Blog #10 Convergence

To my understanding “convergence” is pretty self-explanatory, it is the process of converging from one thing to another. It doesn’t matter. For example, in the introduction of Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins, he speaks about a time he was trying to buy a cell phone. Not a smart phone like most people would do in this day and age but just a regular CELL PHONE. Where you make a phone call and there might a camera featured on it and that’s all. Well he couldn’t find any phone like that at all anywhere that he went. And what stood out to me during the scenario is when the sales associate had said “they don’t make single-function phones anymore. Nobody wants them”. This is pretty obvious how accustom that we have come with iPhones, androids, or any sort of tablets. The transaction was so fast it’s kind of unbelievable. I remember there was a phase where the Motorola RAZR was the thing to brag about and then next thing you know, touch screen devices came around and society converted to it so fast without even knowing. The author also mentions the “effective economics” and how it is hard for people to even watch 30 second commercials so they have to think of other ways for their information to get across. For example, now you see tons of advertisements on your phones while playing games or even watching a short clip on YouTube. Convergence is happening and it’s happening now. Some people don’t mind it and some do. We have to learn how to live with it and adjust to it.