Digital Nation

i found this and thought it very much related to what we watched in class on thursday. The film we watched in class was a documentary about the extremes of technology and its effects on our culture and society. It was basically entirely focused on the effects of technology on the youth of today and how they differ from adults who grew up in an entirely different environment. It evoked questions from the viewer such as "Is it a bad thing to be constantly in touch with your peers?" "Are we getting dumber because we can't focus on any one thing for a long amount of time?" and "Is it dangerous use technology for extended periods of time?"

I felt very much like for adults who didn't grow up with technology at their fingertips, they found the concept of technology everywhere more disconcerting. But for today's youth who are growing up to be constantly on their phone, accessing the internet, talking to friends, doing schoolwork, pursuing interests, it is just their normal life. It's what they do on an everyday basis and has become the norm for them.

Most of the documentary showed studies of students and how they do their work. One study took students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (known for its most technologically advanced students in the nation) who were hand-picked for their multitasking abilities and put them through a series of tests that measured if they were as good at multitasking as they thought they were. THe results were suprising to me because i could relate to those students who thought they were great at multitasking. I'm never focused on one media at once. If i'm on the computer, i'm on facebook looking at people's pictures, on iTunes listening to music, talking to my friends on instant messenger, texting, watching tv. Here i am thinking i'm doing a great job, just like those students. WHat the study showed was that the students reactions were significantly slower when multitasking and were more prone to wrong answers.

The study also stated some interesting statistics such as that kids spend 50+ hours a week with digital media- more han a full time job.
90% of kids use media and out of that 90%, 10-15% are at high risk for addiction to heavy gaming. THis is most obvious in South Korea where they have internet cafes for kids, or even adults, to pay for cheap internet service and play 24 hours a day. In one of these gaming places, one extreme incidence occurred where a teenager died because he played for 50 hours straight with no food or nutrition. Although it is probably the only case of this happening, or if not, a very VERY rare case, it has earned gamers a bad name with people who argue that gaming is a negative thing. South Korea has started setting up these Internet Rescue Camps where parents can send their kids if they feel their gaming affects their grades, or their health. AT these camps, the children aren't permitted to use computers for about a week. The organizers have the children participate in outdoor team activities in an effort to "recapture a childhood lost to the computer. "
Basically there are two opinions on technology- the good opinion, and the negative opinion.
The negative opinion basically says that students nowadays can't focus on any task for an extended period of time and aren't capable of the same level of work as former students who didn't have so much technology at their fingertips. Then you have those with positive outlooks on the influence of technology who say that shorter attention spans are the price of gain. It's the price we pay for a more advanced society, that students are smart, just not in the conventional topics that society holds so revered. The world has sped up so much from technology but the education system has not. We teach children to sit in their seats and be quiet, but in the future, no job will have there employees sit dopwn and be quiet.

I found this movie to be extremely interesting and brought up valid points for both sides of the Technology argument.