase of other commodities but we need to realize that sometimes we can't just hope for the best, we have to make sacrifices to avoid the worst. 

WARNING: Social Media May Cause Digital Surge!

Social media allows people to access information instantly and opens more lines of communications, but what happens when you are trying to keep up with all of the popular social media “toys” – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo, Skype, etc. These sites allow people to communicate via chat messages, IM, or tweets.

An article on USA Today shows that corporate users receive around 110 messages in a day (in 2010) and there are 110 million tweets a day (says Twitter). From the overload of messages, Researcher Basex says the “unnecessary interruptions” cost over 600 billion dollars in business productivity losses.

Websites like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo recognize this “communication overkill” so they are trying to figure out ways to put them at ease so they don’t lose users to competitors. Facebook seems like a site purely for “social” use or a more private social networking site to chat with friends. Twitter seems less about chatting and more about tweeting short bits of information. Google lets you e-mail, IM and connect with your other sites. 

Because social networking sites are so different and serve different purposes, I don’t believe there is an overload of information that makes it too difficult to process, I think that people are relying too much on websites that “personalize” information. I think that the whole point of social media is for social networking and business marketing purposes. The Internet offers us these services and how we use them is completely in our own hands. 

Segregation in Social Media

Social media give people across the world ability to communicate about their culture and different lifestyles, but an article Digital Divide: Segregation is Alive and Well in Social Media from the Advertising Age website questions if segregation (which is still alive in America) has transferred to the Web. It seems that social networking is how different types/groups of people interact...a space for everybody, everywhere. But it is the job of market researchers to recognize and retain ethnic strategies on the Web for the "cross-cultural" experience that is social media. Does the way we socialize on the Internet come from how we exist in society and should it be that way? Does social media bring people closer together or is there really a digital divide?