Schaefer Shares

As this semester is coming to an end, a time of reflecting begins. I think that this course has put a lot of information in a certain light for me. I have always been interested in sociology, and I think that new communication technologies relates to it a lot. Humans have certain tendencies, and some are hard to explain. As our technologies have developed, so have our minds and our usage of these resources.

I think that the bell curve of newcomers, laggards, etc. is really accurate when it comes to people and their dependence on technology. I think that for those that post a picture on Instagram almost every day feel a need for acceptance, and in our society, acceptance has boiled down to likes and comments. Selfies define that need, to dress up and look good for no one to see it but your followers. I had a friend like that in high school; she would literally dress up and put a whole face on of makeup just to take selfies to post at a later date. That was always really odd to me, but I think that I understand the need to do it now.

This class has reaffirmed my suspicions, and has helped me understand why people are the way they are. New communication technologies are almost the base of a lot of human actions. It is incredible to think that technology has that sort of hold over mankind. We see it happening with the next generation, in middle schoolers that have had a smart phone for years, and they are already more dependent than us. It is interesting to think about the future. I am a planner, so sometimes I think about what my own children will be like with the technology that will be available at the time. The future is scary, but the future of technology might be even scarier.

Research is a necessary topic in almost every single college class. Because of this, it ends up becoming very redundant. But, I have a few professors that I thoroughly enjoy because of the passion they exude when lecturing their classes. Those professors are typically involved in publishing a lot of their research. I know that it is a requirement for some, but not all of them talk about it as much as others. I think that those are the professors who stand out to me the most over the last three years I have spent on this campus.

Now the downside to professors like that is that sometimes they expect the same out of their students. Just because this specific concept is something that they find completely interesting, does not mean that the students also do. Plus, the majority of us definitely don’t find the actual research as exhilarating as some of them do. Yes, I do find it interesting to learn new things. No, I don’t have the will power to sit and read a thirty page article about one specific concept.

I think that a middle ground should always try to be reached between students and professors when it comes to research. Some professors have way too high of standards. It is genuinely difficult to find 10 sources for a research paper. Especially when they can’t all be journal articles. The papers that I only have to have 3-5 sources for are much stronger than one with ten, because it is so challenging to find ways to integrate each into one paper.

The other problem is the some professors seem to think that our library resources are a godsend. The truth is… it isn’t. Most of the full length articles can’t even be read electronically. And most of us aren’t going to mess around with it for more than five minutes to try to figure it out. We live in a time where most of us have little patience, and when it comes to not finding what we want fast enough, there’s no hope. And it gets worse with the students that are younger than us, they are even more impatient, so good luck with that.