For Monday: Weinsten, “Openness” (pp.141-151)




NOTE: Answer TWO of the following questions with a short response, at least a few sentences. Be specific, and try to respond to the story, not just what you think I want to hear. There are no ‘right’ answers, just honest responses. These questions will form the basis of our in-class discussion on Monday. Questions are due IN CLASS on Monday, and turning them in afterward counts as a missed response.

Q1: What are the “layers” that the narrator constantly refers to in this story? How does it relate to our own processes of displaying our identities on-line today? Do you think we could ever get this this point (and would you want to)?

Q2: Once the narrator becomes involved with Katie, he remarks, “There was something beautiful about sharing things in the old way—the two of us walking by the shore, the smell of the pine sap, the summer air cooling in the afternoon—and for the first time in years, I wished I had a sketchpad with me” (145). Why do the layers prevent this kind of interaction with other people and the world? Do we have the same problem with our own “layers”?

Q3: What does the author mean when he writes, “We were the first generation to grow up with layers, a group of kids who’d produced thousands of tutorials on blocking unwanted users but not a single one on empathy” (148)? Why might we consider this one of the main ideas of the story—and what the narrator, himself, learns through this relationship?


Q4: How could we argue that this story, for all its science fiction technology, is actually about a completely different kind of “layers” that we all have? In other words, how is this story about the difficulty of having meaningful relationships in general, even aside from technology? 

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