Technology as an Extension of Ourselves:

Along with generalized performance anxiety, I have been chronically afflicted with varying degrees of technophobia. I have always felt irremediably behind the times with respect to technology, in every domain: communication (email, cell phones), information (the World Wide Web, Albert, Blackboard, online catalogs such as PsychLit), arts media (iPods, Net Flicks, digital video), academic presentation (PowerPoint), and all manner of practical daily applications... There is a certain sense of helplessness that is immediately activated when I attempt to navigate these systems.

And yet, I recognize that this helplessness is nothing more nor less than a reflection of self-imposed obstacles with which I grapple in all my dealings with the world--and my coming to terms with technologies will be linked with my gaining confidence and competence in various professional and personal undertakings. In a sense, technology can be viewed as the developmental threshold ("cutting edge") of human endeavor in different fields, certainly including music and education--analogous to what Vygotsky referred to as the "zone of proximal development" in which young children are maximally receptive and responsive to input and interaction that facilitates their growth and change.

Gilbert's Webmusicing blog presents ways in which technological advances have been manifested in musical creation, performance, and listening. Current technologies have also made their mark on the ways that psychological understanding is constructed and articulated. For example, in recent times we often study cognition via the computational-representational understanding of mind (which we are learning about in Rowe's Psychology of Music class). In the past, other technologies were invoked to describe the workings of the mind, such as plumbing (e.g., involving fluids or humors--bile, phlegm) or electricity.