Lest we can actually read the entire thing (Cynthia Selfe essay summary)

In Cynthia Selfe's Essay entitled "Lest We think the Revolution is a Revolution" she talks about how technology is often related to change, which is exactly what it is doing. Those who teach in the English Department have accepted the new change that technology brings, and with that they often buy new equipment and upgrades for the most up-to-date programs. Although with this, it tends to have people fear the effects that the change technology brings. Selfe can't help the fact that even though there can be draw backs to change, she continues to say that "it is easy for us - for Americans, in particular - to believe that technological change leads to productive social change." (p. 293)The essay continues on to say that it is in fact easy to believe that the change technology brings can create a productive social change. Selfe also believes that computers will help make the world a better place and more productive in the worldly affairs. Due to the change from technology, they are able to create advertisements from just still pictures and tell stories from them. What she stated about the ads was that also in the essay that the ads "reveal to us the complications of our feelings toward technology and illustrate how these feelings are played out in the shared landscapes of our lived experience" (p.294)

There was a quote in that essay that said "Americans use technology to become world travelers, to learn about - and acquire knowledge of - other cultures, while remaining comfortably situated within their own living rooms and, thus, comfortably separated from the other inhabitants of the global village.(p.296-297)" What she is saying is that even though we have the power and capabilities to reach the farthest ends of the world and visit them virtually, that's all we are actually doing, visiting them virtually. People today would rather pretend that they were there than actually go to those places. I understand this a little bit, mostly that in this economy I would rather pretend I went somewhere nice and foreign rather than pay for a trip there and back. Understanding that nothing compares to the real thing.