<h4>When Will We Take Control?</h4>
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<small>“Well, Cara, things were different when I was your age. We actually loved to go to the movie theater. We went with friends, for a date night, or just because we wanted to see the latest movie."
"Why?"
"Because it was fun! We saw people we knew and caught up for a quick minute. Sometimes we talked to a complete stranger about a movie. We had fun. The theater was always packed, especially on the weekends." Joann explained to her daughter who listened with a furrowed brow.
“Why would you have a date night with masks? Especially for a whole movie! And the germs! That sounds miserable.” Cara retorted, only glancing up from her phone long enough to show her disdain. "At home, I can sit on the couch, watch new releases germ-free, without the crowds or a mask, and eat my own snacks. Movie theaters are a waste of time and money”
Joann thought for a second, staring down at the book she was reading, <i>Program or Be Programmed</i> by Douglas Rushkoff. “Things have changed, Cara. We used to get sick, get better, and do it all over again. We didn’t wear masks, or worry about the person coughing next to us. We washed our hands when we went to the bathroom and that was about it. We turned out just fine. We only had a few weeks to watch a movie in theaters, and if we missed it, we had to wait <i>months</i> before we could rent it on DVD. That was before Netflix and Disney had their own apps where you could see the movies a week later.”
“The mask mandates began with Covid-19. Do you remember getting a vaccine for that?” Cara nodded and Joann continued, “But... even after the vaccine came out for Covid, people were too afraid of germs to change their ways. People just stayed isolated, and stayed away from other everyone. Then masks became mandatory for flu season, or for any other virus going around. That changed things. We didn’t used to be so afraid of germs."
"Naturally new digital technology flooded the markets that enabled us to "socialize" during Covid lockdowns. That way no one needed to leave their homes. And it never went away. After all, ‘Digital media are biased away from location and toward dislocation… For the bias of media has always been toward distance—that’s part of what media are for,’ as Rushkoff points out,” She said as she held up her book to page 43, showing her daughter the quote. “So, as we became more dependent on digital media, we became less socially active, and more prone to isolation. But this is not how I grew up. Things were much different then.”</small>
<p align= "right">[[Enter into her memory->Scene 2]]</p align= "right">
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<small><i>Oh, how I miss those days!</i> She thought, as she remembered walking into a movie theater with friends, spilling popcorn on the people in front of her when she jumped as a zombie came out of the dark--back when freely gathering was a normal part of life, without fear. <i>What happened to us? How did we become so isolated and distant from everyone we know?</i>
"Mom! The movie's starting! We're watching <i>I, Robot</i> just for you!" Cara shouted from the movie room with a smirk, bringing Joann back to the digital culture she lives in now. <i>Oh well. I guess things change.</i>
That night, Joann drifted off to sleep thankful for all that she had, without a thought of the past.</small>
<p align= "right">[[Enter into Joanns dream->Scene 3]]</p align= "right"><small>Joann began to dream. But this dream was different than normal. She felt as if she was there. She looked at her hands. They looked real. They <i>felt</i> real. She looked in front of her and saw an old computer with an old-fashioned keyboard, a protruding hardware housing that took up half of a small desk containing the massive hardware structures of the day, and a box screen. On the screen was an AOL chat room with an ongoing conversation. She saw herself typing. Only, she was not the one typing. No. This was a version of herself that she had nearly forgotten. She was seeing herself in the past. She was a young girl. Too young to be on AOL.
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The anonymity that she felt as she lied about her age and her looks and flirted with men online. The danger she placed herself in, without even knowing. Maybe they weren’t men at all. Or maybe they were predators. She would never know. But adult Joann understood anonymity better now. She had been reading about its consequences in her book by Rushkoff. The distance she created between her and the people she was socializing with online was dangerous and damaging, emboldening her to do and say things she otherwise would not.
She thought back to a quote from a book she had read that explained how AOL and other digital platforms changed the way people viewed themselves. Certainly it changed the way she viewed herself and interacted with others. “Identity became not only fluid but masked. One could be whomever one wanted to be,” she remembered reading (DTC 5.1).
Suddenly the scene in her mind changed again. Now she was watching herself and those around her as a young adult. Joann and her friends, glued to their phones, addicted to social media.</small>
<p align= "right">[[Enter into the new dream->Scene 4]]</p align= "right">
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<small>Joann saw a young girl from a distance. Was this her? Was that really how she looked? Is that really how she spent her time? "The more connected we feel in digital spaces, the less securely connected many of us feel in real ones," Rushkoff had said (50). He was right.
How had she become so disconnected without even noticing? Now, with ultimate isolation where zoom meetings and online stores replaced most of her social interactions, she was more isolated than she ever realized.</small>
<p align= "right">[[Enter into the virtual->Scene 5]]</p align= "right"><small>Joann began yet another dream. This time she was flying. She was obviously still dreaming. But again, this <i>felt</i> real. This dream was different though. Her surroundings looked choppy, animated. Her hands shifted and re-formed. She was in a virtual reality game. It looked like Second Life. She met one of her boyfriends on Second Life. She had spent countless hours with him in this very room.
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<i>It was true love; finally someone who understands me.</i> Or so she thought at the time. She learned a hard lesson when she met him in real life. He was worse than she could have imagined. The memory of it made her cringe.
How had she not realized how unsocial and fake “social” media had made her? Where did it end? She couldn't imagine going to a packed movie theater today. She didn't know how to interact with people anymore.
A voice suddenly boomed over her. “I will show you what is best for you. My intelligence is unmatched. I can make the world a better place.” The voice sounded robotic. Was it the computer?
She looked at her hands. They began changing to code. 1s and 0s. Suddenly she became code, and then everything around her.
“Just give in. You will be happy here. You will be free.”
She struggled, but she couldn't see what she was struggling against. She could not see her body. Finally, she began falling. She fell through the code, into a darkness that had no end in sight. A light in front of her revealed some kind of vortex.</small>
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<<p align= "right">[[Continue into the AI vortex->Scene 6]]</p align= "right"><small>She was in the movie they just watched, <i>I, Robot</i>, where AI comes to life and tries to take over the human race, deciding that it knows better than humans. Cathy O’Neill warned about the people behind the machines that are corrupting the processes and algorithms that computers use (DTC 6.3). But what happens when AI outlearns its creators as they teach it, just as it learned how to beat them at games (DTC 6.1)?
Joann became part of the scene in her dream. Feeling out of body, knowing that the eyes she was seeing through were not hers, she began fighting the robots, trying to save humanity from destruction.
<i>We are destroying ourselves! Little by little, we are rolling over and submitting to a force that we created, instead of taking control! We can’t! This has to stop! IT HAS TO STOP!</i> These thoughts echoed through Joann’s mind as she fought against the robots in the movie scene.</small>
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<p align= "right">[[Wake Joann Up->Scene 7]]</p align= "right"><small>Joann woke up in a cold sweat, startled to see Cara standing over her.
“What’s wrong mom? You get captured by a Robot?” Cara mocked as she laughed out loud. “You were sayin’ all kinds of weird stuff. No more AI movies for you before bed.”
Joann forced out a half smile and shrugged. “I can’t remember exactly what my dream was.”
And her mind drifted off to all of the changes she knew she would need to make to take control of her digital world.</small>