No Facebook!

So this was my first time ever having an assignment like this, using no Facebook or texting so I decided not to go on Facebook for 24 hours. When I got back from class after being assigned this assignment I went on my laptop to do some research for another class and Facebook was set as my homepage. Not thinking, I almost signed onto my profile without even noticing but before I hit enter on the keyboard I stopped my self. I didn’t realize how logging into Facebook had became a part of my daily routine. As the day went on I had caught myself multiple times unconsciously about to go on Facebook and so I started to think of other things to keep it off my mind such as going to the gym or doing homework assignments that didn’t involve using the computer to tempt me. When I came home from the gym all my roommates were logged into Facebook and I think it was so crazy how many times or how long us students stay logged on to a website and not realize that we are on it. I’m glad that I actually went through with this assignment, it was very eye opening to me and as sad as this seems, it was pretty challenging. I would recommend more people to go through with something like this because sometimes when we do something so much, it becomes a part of us and some of the activities we part take in our daily lives can distract us from being productive.  

Society Is Dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld

-->In the short story “Society is dead, We Have Retreated into the iWorld,” by Andrew Sullivan is about how our universe has changed completely because of the iPod. People walk around the streets in their own little world because of the iPod and iPhone and everything else around them does not matter. The Apple store is treated like a church and the Genius’s standing behind the genius bar are like priests waiting for people to come to their church to confess about their iPods. The world today has changed a lot from what it used to because with all the new technology from Apple, its like we are given a universe all to ourselves from all the news, email, web surfing, and much more we can receive. Even the meaning of music has changed, it used to make people closer together but with our own portable music we can listen to the music we like without anyone ever knowing what we are listening too. In the end, the author ends up losing his iPhone and panics for a second, but then he realizes that he can hear the soundtrack of life around him and was not too worried anymore. One quote I really liked was, “ But we didn’t walk around the world like hermit crabs with our isolation surgically attached.” This quote made me think that with all the sorts of Apple products there is out there, we are in our own world and we can choose to shut people out of our lives if we really wanted to with the “surgically” attached iPhones that our life depends so much we need to carry it around with us and use it so much. The second quote I liked about this short story was, “ its strange to be among so many people and hear so little.” I liked this one because there have been many times where I encounter someone and I want to have a conversation with them but they keep their headphones on which is really rude and makes me not one to have any conversations with them at all.

Is Being "Plugged In" Changing Campus Life?

In the book  A Meeting of Minds, there is a short story written by Liz Williams, Ethan Kolek, and Meg Kluge called, " Is Being "Plugged in" Changing Campus Life?" In this story, there are two college student debating on whether the current use of technology is destroying campus life at universities all around. Meg, who is against the amount of time students stay "plugged in" and thinks that social interaction between students, roles and leadership on campus, and membership among organizations are going down hill because students aren't socializing face to face but are too busy with technology. Ethan on the other hand is for students being "plugged in," he thinks that it is not weakening social interaction, but strengthening with all the many ways students can talk to each other online and how universities can learn and grow from all the outside resources the web has. In the end, although they both have separate views they both agree that students do spend a lot of time "plugged in," but it all depends on how the person incorporates the amount of time they are using technology and how they interact with people face-to-face. One quote I really like from the short story was by Ethan and he said," Students do spend time forming and maintaining relationships via technology; they also spend time preserving connections that predate college. However, students still interact extensively face-to-face." I like this quote a lot because it is true to me, I have met many people in college where i did not know them very well at first, but after talking to them through technology I got a better sense of who the person was. After we have talked a little through technology, it lead me to hanging out with them face-to-face and it was all because of talking on the internet that where I was able to hang out with them in person. Another quote that I liked was said by Meg, she said " Rather, I'm suggesting that we need to be extremely intentional and thoughtful in how we incorporate them into our lives, how we model their use, and how we build them into our institution." She is very right on the use amount of time we spend "plugged in" as students because if we spend too much time using technology we won't be able to experience college to our full potential such as joining clubs, meetin people in person, and taking leadership positions on campus.