Sherry Turkle shows the reader of “Identity
In the Age of the Internet” how drastically the use of computers has changed.
She points out that ten to fifteen years ago computers were used mostly
by programmers for calculations. Everything on the computer was cut
and dried. Almost everyone saw the computer “in terms of centralized
structures and programmed rules, now [they see it as] complex and decentering.”
(p. 349) People wanted to explain how the world worked by “unifying
pictures and analyzed complicated thing by breaking them down into simpler
parts. The modernist computational aesthetic promised to explain
and unpack, to reduce and clarify.” (p.347) Turkle makes it clear
that the computer is not used for this anymore. She points out that,
“. . . we are moving from a modernist culture of calculation toward a postmodernist
culture of simulation.” (p. 349) Many people, not just programmers,
use computers today in everyday life. These people use simulation
to go about their everyday lives, but it is not something that can be completely
understood. Years ago when things were cut and dried, people understood
what their computers were doing, now most people have no idea what is happening.
Turkle points out that this is not always a bad thing. She states
that,
Simulation are “opaque,” that is, too complex to be completely
analyzed that is not necessarily a problem. After all these theorists
say, our brains are opaque to us, but this has never prevented them from
functioning perfectly well as minds. (p.349)
One of the products that makes simulation so easy to understand
is the Macintosh iconic style. This style gives people an “understanding
that depended on getting to know a computer through interacting with it,
as one might get to know a person or explore a town.” (p. 352)