It is impossible to escape becoming a cyborg in our world. Electronic communication integrated itself with our lives and our bodies long ago, starting with Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, accelerated by the "boon to culture and education" called the television (Adams; pg. 90), and still going on today as we are shoved, willing or not, into traffic on the information super-highway. These advances in electronic communication have made it such that, without them, one's contact with others is significantly reduced, and one's capacity to participate in society is likewise reduced. As lives become more privatized and physical contact becomes rarer and more undesirable, these tools help shape their users images of society as they begin to constitute the majority of the users interaction with "Others." As Robert Bellah writes, "One of the reasons it is hard to envision a way out of the impasse of modernity is the degree to which modernity conditions our consciousness." (pg. 277)
Though not wanting to exclude the effect of the telegraph on society, for the purposes of my argument, the telephone was the first devise to simulate physical contact via electric contact. It's ability to do so is best exemplified, as Olalquiaga points out, by AT&T's "reach out and touch someone" campaign (pg. 12). This campaign, broadcast on the television, played upon an already real, but frightening, fact which many of the telephones users may not have been aware of: "real" touch was no longer necessary. "Real" touch had become talking to someone on the phone. Prior to the telephone, personal visits were the only way to "reach out and touch someone" with any sense of reality (though letters provided a partial, though by no means cybernetic, sense of contact). With the invention of the telephone, this necessity become a luxury. To show how powerful this form of contact is, think this: As a college student, people ask me, "how often do you keep in touch with your parents?" What they mean, and what I respond to, is how often I talk to them on the phone. In reality, I only am in the physical touch with my parents once or twice a year. But the telephone is becoming a touch in its own right. As telephones became more and more common, mankind took its first step towards cybernetic connections with each other.
The television has changed our contacts with each other in many ways. In fact, it is one of the most important inventions leading to and shaping postmodern society. It's role in the privatization of society and creation of cyborgs in the postmodern society is very complex. First, it is the single most important exhibition of images in society. Nowhere else is there a place where so many different images come together, often offered at a blinding speed and in dizzying combinations. It is also one of the most important news providers, with several hours of news a day on most channels, and several channels devoted entirely to news or fact based documentaries. Within the world of television, there is also a strange contradiction. On one hand, television displays the socially constructed images of "reality" as the viewers, according the ratings, want to see them. On the other hand, it is the images which are shown on television which help construct these images. In this sense, television is a self-fulfilling prophesy, helping to socially construct images, while it reacts to the viewers desires to see stories built upon these socially constructed images.
Television's role as the largest image generator in our world is in many ways its most important facet. Television is renowned for images of violence and sexuality, often breaking the boundaries of what is considered appropriate, and then recreating them. In many cases, images of violence are attributed to Blacks, Hispanics, the poor, and the mentally ill. Though there is crime amongst these groups, television's portrayal of it skews society's views. One way in which this is accomplished is through the time constraints of television. If, for instance, a television show is one hour long, 48 minutes of which are actual show time, the characteristics of the actors must be created in a very short time, possibly making the criminals appear more criminal, the innocent more innocent. In addition, when show after show after show portrays Black teens and the mentally ill killing four or five people an hour, while the homeless are drunk and dirty and dangerous, this imagery sinks in. Also in these shows, "relationships are as brittle and shifting as the action of the camera. Most people turn out to be unreliable and double-dealing...and the environing atmosphere is one of mistrust and suspicion." (Bellah; pg. 280-1) After a couple of hours of television, it is no surprise that the viewer begins to live in fear of those "Others." News shows offer a similar portrayal. Playing to the fears of society, the emphasis of the news is on Black-on-White crime, creating more fear as it plays to it. "While the frequency of such violence is considerable, it is less than the publicity about it would suggest. Nevertheless, fear of it is so pervasive that it has become an urban phenomena in its own right." (Gulick; pg. 210)
Television also reduces the viewers ability to sort through these images by offering everything at such an accelerated pace and with such variety that one easily loses the ability to actively participate in the shows, taking on the role of a passive viewer, accepting the images as they tumble off the screen into your lap. Everything offered in this way is totally ripped out of any context which might help to explain it, forcing the viewer to construct their own privatized opinions. However, the accelerated pace does not allow time enough to deconstruct what is being shown, and the images are taken into the viewers head decontextualized and unprocessed. "We switch from quiz show to a situation comedy, to a bloody police drama, to a miniseries about celebrities, and with each click of the dial, nothing remains." (Bellah; pg. 280) Sadly, one way to become an active participant in the non-interactive medium of television is to act out the scenes which one views. Gulick writes: "Attempts to access the effects of simulated violence on television have yielded contradictory and inconclusive results." (pg. 210) Though correlation between television violence and real violence is a hotly debated topic, it is easy to see how an individual, frustrated by the boredom of their own life sitting inactive in front of the television eight hours a day, could come to see acting out the lives of celebrities as a way to participate in this lifestyle. This is especially true, I would think, in inner-city communities, where access to a dangerous and "glamorous" lifestyle is easier to appropriate than the middle- and upper- class communities. So, inner-city residents become objects of simulacra, as they take on the rolls ascribed to them on television - roles which were originally based on nothing. The inner-city resident who follows this path becomes indistinguishable from their representation on television.
This phenomena, which Baudrillard calls the precession of simulacra, occurs when a representation of a form occurs before the form itself. "Simulation is...the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal." (Baudrillard; pg. 1) He goes on to say that, "To simulate is to have what one doesn't have." (pg. 3) This would fit to the model of television, as the generation of images is designed to create what the viewer wants to see; in this case creating a scapegoat and criminal out of the aforementioned groups.
The internet is one more step away from other people and into the world of cyborgs. "A computer presence will permeate the workplace and the home, available whenever the need is felt." (Biocca & Levy; pg. 323) The internet is the highest level of communication we have today. Fast, efficient, easy, and almost omni-present, the ability of get to a computer and use the internet is becoming a necessity in our society. It is also the highest level of cybernetic conversion. Baudrillard wrote that, "from a classical point of view, technology is an extension of the body." (pg. 111) Indeed, computers are becoming an extension of the body. A century ago manual labor prevailed, but now many jobs entail hours spent in front of a computer. In the home, they are becoming more and more popular. Telecommuting is on the rise as more and more people choose to work from the comfort of their desk and pajamas at home. Computers, and their most cybernetic application to date, the internet, are also one of the most powerful blenders of reality and imagery. Not only is there a virtually (no pun intended) endless catalog of images available on the internet, but a wide variety of games and chat networks allow their participants to take on alternate personalities. If one wants to live their entire life through an electric medium, there is no better way to do it than on the internet. However, like the unreal personalities that people can take on inside games and chat networks, the images on the internet are of dubious truth. Computer imagery is notoriously easy to manipulate, creating pastiche images which wholly misrepresent their subjects. Also, like television, imagery on the internet can be taken out of its original context and placed in a new one, showing the subjects in a possibly unfavorable light.
Computer imagery is a just as susceptible to misrepresenting its subjects as televisions - more so in some ways. First, the imagery is easily manipulated. Baudrillard, who has written much about the infiltration of illusion into the real world, is one writer who strongly believes in the ability of the unreal images available on computers to have a negative effect on societal relations. The photo of him represents his disbelief in the truth of images, so easily (as this one was) manipulated. "[Computer] interfaces may resemble the real world or include devices...that have no antecedents in the real world...Artificial realities need not conform to physical reality any more than our homes mirror the outside environment." (Biocca & Levy; pg. 323) What is represented as real on the computer is high suspect. The images which are shown are, in many cases, as representative of socially constructed stereotypes as those on television. Subsequently, those who spend much of their time glaring at images on the screen take away a view of the world which is based more on what they see on the screen than on what they take away from actual physical contact with other people. To these people, what is "real" becomes what they see on the screen, not what they see during these non-existent physical interactions. Physical interactions thus become affected by the image-based interactions, creating a new reality for the participants.
Additionally, the ability to change one's personality on the computer not only gives others an incorrect view of the world, but can easily intrude upon one's own psyche. Violence is a common theme. Extremely popular games, such as the Doom series, allow the player to jump into the life of a computer character, and enact a terrible price upon the minions of Hell. The visual graphics of Doom are from the point of view of the imaginary player and are quite realistic and graphic, even going so far as to turn the camera angle and show the characters death when it comes - death being the one thing a computer cannot simulate. Computers can be linked so that several people can cooperate with or fight against each other. Like television, a correlation between computer violence and real violence is debatable. However, if you've ever watched people playing Doom, they take the game very seriously, bodies jerking around in their chair, sweat on their foreheads, and anger in their eyes. An equally popular and controversial way of toying with one's identity is the nearly endless amounts of sex networks. Like pornographic movies, these are designed to bring the participant in, experiencing an entirely unreal sexual experience vicariously (Olalquiaga). Unlike a movie, however, on the internet, one can participate, making it that much more "real". In these interactions, reality is turned into the mental images of those participating, an almost VR experience. Many of the participants change their identity in order to fulfill the sex lives that they are not having. "There's no guarantee of honesty, but it's surprising how much information people choose to provide. My profile, for instance, says I'm a tall, dark-haired, single female in the market for men who make me shiver." (stolenkiss; pg. 153) (Ironically, this quote, pulled from Penthouse magazine, is a simulation of a simulation: an article, guised in truth, about the life of a woman on the net; however, its intention is also to provide a vicarious experience for the reader, perhaps a vicarious experience of using the computer for those without access to it.) The participants become articles of simulacra, as their identities become a representation on the computer. The computer becomes away to interact with others and to receive physiological input - the input of violence upon ones self and other, as well as sexual activity. Through this, the participants become cyborgs with much of their contact coming from this electric medium. The popularity of violence and sexual experience can be seen as a result of lack of actual experience in these areas; i.e., a person who sees violence and sex on television and the internet displayed as desirable, but has no way to actually participate in these physical sensations, lives the experiences vicariously on the computer.
We are all cyborgs to some degree. For some of us, this is an unhealthy thing, allowing a near-total escape from the physical world. Prejudices and twisted attitudes about sex and violence are one possible result. In other cases, the imagery creates a fear of "Others" which can carry over into all aspects of life. And in some cases, these mediums can be used well, as tools to keep watch on the watchers, and to constantly remind yourself of the way in which "Others" are represented and misrepresented as we loose touch with each other.