Ideas for Civic Artifact

I didn’t exactly know what a civic artifact was before discussions in class and looking up a few definitions. A civic artifact: something you can see or have in everyday life, something that connects us to the past or reveals something about the past, can be seen in the news. Essentially, anything… if explained in the right manner.

 

Naturally, I thought of something that people nowadays can’t live without; something that has seemed to connect citizens all around the world despite gender, race, religion, etc. You go into any public place – a restaurant, clothing store, department store, and see anyone holding it a few inches from their face: a smartphone. When we became so glued to these small, handheld devices that we can’t seem to live without, I’m not sure, but I do know what seems like the entire population has relied on these machines for quite some time.

Certainly, we didn’t always have these smartphones. Obviously, the time when cavemen communicated by drawing pictures on stonewalls, or colonial men and women sat down with a feather pen and some ink have been forgotten. But what about spending the time to talk to someone directly in person rather than texting or calling? How reliant have we become on these methods of communication within a smartphone? Technological innovations have advanced our world in ways people centuries ago wouldn’t ever have imagined.

For my civic artifact assignment(s), I plan to talk about the smartphone. I will connect the technological advancements in the forms of communication that have led to the smartphone and how these advancements have brought communities together into my assignments. How they have actually “functioned civically” is something I will go into further depth.

 

I hate to admit that I believe the smartphone to be a critical facet of American culture today. It’s interesting to think what we will be dependent on in ten, twenty, thirty years, and what impact the smartphone will have in future years.

2 thoughts on “Ideas for Civic Artifact”

  1. The preacher has spoken.

    I have a bike that I ride around campus everyday, to go do anything outside of walking 100 feet from my dorm to the dinning commons. Any time from eleven-thirty to four o’clock is nearly impossible for a biker to get around. The sidewalks are full, the roads are full, so you really have to alternate your course depending on the situation, and there is one thing that makes this entire process ten times more difficult for me: the smartphone.

    Kids are always on them. Walking across the road, driving, eating. I have to admit that I become one of those people when I am extremely, impossibly busy, but this is like one percent of the time that I am awake. A good forty times a day I nearly hit a student straying from his/her side of the walk because of the smartphone.

    Aside from that frustration, I also strongly believe in understanding and being aware of the moment. I would say enjoy the moment, but that implies that there is always a moment to enjoy. Even the most positive person on the earth would disagree with that. It is important to know what’s going on around you. All of your memories should not consist of your phone screen, but the people, buildings, and nature around you. I am looking forward to your analysis of this artifact!

  2. Somehow I forgot that this was your RCL blog, so I apologize for being so informal and lacking in analysis. To continue my thoughts in the last paragraph, I would love to see you discuss the positives and negatives of the civic actions of the smartphone presently, as well as what it could lead to in the future. You touched on both of those things in your blog, and a great discussion could definitely be centered on those two topics. You also mentioned focusing on how smartphones have brought communities together, so I feel as if all of those things would work well together in explaining the civic actions of the smartphone.

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