Month: February 2018

These four articles discussed whether or not new communication technologies are helping or hurting us. In the first article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” the author points out how since the development of new communication technologies, he has had trouble keeping his mind focused on lengthier tasks. Because new communication technologies are able to give us the information we want without us having to think, we as humans have forgotten how to think. This somewhat relates to the article “Why I Just Asked My Students to Put Their Laptops Away”. In this article, the author discusses how it is biologically impossible to resist checking our phones when they beep and light up with a new notification. This shows how quickly we abandon one task to go to another because our brains are automatically drawn to whatever is happening in our phones.

On the other hand, the article “Does the Internet Make You Smarter” suggests that we should not be fearful of new communication technologies. The author mentions how once there was a time when people were fearful of writing because they didn’t think they would remember spoken word anymore. This implies that there may come a time in the future where people wonder why we were so fearful of new communication technologies because they turned out to be way more helpful than ever imagined. This ties into the article “The Cultural Theory of YouTube” when the author discusses how YouTube is beneficial in terms of generating all different kinds of content and having them all intermingle with each other.

This article was interesting to read because it highlighted different people’s responses to new communication technologies. It explains that as different technological means of communication arise, different meanings and associations become acquainted with the new development. The article discusses three different ways new communication technologies are viewed: Technological determinism, social construction of technology, and social shaping perspective.
Technological determinism suggests that when new forms of technological communication come to be, they are unavoidable and weave their way into society and force negative changes upon us that are impossible to defy. Author Nick Carr wrote about how he has felt his ways of thinking shift. He says that he cannot read for long periods of time anymore and he does not think as in-depth as he used to. He blames this on new communication technologies and their ability to quickly gather information for us without us having to think. He suggests that this is what has caused his inability to think for long periods of time.
Social construction of technology believes that people dominate over technology and are the ones who decide how new communication technologies change and how they are used. As people change and develop over time, technology changes to match what it is that we as humans need. People also decide which technologies are worthy of their use based on their capabilities. These are then the most commonly used technologies amongst society.
Social shaping perspective is a combination of both technological determinism and social construction of technology. Social shaping perspective believes that people influence technology just as much as technology influences people. Along with the social shaping perspective comes the domestication of new communication technologies. This occurs when what was once a “cool” technological device become so frequently used and taken for granted in society that it is normalized and standard to have it. If you don’t have it, you are behind the rest of society.
Reading all three of these opinions, I think I would have to agree most with the social shaping perspective. Blaming the internet for society’s downfall (technological determinism) seems very childish, because it suggests that humans are not accountable for their actions. On the other hand, saying that technology does not influence people at all also seems false, because why else would we have technology in the first place? As with most cases, the middle ground (social shaping perspective) accounts for the inaccuracies in both arguments and provides a more logical stance on the issue. Page 13 of the article says “The problem with people and the Internet is not the Internet but what people do with it”. This quote perfectly explains that even though the Internet and other new communication technologies may get us into sticky situations, we need to take responsibility for those actions.

These four articles all share Facebook and other social media as their main theme.  In reading Facebook Making us Lonely, I was fascinated by the statistics.  They stated that in 1950, American households with only one person were less than 10 percent.  In 2010, that number increased to 27 percent.  The article tells the reader this statistic to show how much more lonely we have become, but I do not necessarily think this statistic shows that.  If we look at the average household from the 1950’s, we will probably find children, a husband who goes to work everyday, and a wife who stays home and takes care of the children while maintaining the house.  It is difficult for me to believe that every woman was happy in this position.  As time has progressed, I think more women have been able to free themselves from this unfulfilling position, resulting in a larger increase of the population living by themselves.  Maybe they do still feel lonely because they do not have anyone to share their home with, but they probably felt the same or worse before.

I was already skeptical of this first article (Facebook Making us Lonely) while reading it, and the article Facebook is not Making us Lonely seemed to back up some of my criticisms of the first article.  In Facebook is not Making us Lonely, the author brings up a statistic mentioned in Facebook Making us Lonely.  The statistic is as follows:  “A 2010 AARP survey found that 35 percent of adults older than 45 were chronically lonely, as opposed to 20 percent of a similar group only a decade earlier.”  However, in Facebook is not Making us Lonely, the author points out that the vast majority of avid Facebook users are younger generations.  So while this statistic may be true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook is the reason for loneliness.   If they wanted to prove that Facebook was causing loneliness, they should have turned to the generation of more frequent Facebook users.  One of the other important refutations the article Facebook is not Making us Lonely against the article Facebook Making us Lonely is the argument about how neighbors never knock on each others doors anymore because now they call.  Facebook is not Making us Lonely points out that this is false, and that neighbors will call, and then knock on each others doors.  Based on my own experience, I find this to be completely true.  We call our neighbors to see when/if they are available to join us for lunch, visit with us, etc.  and then we see them.

In the article The Intimacy of Anonymity, I thought it was interesting to read about how our online posts differ when people either know or don’t know who we are.  The article uses the Whisper and Secret apps to show that when people don’t know who we are, that is when we expose what we are actually feeling and we offer a more authentic version of ourselves.  This is most likely because we will feel vulnerable if we exposed who we truly are.  While expressing your feelings is great, I am not particularly a fan of anonymity.  If you want to express yourself privately there are other ways of doing so, like in a journal.  The reason I am against anonymity is because it does not hold people accountable for their racist, sexist, offensive behaviors.  Since there is no way to trace it back, anonymity allows these negative behaviors to persist without ramifications.  And, obviously, when you’re talking to anonymous people there is a greater chance you could be talking with people who go anonymous for unspeakable reasons.

While reading One Name to Rule Them All:  Facebook’s Identity Problem I was very confused as to why Facebook polices people’s names the way they do.  I think that as long as somebody’s name does not include anything offensive, it should be all good to go.  I do however wish that the article would have showed the names that were being policed so that way the reader can make a more accurate assessment about weather or not they agree with Facebooks policy which disapproves of their names.  Facebooks “Real Name Policy” is said to protect its users against harassment, trolling, racism, and misogyny, but I think that Facebook should be cracking down on other cases to prevent these issues, not forcing drag queens to change their names.  The article mentions how for most people, filling out our names is such a basic task that requires little to no thought for most of us.  Reading this made me realize how privileged I am that I have never had to deal with any injustices such as this.

While reading this article, the analogy that younger generations are part of the Digital Natives and the older generations are part of the Digital Immigrants is supposed to describe society’s present situation. I recall over winter break, I helped three middle aged people set up Instagram accounts. Two of these Instagram accounts were for my bosses at work, and the other for my mom. Frequently when I went to work over break, my boss would tell me that she wanted to post something on the Instagram page later in the day and that she needed my help with it. I was always so confused about why she needed my help because it only takes less than a minute to post a picture. But since she has not grown up with this new technology, she needed more time to figure out different settings, how you manage your page, and how you follow other Instagram pages. While I am sure I am not the only one to have an experience like this, I think that Prensky is very narrow minded in his thinking and created a very stereotypical portrayal of the generations.

The statement in the beginning of the reading which says “Today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach” is very interesting. While it is true that a lot of students today like to check in with their friends and family very frequently on social media, I think that todays students still have the same thirst for knowledge as previous generations. However, I will agree that our ways of learning have changed through new, online education tools.

This article focuses mainly on how the teacher-student relationship is changing with new technology. While there have been a lot of useful education tools as a result of these new communication technologies (like D2L, Quizlet, etc.) I do not necessarily agree with the fact that Digital Immigrants need to do everything in their power to please the Digital Natives. While the integration of new communication technologies in class usually is beneficial, there is more than one way to learn. The article almost makes it sound as if the younger generations are incapable of adapting to different circumstances. There is more than one way to get students interested in learning. While I do think that it is good that educators are trying to adapt to their students, I think students also need to be willing to adapt to their educators.

I am curious about what will happen as the Digital Natives get older. Will we still be up to date with the latest in technology? Will we become a new generation of Digital Immigrants who rely on the new Digital Natives to teach us about new communication technologies that we do not understand? Answering this question in my own opinion, I think the Digital Natives will become the Digital Immigrants. When the new generation of Digital Natives roles around, they will come up with simpler, faster ways of doing things, but we will still want to do them in the ways that we always have because to us that will seem easier. This is why I think it is important that the Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants try to work together instead of having one conform to the other. The different generations should be trying to learn from each other, not morph into one.

After I read Jamie McKenzie’s response to Prensky’s article, I felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only one feeling slightly iffy about Prensky’s observations. McKenzie references very specific moments in Prensky’s work that are problematic. In the beginning of the article, McKenzie states that Prensky’s word choices are very harsh. He points out that American natives sometimes hated immigrants, so the fact that he uses this terminology suggests that the younger generations must hate the older generations because they are not as technologically aware. This also creates a generational divide and suggests that generations are intolerant of other generations.

Prensky is also basing the Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants entirely off of stereotypes. He puts people into these two different groups on the sole basis of age. Prensky fails to understand that people of a younger age do look up to people of an older age, and thus inherit some of their characteristics.

Also, there are some versions of Prensky’s article in which he spells Dr. Bruce D. Perry’s name wrong. This is a slight indication that Prensky may not be the most reliable source. If he is this careless about grammatical mistakes, he is probably just as careless about his research. He is also, as stated previously, careless about his audience. Another way he insults his audience is by saying “Digital Immigrants think learning can’t (or shouldn’t) be fun. Why should they – they didn’t spend their formative years learning with Sesame Street.” McKenzie criticizes this statement as well by bringing up influential educators who have always advocated for learning to be creative and imaginative. Just because one isn’t learning via Sesame Street, doesn’t automatically mean their education is boring.

One of the last points McKenzie mentions is Prensky’s problematic assumption that integrating video games into learning is a good idea. Given all the evidence that suggests video games leads to violence, we can clearly see how this is problematic. Prensky is literally saying that it is okay to encourage violence so long as students find it a fun way to learn. As mentioned before, there are plenty of ways to learn, and not every student is going to learn the same way. Since not every student would benefit from this style of learning anyway, why would you want to utilize something so violent in a school setting?

In conclusion, we can see how Prensky’s article is quite problematic in terms of his minimalistic and simplistic ways of thinking. Human’s are not just something that can be categorized into boxes. Each person is unique, regardless of what technology they use or what age they are. We all have the capabilities of learning from each other.