Blog Post #10: Digitized Lives chapters 1 & 3

The part that I found most interesting about this reading was the concept of cyberspace, and a virtual world/real-world divide.

When a person is asked to imagine a place, like a city for example, there are a lot of mental geographic images that pop up. However, if one was asked to imagine cyberspace as a place, it's definitely more of an abstract concept to the average person. The only kinds of people who would be able to have any grasp of what it really does look like physically in terms of servers, routers and switches are engineers. "The geography of the internet is three things at once: the place from which the user is accessing it, the user's experiences online in that space, and a largely invisible space of connected servers, data centers and individual computers that enable the experience."

I think it goes without saying that there is definitely not a divide between the virtual world and the real world, at least in most cases. They are very much intertwined. A prime example is the way in which real life events can (and often are) tweeted, made into a status, or posted as a picture or a video. This can also happen the other way around, where people can have real life conversations based on a conversation they had online or some other online event they both partook in. The virtual world is always a reflection of the real world. Of course 'reflections' can vary, and this is not to say that online mirrors real life exactly.

In fact, the book brings up a good point by saying that the terms 'real world' and 'virtual world' are somewhat misleading because nothing can exist solely in the virtual world. This is because we are always somewhere in the real world, even if we are immersed in whatever device it is we use to access the virtual world. It's just easy for us to think of them as two separate worlds, especially given the degree to which we can get immersed in things such as video games and virtual reality simulators. However, I think referring to these two things separately does help when it comes down to studying/analyzing them.

Blog Post #9: Grown Up Digital part 3

After reading part 3 of Grown Up Digital, the part I would like to focus on is the effect networking tools have had on activism today. I am personally very conflicted on this matter, and am not sure whether I could take a solid stance on whether or not the impact it's had has been entirely positive or entirely negative.

Tapscott points out that when he was my age, activism was much more difficult to partake in, especially if you didn't live in an urban area. He said that he didn't even have access to a fax machine, and that him and whoever else was interested in getting the word out about a cause had to make flyers and post them around town. The only time they were lucky enough to partake in a protest was if there happened to be one in their town. Getting your thoughts and complaints heard was essentially all about word-of-mouth. You had to try to get in contact with a group of like-minded people who would hopefully be able to relay your message to another such group of people, and so on.

He has a very good point when he says that the internet, specifically social media gives our generation an amazing opportunity to make a change that his generation never had. While he provides numerous examples of people that are attempting to utilize this valuable resource, part of me isn't 100% sure that they aren't just exceptions to our the majority of people that make up our generation.

Most people would say without a second thought that the way advancements in technology have changed activism are nothing but a positive thing. But when I think of the activism in the 1960's, I feel as if the ties among the people partaking in it were much stronger, because it was much more of a risk, and it was something people were willing to fight for and even get in major trouble for. I'm not saying that doesn't still happen these days, but I feel as if that bond has been somewhat weakened. A lot of the time, it seems as if people just 'like' or share something on social media and that's pretty much the full extent of their activism. I don't say this to be overly critical, I say it because it's something I myself am guilty of! It's also something many of my friends are guilty of.

Back to the other side of the argument that I initially started with....It all really depends how you look at it. The fact that this information is able to be spread so easily and isn't fully controlled by the media can mean simply opening people up to a new way of thinking, or even just making people aware of political events that the news may not tell you about. Without this ability, the people who ARE out there participating in high-risk activism might not have even have the knowledge that urged them to do so! So I guess it all really comes full-circle.

Blog post #8: Grown Up Digital part 2

For part 2 of Grown Up Digital, I would like to focus on the aspect of the family structure and how it has been affected by technology as well as other factors.

As a college student who will be graduating at the end of this year, there was never any question in my mind that I would be moving back with my parents for the foreseeable future. This was something I always thought of as completely normal. Apparently, this is a major departure from how baby boomers (our parents) felt about their living situations after college. Back in those days, the family structure was more hierarchal, and this led to children looking for freedom in various ways. This included going outdoors, going off to college, and moving into their own place immediately after graduation. Since baby boomers were seeking freedom outside, they were familiar with the dangers that could be found out there such as violent crime or sexual assault, which led to a widespread fear and a limiting of outdoor activity when it came time to raise their own children. However, growing up in a time where technology was available to us from an early age, Net geners were able to find this freedom on the internet. This almost eliminated the need to rebel and made it so that Net geners typically had a closer relationship with their parents. This isn't to say that there are zero cases where Net geners rebel, and this also doesn't take into consideration the fact that children were doing things or could potentially be exposed to negative things online (bullies, porn, sexual predators) that their parents didn't know about (ignorance is bliss). 

What I have noticed with this reading is that each generation of new parents is influenced by their parents before them, and their parents before them etc. I know this seems blatantly obvious, but I think as technology continues to evolve, people really need to think about what did and didn't work in terms of the freedom their parents gave them. Trying to install online blocking devices can actually drive your children to try to find loopholes, or view content you don't want them to see on a different computer. However, I don't think that children should be allowed to roam free on the internet with zero acknowledgement from their parents about the perils out there. I think that as technology continues to evolve and access continues to increase, communication between parents and children is something that needs to keep up with it. I like that the author talks about the social contracts he keeps with his children regarding these matters. Children are eventually going to become aware of these things, so it's best to be proactive about it and take all the shame out of the matter, making it a learning experience instead. My parents did try to control the amount of time I spend on the internet and what sites I could go to until a certain age, which I was annoyed of at the time, but when I got a little older, more privileges came along with it. I would say I have a healthy relationship with the internet. Also, I can say with zero hesitation that I have an amazing relationship with my parents, so the general approach they took with me in regards to the internet is something that I can see myself working off of if I ever have children of my own, perhaps with some tweaks depending on the state of the internet at that time, and the personalities of my children.

Blog post #7: Grown Up Digital part 1

In the part 1 of Grown Up Digital, I chose to focus on the last chapter which talks about the effect technology has on the brains of members of the net generation, or 'net geners'. When I think about it, most of what I've heard about this subject as I've grown up is the complaints that people from the baby boomer generation have. It was interesting to actually read something that entertained the possibility that growing up with the technology I've grown up with may actually be having a positive influence on my brain.

More specifically, I found the research done on video game players to be extremely interesting. Being 22 years old, the majority of my male friends are heavily into video games. Not to mention I have an older brother, so it's something that I've been exposed to a lot. (Not saying that video games are specifically limited to males, but it does seem to be more popular among males within my own social circles) My mother's main complaint was that it wasn't healthy for my brother to spend his summer days glued to a TV or computer screen and that he needed to do something physical or something that was more mentally stimulating/beneficial. While not much can be said about the physical benefits (she had a point there), there is actually a lot that can be said about the sensory and mental benefits.

The very first example in the chapter was one where a student who regularly played action video games took a test that was intended to prove that people who are deaf had quicker visual reflexes than people who could hear. He scored 100% and attributed it to a programming error, thus asking one of his friends to take the test as well. His friend also scored 100%. Baffled, he brought in a 2nd friend, who scored 50% (which is what he initially expected to score). He then realized that him and the first friend often played action video games together, while the other was not able to because of his job as a resident advisor. As more research has been done, it has been found that these games "can make you notice more in your field of vision and speed up your processing of visual information." When I think about it, this of course makes sense to me, because video games are designed in such a way, that the player is often being bombarded with enemies/challenges, and needs to learn to eliminate them all while keeping their character alive. When this is practiced enough, it makes sense that it would have an impact on their brain/everyday life.

Another positive impact that can be had on the life of a video game player is in regards their spatial skills. When these are more highly developed, they can be highly useful in fields such as architecture, engineering and surgery. Watching my brother get sucked into his video games, I would have never imagined that he was developing skills that could be used in such complex professions!

With advances in technology, games have also become more interactive. Older video games used to focus more on a campaign structure with a chronological timeline, but now a lot of games have expanded to the point where you can explore nearly limitless worlds while collaborating with, or even managing people from all over the world. This kind of set-up is great for trial-and-error, which is something that can only be learned from the act of doing something, not from reading a book. Luckily the level of risk associated with this in a video game is low. In addition to that, the player isn't cutting themselves off from the world in favor of their video game. They are continuing to interact with others even though it's not face to face.

Perhaps the most interesting part of all of this is that the human brain is at one of it's highest levels of adaptability during teenage and early adult years, which is coincidentally when people most commonly tend to start playing video games.