Saturday, January 15, 2011

Digital Nation

        While watching Digital Nation, I had many things going through my mind. I couldn't believe how much the world relies on technology. I think the world would be lost without the technology we have now. Everything in the video shocked me I think, but the one thing that really was mind boggling to me was when they talked about Korea. It's amazing how these kids are so into video games. They had no physical activities. The only physical activity they had was without their fingers. The child who was at the top of his class, is now no longer because of video games. What does that really tell you about parenting? I felt as if the parents were blaming the technology, but they need to blame almost themselves. The parents are allowing for this to happen, they are not putting limits to their child's game time and computer time. I think i'm a little old fashioned when it comes to video games, and technology. I think that there is a way for our children to be on top of technology, but yet we moderate how much they are using it. It's funny how they showed Korea, because when I was observing classrooms at SNHU for my Masters in English as a Second Language, I noticed that all the Asian students were playing video games while the teacher was teaching her lesson. Even when I had to use the computer lab to do a project, the Asian students were in the computer lab, playing games. It was interesting to connect my experience with seeing and actually watching them do a research on it.
        Something else that really caught my attention was when they were doing the research on multitasking. Everyone I know, multitasks. It's impossible for me to get through the day without having to multitask. As I was watching digital nation I was multitasking. I was making dinner and had the computer on the kitchen counter, so I could watch it. We get pulled in many different directions every day, and that forces us to multitask. Even though they said that we don't capture as much when we are multitasking, but it almost feel like it's very necessary to accomplish many things at once. I feel that if I don't, then I haven't done anything today. Maybe if we had more then 24 hours in a day, we wouldn't have to multitask as much.
         I really put myself in these peoples shoes that they were showing in the video. I know that if I didn't have my phone, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Sometimes I'm running late, and I will forget it at home, and I sometimes will turn around and come and get, because I just feel like a part of me is missing without my phone. I'm always checking my Facebook, my emails, celebrity news, anything you can think of, i'm doing on my phone. The way they make phones now, it's almost like a portable mini laptop, you can do pretty much anything.
       I believe that in order for us and our children to be successful in this world, we need to be up to date with technology. Everything revolves around technology. As i'm writing this I have my 2 year old and my 8 year old playing with my iPhone. They know how to navigate it more then I do. It just amazes me. I think that technology is very important for us, but at the same time we need to have self control with it. We can't let it take over our lives. It can be part of our lives, but it shouldn't be all about it. Digital nation did a great job in showing us how technology has taken over.

1 comment:

  1. It's funny, I wrote a comment a few minutes ago while I'm watching tv waiting for the game to start...not sure what I did but the comment disappeared. So much for my own multitasking abilities.

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