The Technograph

What would you call a person who has attached external components to themselves to help navigate their environment? According to Amber Case, this is the definition of “cyborg,” but more importantly, “you.” Amber Case from Portland, Oregon is a cyborg anthropologist, or a person who studies current society through technology. She, like her peers, believes that each and every person in this society is, in fact, a cyborg. How is this possible?

Students, when they hear this, may claim that they do not have anything attached to them in order to navigate their world. Is that so? Where is your cell phone? Your computer? How can you most quickly, from this point, access Facebook or your email? Students might not have anything physically attached to their bodies, but the devices they use which extend their capabilities are so integrated into daily life that it sometimes seems as though they are.

Case explains that, while conventional prosthetics may extend the capabilities of arms and legs, cell phones extend the capabilities of the ears and laptops extend the capabilities of the fingers and eyes. These extensions of the general ability to communicate, according to Case, help people navigate the fourth dimensional space occupied by the internet, television and radio broadcasts, and telephones. This, in turn, makes all people cyborgs in technological society.

Case also points out that stores specializing in technology act almost as museums of cyborg anthropology. There, people can view (and purchase) any number of devices to attach to their brains, hands, and eyes, and there are even experts available to answer questions. She also says that “you’re a god” until you lose or break one of these extensions. This proves the idea that the devices attach to you in a psychological way because, as anyone who has experienced this knows, there is an almost-physical pain when these devices are no longer available.

Even personalities can be cyborg-like. By using social network sites, people are basically uploading their personalities through comments and pictures, while other personalities can interact and shape them. These sites help the uploaded identities to navigate this social environment, and each identity can then edit the way other people are seen through their own posts. Case says that this begins to turn life into a “giant video game” that people play by using the extensions they have acquired.

Case mentions that Maureen McHugh once said that “soon, perhaps, it will be impossible to tell where humans end and machines begin.” How far will personal technologies go before people cannot decipher what is still human? For now, this idea is mere science fiction, but someday “cyborg anthropology” may have a very different meaning.

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