Christopher Watts, from St. Lawrence University, created the following video for a New York Six event. The premise of the talk creatively explores how the obsession with quantifying information without qualitative considerations can lower the bar for what it means to be alive. If we increasingly value data points as the primary form of knowledge, but lose our ability to understand the implications of that quantified data on society at large, then we become zombies who rely on technology without internal awareness and critical thought.
The arts and humanities must take the lead in studying how technology influences human thinking so that we can direct the change that happens in our age of information.
See Watt’s fantastic video here:
Christopher Watts is Associate Professor at St. Lawrence University.
Great video Christopher. Thanks for taking the time to make it and share it. Love the ending.
Thanks, Brett! This was fun to put together, and I’m glad it resonates for some people.
Thanks for that Chris,
I loved the style of the video and a lot of what you said really resonated with me. I am going to share the video with my students, as I think there are some important issues they need to remember when working with data and information.
I do work a lot with data and I love it. But I do so in a humanities setting and I am more passionate about humans and human culture. I really liked the way you expressed how people provide the link between data and knowledge.
– Henriette
Thanks, Henriette!