Journal Entry 3

In Borgmann's first few chapters, he discusses the idea of information. He states that information can take many different states and there are multiple types of information. One thing Borgmann pointed out that was interesting to me was when he mentioned that the internet allows us to constantly be bombarded with information, but even without the internet, we are still always having information thrown at us from television, music, billboards, advertisements and so on. Another interesting point and almost alarming thing that he points out in his introduction is the fact that people today can often feel closer with someone down the hall by sending an e-mail than to a person right next to them within talking distance. It's disturbing to think that a technological connection with a person can engage two people better than the good old-fashioned way of physically carrying on a conversation face-to-face.
Borgmann then goes on to question the structure of information. He askes the question of whether having information is the same as "knowing" something. He then goes on to further break it down by stating that there is indirect knowledge and direct knowledge. Direct knowledge is directly knowing or experiencing something, while indirect knowledge is learning it indirectly and not actually experiencing it yourself but second hand. He goes into the idea that there is natural information and cultural information. Natural information is "about" reality; signs connect us to our natural environment. Cultural information is "for" reality.
I also agree with Borgmann when he talks about our language and how it is becoming "shapeless." Today, so many people use text, instant messaging, e-mail, myspace and facebook and it's easy to fall into the mode of "short-hand" or "slang." In my personal experience, I'm used to abbreviating some things on text and at times, when I have to actually write those words out on paper, I will catch myself wanting to write the "text" version, which is scary. One would think that as our means of communicating and use of technology grew, we would also have to grow intellectually with it to understand it, but I believe that some people today are hindered by the short-hand and have actually lost some of their knowledge of how to write things correctly; not many people ever use proper capitalization, grammar, or spelling rules over text.