bandwidth:
"A cumbersome synonym for 'time,' as in, 'I don't have the bandwidth to deal with that with that issue,' but with implications beyond the merely temporal, encompassing the larger issue of mental resources or capacity." from Micojargon in the Thursday "Circuits" section of the New York Times.

convergence:
"....I think of convergence as kind of melding the Intel computer chip with the Frito chip, and when that is ultimately done, the world of convergence will be here." Tom Roger, NBC.

cyblie, Net truth:
Rampant rumor mongering and purposeful misinformation on the Internet. Example: The person responsible for the fake "Vonnegut MIT Commencement speech" that got quickly and widely distributed over the Internet in August, 1997.

c-friend:
a cyberspace friend, also c-sister, c-family, c-single

data:
"Observations of states of the world" (Tom Davenport) see also: information, knowledge, data smog

data smog:
"the noxious muck and druck of the information age." from David Shenk's Data Smog. AKA "Information pollution."

downteching:
the conscious embrace of older, simpler machines (Hugo Heclo, George Mason University.)

facemail:
"Technologically backward means of communication, clearly inferior to voice mail or e-mail. Involves actually walking to someone's office and speaking to him or her face-to-face. Considered highly inefficient and declasse." from Micojargon in the Thursday "Circuits" section of the New York Times.

Hacktivists:
Individuals involved in what some see as a form of electronic civil disobedience. Activities include "virtual sit-ins" and attacking the Web sites of persons or organizations believed to be responsible for oppression. (See New York Times, 31 Oct 31, 1998)

Internet Addiction:
"a psychological dependence on the Internet, regardless of type of activity once 'logged on.'" (from article in Chronicle of Higher Education 6 Feb 98)

University of Cincinnati psychiatrist Nathan Shapira studied 14 so-called Internet "addicts." He found that , on average, the subjects of the study each had had five psychiatric disorders. He argues that excessive online use should be considered not as a separate addiction but as a disorder of impulse control, in the same category as kleptomania or compulsive shopping and suggests the problem be called "Internetomania" or "Netomania. " (USA Today June 1 98)

information:
"data endowed with relevance and purpose" (Peter Drucker). Sometimes also defined as "Information=power." However, David Shenk asserts that Information is Power is one of the "great seductive myths of our time." Jacques Ellul also asserts that the formula "Information is power, accepted as an obvious truth, covers complex, contradictory, and confusing realities." (from the essay Preconceived Ideas About Mediated Information.) see also Informatization described in Episode 749 of Engines of Our Ingenuity at http://info.lib.uh.edu/engines/epi749.htm

information ecology:
an organization's entire information environment (from Information Ecology, by Tom Davenport).

knowledge:
information with value, from the human mind (adapted from Information Ecology, by Tom Davenport).

Luddites:
a pejorative term used to describe anyone who is opposed to technology. For the historical origins, see Episode 274 of Engines of Our Ingenuity: at http://info.lib.uh.edu/engines/epi274.htm

"Intellectuals, in particular literary intellectuals, are natural Luddites." C.P. Snow.

mouse potato:
The Net Generation's equivalent of a couch potato, sans TV & couch.

Netiquette:
Conventions or rules that govern behavior and conduct in cyberspace.

Networld:
"new spaces for social, work, and educational interaction." Linda Harasim.

rhetortech:
the label that I use to characterize the way some people speak of and about technology

spamdexing:

"In a strategy nicknamed 'spamdexing,' Web site developers put countless repetitions of a favorite word on a page they want you to see, often in invisible type or hidden behind GIFs. You may not notice it, but to the search engine, the page mathematically appears more vital to your interests." --CNET columnist Don Steinberg
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Voices/Steinberg/032697/index.html?dd

spamming:
see http://www.usc.edu/dept/annenberg/vol2/issue1/

techne:
the knowledge of how to make things

technocracy:
According to Neil Postman, this is a culture distinct from a tool-using culture.... it exists when "tools play a central role in the thought-world of the culture." In a technocracy, "everything must give way, in some degree to their development." from Technopoly, pg. 28.

"...it is technocracy, not liberalism or conservatism, that has been the dominant ideology of US politics for most of the century." Virginia Postrel, in Wired magazine, January, 1998, p. 52. See also technocrats

technocrats:
"the most powerful supporters of stasis. " Virginia Postrel, in Wired, January, 1998, p.54.

technology:
"is technology only for people who are born before it was invented." Allan Kay. See also appropriate technology described in Episode 584 of Engines of Our Ingenuity: at http://info.lib.uh.edu/engines/epi584.htm, and "Some etymology" in episode 12 at http://info.lib.uh.edu/engines/epi12.htm

"... . If religion was formerly the opiate of the masses, then technology is the opiate of the educated public today." John McDermott, from Technology & the Future, 7th edition, edited by Albert Teich.

"technology has everything to do with who benefits and who suffers, whose opportunities increase and whose decrease, who creates and who accommodates. " Corlann Bush, Women and the Assessment of Technology, in Technology & the Future, 7th edition, edited by Albert Teich.

"...means different things to different people. ..... technology can be defined no more easily than politics. Rarely do we ask for a definition of politics. To ask for THE definition of technology is to be equally innocent of complex reality. " Thomas Hughes.

technologies .. "can be seen as 'forms of life' in which human and inanimate objects are linked in various kinds of relationships. " Langdon Winner, from "Artifact/Ideas and Political Culture" in Technology & the Future, 6th edition, edited by Albert Teich.

technological determinism:
see http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/tdet07.html

technological fix:
a technological shortcut applied to solve a social problem

technological imperative:
the compelling urge that allows us to believe that because technology empowers us to do something, we ought to do do it; technological inevitability.

technological malleability:
The idea that technology is not predefined, but shape-able, controllable.

technological utopianism:
"Ever on the horizon sits a wondrous technology promising to deliver a truly equitable, educated, civil democratic society." From David Shenk's Data Smog.

technopoly:
"the deification of technology." Neil Postman, Technopoly, 1992. Knopf: NY

teknosis:
when technology becomes an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Those who accept this notion are "teknotics." Term coined by John Biram.

Thinkies:
"If you go back in history to when they first added the soundtrack to the film, the movies had a new name for a brief period. They were called Talkies. Now we've added interactivity, an entirely new medium for cinematic expression. That's why they are called Thinkies. " Lee Morgenroth, quoted in Frank Beachum's essay Movies of the Future: Storytelling with Computers

Turing test:
see "Kaspov and Deep Blue" Episode 1242 of Engines of Our Ingenuity at http://info.lib.uh.edu/engines/epi1242.htm

webphones:
conventional phones with a small display screen that can be used to surf the Web and send e-mail.