During Week 2 of the course we discussed Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, the idea that “The Medium Is The Message” and Idealism vs Realism.

Carr’s book does a lot of talking down and is at time heavy handed in its lecturing but he makes a couple of good points. His argument is that our attention span has been drastically reduced and we simply don’t have time (whether we really do or not) to read through articles, books, or web pages. Several classmates said that it was redundant or repetitive and in some way I think this kind of proves his point. He mentions how he used to be able to read long detailed arguments and that now merely skims them despite also criticizing oversimplification. There was some element of that in our classroom discussion.

“The Medium Is The Message” was a little difficult to understand at first. I couldn’t really see why texting and being able to text and all that it implies, is any more meaningful than all the things you could say in a text message. In the grand scheme of things, in the context of the history of computing and digital media, I can see its importance.

Lastly,  Idealism vs Realism was an interesting topic. I think I’m much more of an idealist, that the ideal exists and must be pursued but can never be attained. There’s definitely a sense of romanticism in that. The overloading of information and reality that we get from the internet as Carr might put it, makes an escape much more attractive.

The first week of class we discussed dynamic range compression and why it is so prevalent in music today. I was aware that audio quality had taken a hit but was taken aback by how much more compression exists today compared to decades past. Later, when looking at http://dr.loudness-war.info/ to see how Michael Jackson’s discography looks like, I was not surprised to learn that each successive release of “greatest hits” or re-releases since his passing in 2009 has been poorer and poorer in quality. Perhaps it’s why more and more people are going  back to vinyl. Although I have yet to buy a record player, I have started my vinyl collection as well. Only a handful so far, but it will continue growing. I agree that compression is probably the industry’s response to the internet making more music available for consumption to more people. We have playlists with dozens if not hundreds of songs, on portable devices that can store thousands of them. If they can deliver a cheaper product to greater demand, they will.

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