What are the advantages/disadvantages of a surrogate?

• The advantages of a surrogate is having a duplicate of someone or something, therefore the workload and stress can be distributed evenly.
• The disadvantages of having a surrogate is that one can lack intimate or personal experience. It takes away from the real life experience.

Would you want to try a surrogate? Why or why not?

• I would not want to try a surrogate because it would seem as if i am sharing my life with someone else. I feel like a surrogate is beneficial when it comes to separating workload but it can also cause you to become disconnected. I also think there would be some kind of downfall with having a surrogate.

In the film, it says that 98 percent of the population uses surrogates. Why would society be so eager to be someone else--someone beautiful and perfect? What does this say about our society?

• I believe that society is so eager to be someone else--someone beautiful and perfect because the media makes them believe that is how they are supposed to be. With 98 percent of our population using surrogates, it says that our society just wants to be perfect and will do anything in order to get there.

In the film the company VSI's company slogan is: "Life...Only Better." If you experience something via a surrogate--is it real? Is it the experience better?

• In my opinion, if someone experiences life as a surrogate, it is not real. I don't think the experience is better. I think everything in real life is better because you are constantly involved in personal experiences.

The Loss of the Real

I was assigned to read the article "The Loss of the Real". The main idea of this article focused on how in todays world it seems as if real life experiences and experiences with technology have to compete for people's attention. It was argued that outside of the real world there is a certain vividness that is designed to thrill people. This makes people want to engage more in Internet and fake experiences rather than face to face interactions. We are losing the real world because people don't know how to balance the real world and virtuality. A quote that interested me was,"Searching for an easy fix, we are eager to believe that the Internet will provide an effective substitute for face-to-face interaction (504)."
I totally agree with this quote. I do feel that others, along with myself try to find the easy way out of everything by just using the Internet. With doing this, we begin to lack personal experience since we have become dependent on Internet and virtuality. Internet experience is definitely not the same as face-to-face interaction. Another quote that interested was, "To this young woman, phone calls represented thenatural, intimate, and immediate. We build our ideas about what is real and what is natural with the cultural materials available." I can connect to this because I feel the same about phone calls. I agree that phone calls are more intimate and present more of a connection between two people because they can hear each others voices and are actually interacting with each other. I feel that people today just need to learn how to balance real life and virtuality and everything will be okay.
Two questions that  I would ask the author is how do you think the competition between real and virtual life can be ended? Do you fall for the vividness that the virtual life presents?

"Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld"

Summary:Andrew Sullivan's article "Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld", was a very interesting article that touched bases on how society is so wrapped up in technology and media. Nowadays people are so dependent on technology that they tune out the world and everything around them. Society lacks communication and interaction with others. Technology has created a new world for people. People have become attatched and dependent to technology because of the improvement and changes. Companies are doing a good job with attracting people and keeping them hooked n their products.
Quote 1: "It's strange to be among so many people and hear so little. Except that each one is hearing so much" (500).
I have witnessed this in real life. I have seen people with each other sitting in silence or barely talking because they are to occupied with their technology. Nowadays people in the society lack communication. This shows that people dont realize what is going on in the outside world.
Quote 2:"Americans are beginning to narrow their lives. [...] You tune into a satellite radio service that also aims directly at a small market--- for new age fanatics, liberal talk or Christian rock. Television is all cable. Culture is subculture. Your cell phones can recieve email feeds of your favourite blogger's latest thoughts---seconds after he has posted them---get sports scores for your team or stock quotes of your portfolio" (501).
Everything is media based now and people have become so dependent on technology. We dont know how to do anything on our own anymore. This world is now technology based. It has its benefits, but at the same time it is bad because people become out of tune with others and themselves.
Questions for Author: Do you feel that you are out of tune with yourself and others?
How do you think society can become more in tune with the world?

My Day Without my I-Pod

I was assigned to complete the challenge of choosing not to use my I-Pod, Facebook or texting for 24 hours. I accepted the challenge of not using my I-Pod for the day. I also expanded the challenge by eliminating music as a whole frommy entire day.
This challenge was way more difficult than I thought it would be. I thought this wuld be the easiest because with eliminating music I would still be entertained and able to communicate with my friends through texting and Facebook. Not being able to listen to music made my day empty and boring but it also helped me to realize new things. Before this challenge I knew that music was one of main interests, but I did not know that I was so dependent on it. I usually listen to my I-Pod or music on the way to school, walking to classes, while doing homework, to fight boredom and to help me fall asleep. i would also play music from my laptop while I shower. Without being able to do all this, my day was very quiet and I felt like I was lost. While walking around to classes I always listen to music to pass the time and to tune out everything around me. With no music today I noticed things I never did and listened to other sounds. I found myself singing or making a beat in my heas. I also listened to cars, birds and everyone talking around me. My day was boring without music but I have come to realize that everyone is so dependent on technology and alltypes of electronics nowadays that they fall out of tune with themselves and everything around them. I will try to stay in tune with myself, but as of now my 24 hours is up and I am listening to my I-Pod as I type this!

About Me

Rayana White is a first year student at California State University of Northridge. This creation of this blog is part of her English 114B writing class. This blog will consist of posts and feedback on topics she is given to respond to. Rayana is a first time blogger and this will be a new and fun learning experience for her. With her reading and responding to readings on this bog she will be able read critically, gain effective writing skills and be exposed to a variety of literatures. Rayana enjoys reading and writing, so this experience should be great fun but still enlighten her English skills.

Besides reading and writing, Rayana also enjoys helping people and spending time with her loved ones.
Rayana is a freshman at California State University Northridge and she is majoring in Health Administration and dreams of gaining a career as a gynocologist. She wishes to gain happiness from helping as many people as she can throughout her life. Along with helping people, Rayana enjoys dancing, shopping,sleeping, hanging with her friends and spending quality time with the ones that she loves.