Saturday, April 17, 2010

Seepage and control

The idea of seepage makes me think of a world where all domains have seeped into each other. Now there are lectures on mobile phones, but what about quizzes in between popular game levels, or the information city and the grey market combining with legal structures. I cant help but think that the seepage will continue until there are no clear distinctions between education, entertainment, and business. Although these structures will continue to rebuild themselves against the seepage, they wont be able to keep the changes out because it’s the nature of the global markets that updates are necessary to staying ahead. You can’t educate the kids unless you reach them through their mediums. The real question though, is whether seepage is a bad thing? On one hand, like I mentioned, it is the price of a consumer culture that thrives on updates. However, it complicated modes of control when there is too much seepage. Take the cell phones for example. Once the lectures on are the phones how can the professors control in class cell phone usage? There is no efficient way to tell if they are actually looking at the lecture or if they are playing games or texting. This translates into other domains as well. Once the borders between disciplines becomes so porous its impossible to control the usage of shared technologies. This does pose a problem for success and efficiency creted through control. There will have to be a new way to motivate people to do what is necessary to support themselves and the economy.

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