Digital+Nation

Digital Nation VIDEOS 1 & 2 Chapter 1: Distracted by Everything This video is emphasizing how distracted our world has become through the means of technology. We are in contact daily with some form of technology, whether it be a cell phone, the computer, television, and that's just the beginning. Multi-tasking is another major part of this clip. At the Massachussettes Institute of Technology, students are swamped with technology. Nearly every student brings their laptops into a class lecture at the professor's discretion. A professor from MIT states, "Teaching at MIT, I’m teaching the most brilliant students in the world, but they have done themselves a disservice by drinking the ‘Kool Aid’ and believing that a multi-tasking learning environment will serve their best purposes.” The way students perform on tests is showing that they are not as competent at multi-tasking as they believe themselves to be.

Chapter 2: What’s it doing to their Brains? This second clip focuses on what mult-tasking and technological distractions are doing to the brain. Many people pride themselves in their abilities to multi-task. However, mult-taskers are terrible at every aspect of multi-tasking. Technology is changing the way we act as human beings. Children are growing up in a world drastically different than only 10 years ago. The way a young person decides to spend their time has profound effects on how their brain develops for the rest of their lives. Technology is advancing at a remarkable pace. A man from the video said, “By the time you design a research study, apply for funding, implement the study and you publish the results about the technology, what happens? The technology’s obsolete, we’ve moved beyond it. So the technology and the practices that go with the new technology’s keep outdistancing the research, the research can’t keep up with it.” This proves just how rapidly fast technology is moving; we can hardly keep up with it ourselves.

VIDEOS 3&4 Video 3 This video is about the gaming issue in South Korea. Children are playing sometimes more than 8 hours a day and recent studies have shown that it is an addictive behavior. 90% of Korean children use internet in daily life. The video gives footage on the internet rescue camps, which really don't seem to be helping in the long run. Kids go back to their old behaviors once out of the camps. By the age of 2, Koreans are learning how to responsibly use technology. Gotten out of hand – glued to screen expretionless, people have actually died playing 50 hours or more with little food or water Video 4 – Teaching with Technology Video 4 details how the use of technology in the classroom is vital to our students. Adults are "immigrants" to this digital world whereas the students are "natives" and are currently growing up in it. It shows how kids are going to need to be fluent in technology in order to excell. One teacher even goes so far as to say technology is like oxygen, and that "no on should argue to take away technology from the kids." Students of this generation are going to need different skills in the next five years.

VIDEOS 5&6 Video5 Dumbest generation This video shows how technology has effected the younger generation. Teachers, especially within English and Literature, are finding that they can no longer get their kids to be motivated to read a 200+ page book. Basic skills in reading and writing are worse than they have been in a long time, maybe even ever. This just goes to show how difficult it is to teach and challenge kids to be academically inclined. Kids can no longer keep themselves fully attentive to one thing and papers are being written in the form of multiple solid paragraphs as opposed to one coherent and concise piece. New ways of teaching must be created in order for kids to learn properly.

Video 6 - Relationships This video demonstrates how the internet has facilitated relationships. The first example was through an elderly lady who had her own cooking show on the internet by the assistance of her grandson. Together they would respond to emails from people who showed need for comfort and connection. The second example was with the virtual online game "World of War Craft." People can meet and play in this alternative universe where they have a chance to live vicariously through their own personal avetars. There are conventions set up for people to meet face to face and interact in reality. Romantic relationships have even developed as a result of this game. According to the narrator, "technology wasn't isolating them, it was giving them a new way to be intimate."

Video 7 This video titled “Virtual Worlds” is about how companies are able to move their work environment from real meetings to an online virtual world where interaction occurs via avatars. Philip Rosedow created a game called “Second Life” where you can essentially do everything you do in the real world just with an avatar. He claims that he created this game because he wanted to rewrite the rules of interaction between human beings, and that it causes people to behave much better than through an email or instant messaging. The video also displayed how companies can save millions by being able to meet over the internet rather than flying across the world to come together. Many of the employees from IBM in Rochester, NY are not even working at their buildings. Offices are practically empty of workers because they are all working virtually from their homes. I was a bit shocked to see people interacting through avatars online. I personally do not support this alter in business because I think it eliminates raw, natural human interaction. Even though people can talk for their avatars, they are not being completely themselves. Presence is a huge part of a person’s character, and this virtual world is forcing this aspect of interaction to be lost.

Video 8 “Virtual Experiences Change Us?” This video shows the extent to which virtual experiences can change us. There are studies that show how a small exposure inside virtual reality can carry over to the real world and change the way we act with others. In an experiment where children wore virtual goggles to swim with dolphins and whales, 50 % of kids believed they had actually been at sea world swimming with whales. This shows just how much a virtual experience can affect us. The video highlights also how the military uses this technique to help veterans overcome post-traumatic stress syndrome. Predator drone pilots are having a difficult time differentiating between their two lives. Going to war has meant the same thing for so long and virtual technology is changing that. I found this video extremely interesting, especially with the drone pilots. I can’t imagine jumping from “war” to family so quickly.

Video 9 “Where are we headed?” This video is the concluding video in the Digital Nation series. It displays how the Army is using gaming and digital things to recruit young boys. They know that they have to appeal to them on a level that they will understand and be intrigued by. This video also highlights a school that uses gaming as a lens for its entire curriculum to create a more engaging atmosphere for the students. The founder claims that playing digital games engages kids in a similar way that a large novel does, something many people would have to disagree with. But maybe this is because the older generations have yet know how to value the stimulation children are getting. A professor from MIT says, “Technology challenges us to assert our human values, which means that first of all we have to figure out what they are, and it’s not so easy.” She goes on to challenge viewers to take advantage of the technology at our fingertips and to ask what it can do/ what it’s doing to us. In conclusion, we must find the balance between the digital world we are quickly diving into and the reality that keeps us from sinking in it. I liked this series for many reasons. I think there is so much that people are naïve to when it comes to technology, and in order to find balance, knowledge is necessary.