Digital Nation Part II

In the second poration of Digital Nation dealt more with the issue of video games and their effect on children. They interviewed a boy from Asia who attended a computer addiction class because his mother worried about him playing games for 8 hours a day. He said that while he was there all he could think about was getting back to the game.

The documentary also took a look at technology from a more positive stand point. They interviewed teachers at schools who have integrated state of the art technology into their classrooms. One principal manage to completely turn around the academic performance in his middle school in New York City by giving every student a laptop to be integrated into every part of their education. Of course the argument can still be made that giving kids laptops in class only reinforces the multitasking which emerging research suggests negatively impacts their academic abilities.

Personally, I feel that technology should play a large part in education. Technology is a huge part of modern life and I think it would be a mistake to exclude it from education. I do, however, think that there are things which cannot be properly taught on the computer. It cannot do everything. At least for me, something like reading can never be the same on a computer. I also don't think that an online class can take the place of physically being in the classroom with the teacher.

I think that one thing Digital Nation is how social media has affected our privacy. It is very easy to find information on someone on the Internet. That can be good and bad.

The information might be there for someone who you don't want to have it. There are countless stories about people getting fired or facing negative consequences from information posted on their facebook profiles.

At the closing of Digital Nation, Douglas Rushkoff said that his favorite part of technology is that he is able to turn it off. I think I have to agree with him on that count. As much as I love having my cell phone and my laptop there are times when you just need to turn them off.