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fshannaw317 has 1 post(s)

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% Shanna Williams completed

Good evening everyone.  My name is Shanna Williams and my post is in response to Turner’s essay on the shift of society’s view of technology in the 1990’s versus the 1960’s.  The elaborate shift in this viewpoint can be explained by a variety reasons.  The society of the 1960’s was vastly different from the society of the 1990’s.  The 1960’s represented a time of extreme change and upheaval.  The various movements and social tensions of the 1960’s gave way to an “anti-establishment” belief and this trickled down to the technological advances of the period.  Technology was viewed as part of the problem; it stifled free speech, encouraged conformity and discouraged individuality .  It became a symbol that was synonymous with the Vietnam war.  Technology was the antithesis of 1960’s culture.

Turner posits that the 1990’s ushered in a new perspective towards technology.  The new wave of the internet was marketed as a tool that would unite the masses; the internet would form a great digital utopia that would unite the masses and accept everyone regardless of the differences that existed.  It gave birth to the rise of individualism.  The mindset of 1990’s society diametrically opposed the mindset of the 1960’s and this is largely due to the different views and belief systems that changed over the course of 30 years.