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.

Digital Nation

So far Digital Nation has focused on our complete immersion in technology and electronic multitasking, which has become so prevalent among college students. Students are constantly connected all the time. They study while texting, listening to music, checking email, browsing Facebook, etc. Many of the students are convinced that they are good multitaskers, but a study at Stanford University has so far that this is not the case.

Personally, I would like to think that I don't multitask that much. I may not be the worst, but even now I'm writing a blog post, listening to Pandora, texting two friends, and it's quite probable that within the next three minutes I will check my email. There's almost no escaping it. I think I do about 75% of my schoolwork on the computer and when I'm on the computer there are any number of distractions.

The documentary seems to be leaning towards video games next. I know that in some Asian countries the governments recognize video game addiction as national epidemics. I can't see video games as as much of a problem though because turning on an xbox is a conscious choice where as receiving a text is not. Yes I could shut my phone off entirely, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having it right?

I think the most important issue with the rapid expansion of social media is its public nature. My online life is there for all to see. I don't see any reason to post a tweet every three minutes to let all of my followers know that I've moved from sitting on my bed reading to sitting at my desk also reading. I like to have at least some semblance of privacy but many people seem to have no reservations about sharing their lives online. I hope Digital Nation discusses the possible consequences of the open nature of social media.