Essay 1: The Wired Lives We Lead

Ryan Higgins

Professor Jasmine Mulliken

English 1113

8 September 2011

The Wired Lives We Lead

            Ben Agger, the author of The Virtual Self, is a sociologist who tries to make sense out of the high tech world we live in.  Agger tells the readers he grew up in the 1960’s when people’s sense of self was quite different from what it is today.  In chapter one, “Everyday Life in our Wired World,” Agger explains how people rely on the Internet to provide them information and to connect with others.  He makes arguments that technology helps people’s sense of self but it also creates laziness. Agger believes that our entire social structure is affected by the Internet because it provides “unprecedented opportunities…for taking control of our lives” (1).

            The world is in a stage of history called “modernity,” according to Agger (1).  This means that people depend on technology to help them make decisions that they used to have to make on their own.  For example, Agger points out that instead of reading books on health, people can find out everything they need to know about a colonoscopy online (4).   Agger admits that this makes things more convenient but says, “Information and entertainment trade off against real depth of insight, the ability to reason, skeptical inquiry” (4).  Agger is bothered by this because he thinks technology makes people more accepting of the world around them instead of challenging it like he did in the 1960’s.  Agger tells the readers of his college days when he protested the Vietnam War, attended political rallies, and freely smoked marijuana.  He idolized his sociology professor who wanted his students to ask questions and not accept their current situations. 

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            Agger introduces the term “everydayness” as “people’s ground-level experiences of themselves and society” (8).  His point throughout the chapter is everydayness is more routine with technology.  Instead of trying to form personal face-to-face relationships, Agger points out that people can talk in chat rooms or send Facebook messages.  Agger argues that this affects the world’s social structure in a negative way.  In Agger’s words, “Everyday life in the wired world has been accelerated, compressing time and leaving people scattered and restless” (19).

            Agger argues that technology is not all bad for social structure, though.  Agger talks a lot about class structure.  He says technology is good because “distance education can level the playing field for people in rural areas, underdeveloped countries, those who thirst for in-depth knowledge about all manner of subjects.” (12). This is important to Agger, who describes himself as a follower of Karl Marx, who favored equality for everyone.  Agger is concerned that everydayness causes people of all classes to accept what they see on the Internet or read on blogs.  Again, he reminds the readers of Marx, who challenged class structure and agrees with Marx that capitalism may be in trouble if people conform and do not think for themselves (23).  What does capitalism have to do with everydayness and the use of technology today?   Agger believes that everydayness is affected by things like the stock market and investing.  Technology has allowed companies to produce more goods more efficiently, using fewer workers, which means the companies make more money.  This is good news for bosses and investors but bad news for labor, according to Agger (26).  Losing jobs affects workers’ senses of self.

            Agger says everydayness, which is aided by technology, does not have to be boring.  People can challenge everydayness if they want to.  He argues, “…I seek to view the concept of everydayness historically, contending that we need to view the mundane occurrences and

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patterns of daily life not as a timeless constant but as a particular outcome of a capitalist society…” (34). Agger is arguing that people often accept their place in life without trying to make things better.  He adds, “…I want to disentangle the personal, indeed the person, from an everyday life that has come to be marked by banality, routine, deprivation, meager expectations, absence of hope” (34).  Agger believes that new surveillance technology, including satellites and the Internet, takes away people’s privacy, “which subjects us to discipline in order to produce and reproduce disciplined selves” (37).  If people remain too disciplined, according to Agger, they will never be able to challenge their everydayness and improve themselves.        

            Agger admits that technology improves people’s lives in a number of ways by making things more convenient.  However, he also thinks that technology causes people to accept their everydayness and not challenge authority.  He wishes that people today would show more passion for their causes.  Even though more information is available today than 40 years ago thanks to the Internet, Agger does not think people are smarter today.  They no longer search for the truth or read classic literature because they do not have to (39).  He is disappointed that technology has created a lazy society that he is opposed to.  It is a different society than the one he grew up in during the 1960’s when people fought for change.  Although it is a different society Agger admits that technology has brought some good to the world as well.

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Work Cited

            Agger, Ben.  Everyday Life in Our Wired World.  The Virtual Self: A Contemporary                                   Sociology.  Wiley-Blackwell, Chickester, 2007: 1-41. Print.