A phone to replace phones

Before I criticize the advertisement and the phone itself, I have to admit this is a great advertisement. Maybe because it's funny, maybe because it's so short, or perhaps it is the familiarity of the music but regardless of I can watch the ad over and over again. And that's kind of scary- because that's what they want.
The advertisement itself is a viral success, being viewed as often as amateur videos.

The slogan for the phone is an interesting one, "It's time for a phone to save us from our phones."
This is saying this phone is the solution to societies obsessions with "smart" phones. So this is technology to replace technology, but aren't all new devices and technologies created to improve past technology? Every new model of a technological device is created to improve the problems that past ones had. Our society is obsessed with the idea of creating new technology to better our current technology. Why? to make our lives easier, but what our we sacrificing for that?

Human interaction. This advertisement clearly shows that physical human contact has been replaced with digital interaction. People are attached to technology, putting it before social interaction. The commercial displays this in a dramatic way by trivializes the most important celebrations in our culture, such as a wedding, and puts it behind technology. By showing all these different people in different situations where they are focusing on their phones rather than their lives around them.

Although this commerical does focus on a major issue in our society, and makes a promise that this phone with solve it, it seems that the phone will probably only add to the problem.
This phone may be quicker, but it still allows people to focus on their digital lives instead of their real lives. Windows claims it will get you "in and out" but with all the new features the phone has, Microsoft office, xBox live ect, people will spend just as much time obsessing over their phones as they have in the past.


Nice try Microsoft, but I highly doubt your phone is going to solve the problem our society is so deeply emerged in. Your probably only going to make it worse.

my hd lullaby

I can’t fall asleep without the TV on.   I am twenty years old and I cannot fall asleep unless the TV is on.   I don’t watch what is going on, I close my eyes and listen.  It’s as if I need to television to sing me a digital lullaby before I can fall asleep.   It’s pathetic.  Last night I was up until 3:30 a.m. with my eyes shut tight trying to fall asleep, but I couldn’t.  I gave in at this point and turned on the TV, lowered the volume and put the sleep timer on.  I was asleep in a matter of minutes.   It is just noise, noise that helps block out the things I am actually thinking so I can have a clear enough mind to sleep.  Television has become a safety blanket for so many people in our society.  It has become a toxic life force that pollutes everyone who participates. 

The media, television in general, is addicting.  Its main purpose has shifted from to inform, to entertain and ultimately to distract.  When we watch television we are trying to distance ourselves from the real world for a bit and indulge in this fantasy world, where you can focus on others misfortunes to distract yourself from your own. 

Television is so dominant in our culture, but what kind of effect is it having on society?  Even television that is meant to inform the public is full of frivolous information told to us by beautiful people to grab our attention.  What the media strives to take from us is more valuable than money, our attention.  Our attention is priceless, and limited, so media is in competition with itself to obtain this precious entity.

How do we choose what to waste our attention on?  Sometimes things we are genuinely interested in, but usually it is the most outrageous and shocking thing we come across.     Information has become pre-packaged into “infotainment.”    This information overload has made our society brainless and inattentiveness is a major result.  How do we make more constructive use of our time and attentions?  Skip the television, read a book, but it’s not that easy.  Television is everywhere, when I pump my gas, buy groceries, go on an airplane, my attention is redirected towards a television.  Television has invaded and majorly altered our culture.  This blog is going to talk about the many ways in which the media, but television in particular, has changed our society and how our attention has become our most valuable commodity.    Stay tuned!