Conference looks at technological climate

PHOTOGRAPHER: Jessica Harding

Popular social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook have changed the way people interact, but how those interactions will affect the future global community are still unknown.

Questions about how society will change in an increasingly technological world was one of the topics discussed this weekend during the third symposium sponsored by the Institute for Critical Climate Change at the University at Albany.

Bernard Stiegler, a leading contemporary philosopher at the Pompidou Center in Paris, explored some of these issues Saturday before a room full of scholars at the University at Albany.

Stiegler expressed concern that many people immersed in the new technologies have developed qualities similar to Attention Deficit Disorder.

University at Albany English professor Mary Valentis, who serves as the Institute’s creative director, concurs. She said she sees the appearance of Attention Deficit Disorder in her students who are listening to lectures while repeatedly checking their cellphones and sending text messages to their friends.

The institute was founded by Tom Cohen, an English professor at the University at Albany, and Henry Sussman, a comparative literature professor at the University at Buffalo.