HW 16- Big Paper Outline

Thesis- Our overuse of digital devices persists in cultures like our own because many if not all aspects of our lives have become dependant on it, from social use, economical, as well as use as mental stimulation.

Argument 1- how people have become dependant on it socially.

Finding friends, classmates, dates? No problem. There's a site for that. From social groups to online dating, people have turned to the Internet to connect. Sites such as Facebook and Match.com fills this quota in a simple and convenient way. With a click of a button you are "connected". There are more than 300 million active users on Facebook. 50% of these active users will log on to Facebook on any given day. The fastest growing demographic are those 35 years old and older (Facebook). This means even the older generation is getting in on this. This has changed the face of social networking in many ways. Its simple to post on someone's wall and its an extension of the cell phone and e-mail. We still have that. When people are too far to see face to face, to supplement the relationship people can talk to them on the phone or e-mail until they can be able to see someone in person. Until then, the phone, and words in the mail, will be your contact. In today's world that is common.

That's for the people you know. For romantic relationships sites like Match.com or Chemistry.com have become the modern matchmakers. It opens people to meet people they might otherwise have not met. It's their device to romance. Of course, people actually have meet in person. The downside to this is that people often can and will present themselves in way that is not completely accurate to who they are. Either by editing out things that might be a turn off to a potential mate or filtering e-mail responses to be a certain way. The world of internet dating is not always truthful. Of course, who in real life ever is? In some ways that is representational of the actual world, presenting a personal that you want to represent yourself. In the digital medium it just makes it easier to do so.

Argument 2- How people have become economically
Digital technology has even influenced our work ethics. Many people utilize tools like spell check as a replacement for proofreading. As a result of our frequent usage of things like text messaging or messenger, people get used to writing a certain way. Its an impediment to our spelling and vocabulary. Its faster to acronym and short spell words like "what" to "wat" or "I don't know" to "Idk" but as a result there are more moments where we get used to the misspelling and almost forget how the actual word.

Our whole economic system is digitized. The stock market is monitored by a ticker that updates people every few seconds on the change in stock value.

Argument 3- We have become mentally dependent on technology to stimulate us.

We use digital technology to keep us entertained and to stimulate us. Things such as television, the internet and video games distracts us from the dreaded boredom. Phrases like "I'm bored." often pass the lips of today's teen. Its funny, because when my mom sees me online she says that I am boring for being on there. But we use technology to keep us entertained and in many ways it is one of our main sources for our entertainment. Television, video games, and internet keep us in a constant state of frenzy, because we never. Sometimes the result of it is that we are overstimulated. Since the invention of electricity the hours that the average adult sleeps has dropped from 9 hours to 6.9 hours. Part of the reason why is because of technology people and they constantly plugged in and the artificial lights are kept on even when they should be asleep. Light communicates with our immune system and metabolic energy system and having it on after ours the light-and-dark cycles are interrupted. Another reason is that since technology has reigned the working people are able to work even after hours through things like.

Argument 1 people have become dependant on it socially.
-Online Chatting (Sources Feed)
-Online Dating-Match.com/eHarmony etc (NYTs)

Argument 2 How the economy is dependent on technology
-capitalism/consumerism/advertisements
-Stockmarkets

Argument 3 people are dependent mentally

-Spell Check

-Video games, Television, and internet

Hw 15-Treasure Hunting

Jia Min,

I thought your post brought up a lot of great points. Like when you were comparing the books and was talking about how the Feed was doing the work for the kids and them expecting the feed to give them an answer and also related back to the Everything Bad is Good For You by saying how you’re using the net to connect and share your thoughts by writing this blog post. The last few sentences also brought up interesting questions to think about.

I think your main point was mostly about what the books where about and you touched on how these things related to your life. I thought you were trying to explore these topics because there were aspects of it you agreed with or disagreed and you didn’t know which side to be on because of it. I think they were both right, funnily enough.

I thought you could have add in your own experience with gaming since it relates to Johnson’s idea and adding can connect to it some more. But overall I thought your post was a good reaed.

Your post has also made me think about what other points there might be in this digital technology use and whether there was any middle ground in this or was it “good” like Everything Bad for you is Good seems to be saying or “bad” like Feed seems to say.

It was great reading your post. You brought up many interesting points. :)

Hi Na,

Your summaries of the book was really good, it talked about what the author said in a very succint way and people reading it could get what the chapters were about. All your paragraphs are really readable. I liked how you also added personal anecdotes and feelings when you are talking about the book, like when you are talking about gaming and the way it makes you feel.

When you said there are loopholes in everything, I agree and it’s in our nature to try to discover them. That’s why lawyers are able to manipulate the law the way they do and politicians. Maybe that’s what people are trying to do when playing a game, to see if an “impossible” situation has a loophole. The participatory nature of video games do make it more exciting and is what keeps us interested as well as the problems that crop up in the game. I find to some extent we do want to be challenged and want things that are harder to come by, like the way leveling works in virtual games, it gets harder to level each time you increase your level and that presents a challenge that is appealing, and even though people may complain about it, the feeling they get when they finally do level is greater than if it was that easy to level every time.

You said a lot of great reactions about your experiences in video games and television, you could develop what perspectives you find useful and what perspectives are not as useful and why. Haha, I found your comment a bit dramatic, to do away with reading altogether since reading has its own virtues as well.

Overall I thought this was very good and had a lot of good points like the way people might experience and learn from using technology. Great post :D

Hw 10- Internet Research

Internet Usage Statistics
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Asia has the largest users of the Internet in terms of number of people who uses it(3,808,070,503); but in terms of ratio of internet users to the population it is only 18.5%, lowest to Africa who's number is 6.7 %. Its interesting to note that North America who has a significantly smaller amount of people (340,831,831), the Internet has been taken to up to 73.9% of the people. It has the largest ratio of people who uses the internet. Being a person who lives in North America, the numbers are not surprising since Internet usage as it is integral and widespread in people's daily lives, but in comparison to some other countries it is very heavy on the Internet usage.

It seems as if countries that are considered "developed" like North America have the highest usage. While places that are considered less developed like Africa, has the lowest internet usage. In Asia, considered a developing country, their usage of the internet has increased by 516.1 %. It seems like the more technological, and "developed" a country becomes, the more they increase their use the internet. The longer they have been "developed" the more utilized the Internet becomes as well.

How does text affect student's grammar?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080120212338AARFQi0
I think when students text alot we can get used to using text lingo. Oftentimes we use shorthand and lose grammar and punctuation in favor of brevity. Words like "what" become "wat" and "you" becomes "u" and there's also chat lingo like "ttyl" (talk to you later) or "cya" (see ya). But how does that affect student's writing skills? Does it have any affect?

I caught myself writing "wat" instead of "what" a few times when I was writing an essay or taking notes and it seems likely that it has happened to other people as well. Its convenient and used often enough that you slip and one girl on yahoo messenger answers attested to doing the same. I think because of this students can get lazy with grammar or punctuation. There's also something called spell check to fix it for them if they're writing an essay and it makes it easy to get lax on paying attention to things like that.

Moehizzy: "i was typing in chat lingo as its known on my college essays. the transition of typing is hard. i have to go thru spell check so many times and sometimes i still overlook it."

I think once you realize it or catch it, you can correct it, but you have to get used to it.


How does TV affect the developing brain?
http://www.brainy-child.com/article/tvonbrain.html
The article basically correlates short attention span and attention deficit disorder with high levels of television viewing. It says at an early age babies should be doing more hands on things like exploring the three dimensional world and learning about social relationships rather than watching TV. This is because some of the features of children’s programming like “rapid zooms and pans, flashes of color, quick movement in the peripheral visual field, sudden loud noises” that are intended to grab the views attention were modeled after advertising research, which determined that this technique was the best way to engage the brain's attention involuntarily. According to the article, “Such experiences deprive the child of practice in using his own brain independently, as in games, hobbies, social interaction, or just "fussing around." A young brain manipulated by jazzy visual effects cannot divide attention to listen carefully to language. Moreover, the "two-minute mind" easily becomes impatient with any material requiring depth of processing.”

That’s interesting since it seems like kids today have a shorter attention span and this might be a contributing factor for it.

"I have talked to many parents of children diagnosed with attention deficit disorder who found the difficulty markedly improved after they took away television viewing privileges." (Healy)


Is that a coincidence? I think there should be studies on this.

update: there are studies http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=ADHD%20Toddlers
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-04-05-tv-bottomstrip_x.htm

Hw 9- Video Project GHIJK

Hi Kate,

Thanks for the comments. It was very helpful. You were definitely right about the part where you said I should show the actual technology I was interacting with. I thought the same thing when I finished uploading. I was focused on the reaction, bIt would show more that way in terms of showing someone interacting with it instead of just the reaction when interacting with it.

I'm glad you could relate to the uploading process, it took me hours too. It was like yay, someone gets it after reading your comment about it because it seemed like everyone else got it and knew what to do. So I really enjoyed your reaction to it, when you said "but here we are two kids unable to do a simple upload" because I do feel like its kind of expected of us to know how to work things like that.

We both seem to realize that its not entirely possible to cut out digital devices in our lives (not forever at least) and nor would we want to considering that it has its uses in todays world, but are there ever instances where its shouldn't be used? Or is that relative again? So is the question end up being how we use it?

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your comments, it had a very warm and enthusiastic tone, kudos. Yes, the computer screen was just THAT interesting lol. Actually in this video at least, I was busy staring at the time for part of the video because I didn't want to go over the time, but it happened anyways. So in a sense I was concentrated on the computer but not completely. There are plenty of other times where it happens though, like when I are playing a game, chatting, watching a video or reading something that interests me online.

I wonder how this affects the way we think, having all this digital technology. I mean alot of people can become very engrossed by it and how does this affect us in the "real" world. Some people say that it makes us more impatient since things aren't as fast as it does digitally. Where you click and get whatever it is that you want. Does that mean that using digital things alters the way things are wired in our brain? It might considering that when we do things over and over it reinforces the neural pathways created from doing a repeated action. So I was wondering how that is accounted for with our (over?)usage of digital devices.

HW8- Video Project Comment

Hey Charles,

It was interesting to see all the electronics you were using at once. I thought it was really funny, you're reaction to seeing yourself in the video because I think alot of people react that way and the other half are used to it. I think you probably do see yourself in third person point of view in pictures, but its different on video because you can see certain nuances in how you move that pictures don't capture.

Its interesting that you say you're hooked on all these things and you seem to be really into it. If you don't want your kids to be doing the same thing you are, would you cut back on it on your own time? Because I think kids are really influenced by the people around them and they just take it in. They learn from you and so if you use it alot they'll probably think its normal.

Your video was pretty cool and it seemed like something you would be doing normally, so it was realistic. I like that about it and you were eating while doing all that and food is always a plus.

Hey Kate,

It was interesting to see you watching tv with your cat, it was so normal and real. You seem very focused on the TV but not completely because you had your cat there. I agree that usually when we are on the computer we do not want to be disturbed or interrupted. I think its probably easier for pets to snuggle up or interrupt their owners when its something like tv, because more than one person can watch it at a time, while on the computer its just you. I wonder what pets think when they see their owner watching tv or playing computer. Its interesting that people pet their pets absentmindedly when they're doing something like watching tv.

When you were talking about the wii since I was thinking about my mom when she uses wii fit and I think its kind of funny watching her play it, because when she is running or jogging she's pumping her arms wildly and yells at the wii characters that are ahead of her. So, I agree, its pretty active in comparison to video games that only use controllers.

I liked the video cause it showed how people really interacted with a digital device in their daily lives.