The world we live in is constantly changing at a rapid pace. How we interact with the rest of the world has changed immensely over the course of our history. These advancements in human communication are directly linked to the progression of technology. Although some say that technology is causing a decline in our communication skills, I think we are just entering a new scope on how we communicate.  Technological advancements connect us to the past in ways we never thought possible and broadens the conversation to a world wide spectrum. While the advancements are mostly beneficial, we have to be more vigilant of where and why we get our information.

400 years ago people in Spain were most likely not talking about don Quixote with people in Italy. But today they may very well might be. Just the fact that you are reading this very blog posts suggests that technology helped keep this story alive.

In this new technological age we are exposed to thousands of ideas and opinions every day, all by the touch of a button. We are even exposed to new ideas without even realizing. Let’s take playing a video game for instance. as Jesper Juul puts it in “Games Telling Stories”, “I think we need to consider games as fairly formal structures that in complex ways spawn and feed player experiences. This means that we cannot afford to ignore the effect of interactivity: The non-determined state of the story/game world and the active state of the player when playing a game has huge implications for how we perceive games.” I think the point she is trying to make here is that games are based on plots such as don Quixote; So even though if you have never read the novel you can still contribute to the conversation based on what you took away from the game, hence putting a new spin on the story.

Now while sharing ideas is great, sometimes the story can be skewed based on the story teller. For the story of don Quixote miscommunication is a main theme in the novel in the actual story and in real life.  As seen in chapter XVI , don Quixote states, “its your fear that makes you unable to see or hear things the way they are. One of the effects of fear is to confuse ones senses and make things seem like the way they are” (pg.144). Now although don Quixote is referring to sheep this theme of fear and miscommunication is very relevant today.

The media uses this very idea Cervantes suggest all the time today. Whether its the news alerting us of a snow storm or an infomercial at 2 am trying to sell you a home security system, fear is the driving motive for how we live our lives. Fear also drives us to impulsively buy that new outfit because you are afraid of not fitting in. Now I highly doubt that Cervantes cared whether you did indeed buy that new outfit, his idea of fear mongering was spot on.

Technology is a powerful tool that has connected people from all over. But as Cervantes suggest we have to be careful how we interpret our information and keep a straight head, not at all like don Quixote.