The Machine is Using Us
Last January, Dr. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist from Kansas State University, uploaded a short video to YouTube called "Web 2.0, the Machine is Using Us." The video documents how the Web is changing how we communicate and how fast.
It quickly became the most viewed video on YouTube, watched by over 3 million people.
Wesch is an evangelist for media literacy. He teaches teachers how to use the Web, because, he says, students are good at being entertained by technology, but they're not particularly good at using it to mine, identify, and sort valuable information.
I talked to him recently after he gave a presentation at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. There, he also showed a new film, A Vision of Students Today. You can also learn more on the blog Digital Ethnography.