This week’s Networked Media course reading by Duncan Watts was an interesting one at that. Why do I care for how the power system works in the USA. Generators are all over the place, and numerous power cables connect from the generators to countless places all over the country. Intriguing, right? Yeah, not really.
For the majority of the population, how electronic currents run from A to B isn’t the most fascinating of topics. However, it needs to be understood, and it definitely needs to be appreciated. In 1977, New York City came face to face with 25 hours of no electricity. The difficulty was extreme, and it heavily hampered the city, causing $350 million in damage. Electric power is the mother to almost all of modern functioning technology. Today’s great-grandparent generation recite stories that feature candlelight as their way of seeing in the dark. My generation (gen Y and younger) can not fathom what this would be like. Let me give an example of my daily routine.
- Wake up,
- check my phone for any messages, emails, etc.
- Breakfast. Usually cereal and milk. (Fridge needs power)
- Watch morning TV while I eat brekki.
- Drive to Train station (Car battery needs power). .
- Take train to University in the city. (Trains need power). Listening to music on iPod
- Uni lectures involve watching a projected screen. Tutorials involve interacting with digital media on computers.
- Buy lunch. Use debit card paypass – electronic.
- use my power-thirsty laptop throughout the day for research, note-taking, online communicating
- train and drive home
That is super simplified, but you get the idea. Keep in mind all the electricity-powered light, traffic lights, constant text messaging and calling… the list really does go on.
The reliance on electric power is ultra heavy. It is the most essential technological feature of the modern world.
More pervasive even than highways and railroads, and more fundamental than cars, airplanes, and computers.” – Duncan Watts
When I was reading Watts’ extract, I made an immediate connection between the linking power grid and hypertext. Everything connects to one another, and transferring of power, or information, is almost instantaneous. They are both complex connected systems. They are networks. Networks are not limited to only these, but encompass social, scientific – the brain and the way it transmits messages throughout the body, ancestral (family tree), ecosystems, and the backbone of the internet, among others. Network properties are flexible, they aren’t fixed in time in a specific structure.
a network is nothing more than a collection of objects connected to each other in some fashion – Duncan Watts
What was most interesting for me in Watts’ extract, was his discussion of two theories. I wont describe them, because the beauty of hypertext means that you can simply click on the link and read for yourself, and gives my fingers a rest from typing as the Melbourne State Library closes. Milgram’s Small World theory, and well as the concept of 6 degrees of separation are a couple ideas that resonate.
