Jared Eckert
(Part 1)
”Digital Nation” is a documentary produced and directed by Rachel Dretzin. Correspondent Douglas Rushkoff narrates and host most of the program. Digital nation takes a look at the world and how modern technology and the web is effecting it. For better or worse. In this video the correspondents went to schools like M.I.T. and Stanford to examine some research done to try and determine the effects the digital world has on our brains. “Anything we discover here is new, because we know zero.” Says Professor Clifford Nass of Stanford. Clifford claims that resent research they have preformed suggest that young people that have grown up with these technologies are bad at every aspect of multitasking and that there memory is very disorganized. The program then shifts to the “south Korean gaming craze.” There are places known as “pc bombs” were people will spend hours, even days playing computer games non-stop. In some instances there have been fatuities due to excess gaming and lack of nutrition and hydration. It has gotten so bad that South Korea is the first nation to address “game addiction” as a genuine mental disorder and has treatment centers for it. Then the video shifts gears a bit and takes a look at how this virtual world and can connect us and even kindle romantic relationships. In the MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) World of warcraft also known as WoW people claim they have met there best friend online, in this game. Some have never even met in person. One gamer had married a person they had met over the game. After that the documentary goes on to look at how virtual experiences can change us. When young children were exposed to virtual reality where the visualize swimming with whales, and shocking 50 % of them recall the memory of swimming with “actual whales” a week after exposure. The military uses similar virtual reality exercises to simulate combat situations to help treat victims of Post traumatic stress disorder. By putting them a “hostile scenario” with out actually being in danger veterans are able to manage stress and anxiety. Finally the movie takes a look at what’s ahead in this growing, fast pace world and what we gain and lose in a digital nation.
(Part 2)
I personally believe the Internet has done wonders for myself and many people in the world today. For a good portion of my life I have moved around quite a bit and have had to break my ties with many people I held dear to me. But, since I have been old enough to operate a computer and navigate the web I have been able to communicate with old friends and family members across the country. Keeping in touch isn’t the only thing the Internet has helped me accomplished. NPR and USA Today are some of the sites I visit most frequently. I believe staying updated on current events is a good habit to get into and can make you some what “more involved” with world events. The web has also helped me be successful in school. Research is a very common practice in school now days, especially in college and with my spear time becoming less and less abundant I have to be able to access a libraries worth of info as fast as possible. Without the internet or computers completing assignments of the college magnitude wouldn’t be impossible. But I will admit modern technology has some disadvantages as well. For instance, I have found it increasingly difficult to sustain my concentration on a particular segment of text. I have gotten so used to the fast pace in which information is given to me that I have developed the habit of just skimming the surface of data so I am able to take it all in at the same rate. Because I sit a desk often when using a computer I tend to slouch and my posture is reverted back to a cro magnon like state. I think that technology and the web have done many amazing things for myself and others but there are defiantly so negative effects that blatant.
The way that you take both stances of agreeing and disagreeing in this response is very convincing. I agree that the web as done very helpful things for people today, especially for keeping in touch with friends and family that, without the internet, you wouldn't be in touch with. I also think that the internet does great things for helping students study and stay ahead in school. However, I believe that the internet can also affect student's habbits in a negetive way, as far as school is concerned. Yes, it helps you study and get important information for research, but it also gives information that may or may not be true. When a student is researching, how are they to know if the information is true or not? That issue is not a worry when receiving information from a book.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that because the internet is used so frequently, it is most common, and a lot easier, to skim over pieces of text in stead of concentrate on deep reading. However, for me, knowing that I am more likely to skim over it causes me to slow down and deeply analyze, creating more understanding. Overall though, I agree with what you're saying in this response.
You talk about how the internet has done wonders for you, but have you thought about the chance of addiction that people, much like yourself, have to it? I know that I am personally addicted to the internet, social media and texting. I feel like it has become a way of life for us now, and if it was somehow taken away, we wouldn't really know how to function in this world without it. Today, most people do almost everything on their phones. From talking to texting to paying bills, even to watching your house while you are away, everything seems to be available at your finger tips. This may not seem like an addiction now, but as we grow more and more reliant on this sort of technology, there isn't going to be a life without it. You also talk about ways this had affected your life negatively throughout the years and I feel the same way. Everyone's attention spans seem to be decreasing more and more each day due to the fact that information is available to us in a matter of seconds when we are searching for it. If something takes longer than a minute to find, we feel like it isn't even worth searching for anymore. As for the posture thing, I am constantly worried that when I grow old, I will have some form of "hunch back" due to my constant lazyness. Sitting up straight is very hard to do now because I have always slouched while sitting in a chair. It seems like lots of the teenage and young adult population is stuck with this too. This technology isn't just having mental affects to it, it is also having some major physical ones as well. And soon, this sort of addiction to these new technologies might be just as bad as substance abuse.
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying. Though I don't consider myself to be "addicted" to modern technology, I will admit that when without devices such as my phone or laptop I feel an alien feeling that I am without something very important to my everyday routine. But that is just how the world is now. Like substance abuse, I believe that some people are prone to it and not all. For example you can have an individual who is able to drink but has no need to keep drinking day in and day out. This isn't to say this is a problem would shouldn't examine and even treat, but I do not believe this is an epidemic that everyone is doomed to fall victim to. You state how as we become more reliant on these devices, that if there were to vanish, life would sort of become a stand still. I believe that it would be very difficult to recover from such an event but I think the humans ability to adapt is able to over come just about any obstical. I all the computers were to disappear today, sure we would be thrown into a world in which we are not familiar but eventually we would rebuild and become a society not dependent on anything but what we have invented in place of modern technology.
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