In her book, Always On, Naomi Baron discusses the ways in which people multitask while carrying out conversations through instant messaging. A 2007 study conducted by the AP along with AOL further examined not only the multitasking nature of instant messaging conversations, but also looking at the types of conversations that both teens (aged 13-18) and adults (aged 18+) found acceptable to carry out through instant messaging. For more information about the study, including a link to the statistics, keep reading.
Open iTunes. Start Mix 1 playlist. Ok, now I am ready to do my work.
In the fast paced society we live in today, multitasking has become a societal norm. In the book “Always On,” by Naomi Baron, research from the United Kingdom shows that through multitasking seven hours of activity is added to everyday.
IM from MegBee26 pops up on screen. I respond.
Technology is ever-changing and is still trying to find its niche in society.
Blinking orange tab on the bottom of the computer, I respond to MegBee 26 again.
Because teenagers and young adults have grown up with technology, we think we are more capable to multitask; however, is this really true? We may think we have exceptional listening skills and attention span, but I wonder how many mistakes could be avoided or how many accidents would not take place if we gave our full attention to the task at hand?
Text message from Mom asking me if I received the package she sent me. She interrupts my train of thought, so I guess I will switch topics.
In class we have been talking about how technology allows us to edit what we are saying. Is a delayed response from someone the result of them editing their language or is it that they were multitasking and could not respond right away?
Return to iTunes, change song.
I am a member of the multitasking generation. Even as I sit here and write this blog, I have had numerous interruptions that distracted me from my train of thought.
As I watch this clip, I see myself in every one of them. Technology has given us so many advantages in society; however, it is necessary to weigh the downfalls.
I was asked if I want to watch a movie with my housemates. As I walk down the steps with my computer and cell phone in hand, I see a member of my house texting, a member playing bubbleshooter and another one attempting to read for class. Who is even going to be watching the movie on the TV?
In her book Always On, Naomi Baron discusses the phenomenon of multitasking. Combining the knowledge that technology is getting increasingly more sophisticated and the idea that we are "Always On" it is no wonder that we are finding more ways to spread our attention to several different activities at the same time - even if that means just watching TV while you are doing homework, or talking on the phone while you conduct a web search.
Even at a young age, children are introduced to computers, video games, and even cell phones. This younger generation, like it or not, is even more immersed in the technology craze than we as college students are. So how will this idea of multitasking affect the cognitive performance of this younger generation? Are they adapting like the London taxi drivers that Baron mentioned in her book, or is their attention being spread to thinly? Baron notes that perhaps the extent to which the person actually thinks that they are multitasking has an effect on the detriment to cognitive performance. This would suggest that children who have grown up with technology will not so much see their actions as multitasking, but simply doing something that is natural to them.
The question I have to ask is even though we don't see ourselves as multitasking, when do we stop actually paying attention to the task at hand and begin to go on auto-pilot? A real world application of this would be driving a car while talking on a cell phone. This action is second nature to most of us - but this is a skill that could potentially be a downside of multitasking. Even though this task seems to take no effort, research has proved that it can be a detriment to not only yourself, but other drivers on the road - which led several states to ban drivers from talking on their cell phones at all while driving. This leads me to the question, how can we learn how to control the noise so that we can give enough cognitive attention to each task presented to us? Consider these questions the next time that you are doing homework and an IM pops up - are you giving each task the proper amount of attention? Is it worth it to "add" seven hours of activity to our day if we are not giving each one adequate attention - how do we control the noise?
Naomi baron begins the third chapter of Always On with an interesting discussion between herself and students of her focus group. The students were complaining about their parents, “The worst thing I ever did was teach my mom to IM over Christmas” (p. 31). At first I laughed at this response, having heard the very same complaint from some of my friends. However, this quotation brought me back to our last class discussion on how technology is affecting our ability to socialize. We all like to think that texting, AIM, and the countless other means of faceless communication have not impacted our ability to hold face-to-face conversations, but I believe we have developed a crutch.
What is proper etiquette for using your cell phone in public? After reading the chapter Going Mobile of Naomi Baron’s book Always On, it can be seen that cell phone etiquette varies from country to country and culture to culture. In Tokyo, Japan, there is hardly any talking between people, let alone talking on a cell phone. The cell phone in Japan, know as keitai is used more to send written messages then to make calls. The government began banning use of keitai in public places. Why is the government intervening? Are they trying to preserve the sense of community that the United States has lost?
What is it about texting that makes it so appealing? Perhaps it is because with the ability to text people are always connected. I have seen people texting in class, while driving, or even with the phone in their pocket at work. We have become so used to texting that some people don't even have to look at their phone to send out a message to their friends. So why in a country of talkers have we chosen to text? Probably because texting can be completed sometimes without even looking at your phone, and it can be done without people knowing, in places where a cell phone call would not be appropriate, such as in class, during a meeting, or while on the clock at work.
Baron found from her pilot study that people are most likely to use texting to: arrange to meet in a few minutes, arrange to meet in a few hours, share news, kill time while waiting or travelling, keep in touch, or ask advice (in that order of importance). We can see from this list that texting is not necessarily for maintaining relationships, but as a way to communicate for a shorter time span in which you can control the volume by choosing to respond or not respond to texts.
Although texting is popular in America, it is not as popular here as it is in foreign countries. Fortunately, our love for talking has not yet made us choose to text instead of having real conversations with our friends. Obviously cultural differences have also played a role in preventing texting from becoming as popular as it is overseas, but with aggressive advertising and our need to have shorter, more efficient conversations so we can get more things accomplished in a day will texting ever replace phone or even face to face conversations?
Chapter 7 of Always On is broken down into two large sections, the first on talking in public places, and the second on punctuation in text and instant messages. I decided to explore the first topic on public conversations as this is a growing trend. I remember when the first Nextel phones came out with the Push-to-Talk technology, essentially turning your cell phone into a two way radio. Now if you are going to take the time to scroll through your contacts and call someone, why would you want that conversation to be in radio form. Push-to-Talk was the same as using speaker phone but with an annoying sound that followed every sentence. To this day, Push-to-Talk technology is still utilitized. During the superbowl, blackberry aired a commercial showing that PTT is still very much alive.
David Crystal opens his third chapter of txting the gr8 db8 by introducing six features that make texting distinctive; pictograms and logograms, initialisms, omitted letters, nonstandard spellings, shortenings, and genuine novelties. After finishing the chapter I felt as if some of these "distinctive features" were a bit redundant. Shortenings, nonstandard spellings, and omitted letters all seem to describe the same thing. Shortenings are inherently omitting letters (hence what makes them shorter), and the absence of traditional consonants and vowels makes these abbreviations different from the standard English language. While I understand Crystal's point, that the choice of which letters to drop or words to shorten varies across not just cultures but from person to person, it still felt repetitious. Here is a cell phone commercial I found that illustrates how texting can differ just within the United States.
As you already know, I am interested in the field of advertising. While reading Crystal’s book, Txting, I took particular interest in his statement saying that commercial advertising and pop music rely on nonstandard spelling, emoticons and pictograms to market their products. Since we have already talked about these topics in the past, I decided to take a different route.
What is the deal with media's impact on youth's development? In the article by Thurlow and McKay it discusses the problem with lower academic performance and the fact that media consumption is routinely blamed as the scapegoat. But is technology really to blame? Or is there some other force at work undermining the education of children? Even though it is easy to blame technology for all problems, you can't ignore that even though this generation is the "net generation" just about 9% of the world's population is actually online. If only 9% of the world is online how can technology be affecting everyone's school performance? Understandably, the United States is a very connected country, and if you do not have access to a computer at home, you can always access one at several locations such as libraries, schools, etc. throughout the community.
Knowing that Americans have constant access to technology, perhaps we have to look at this as a positive rather than a negative impact on education. In fact, later in their article Thurlow and McKay state that, "parents generally believe computers are an educational resource and computer use may be related positively to academic performance" (2003). Knowing that the internet is a limitless source of information where children are free to explore whatever drives them could be a big plus for education. There is also a big plus in internet communication. Being online offers you the ability to connect with social environments that you might not have contact with otherwise - for example when you are looking at schools long distances away you could chat with current students online and get their opinions on the school without having to travel there right away.
While we know from the article that boys and girls use technology in different ways, boys are more interested in the technology itself and entertainment such as video/computer games or surfing the web while girls use it more for communication purposes - perhaps bringing more of these aspects into the classroom would help engage children and have positive impacts. So how do we combine old methods with new technology to have the biggest positive impact in and out of the classroom? Since media is obviously here to stay, how do we make sure that technology stays positive and doesn't have a negative impact on the development and safety of children?
As we grow more and more "connected" to the media, Beer makes a good point, is it profitable to separate our online and offline lives when looking at social network sites. The main example that interests me is Facebook Friends. Is a Facebook friend the same as a face to face friend? Or does technology, in particular these social network sites change the rules of the games? It would only make sense that since these social network sites are such a big part of our lives that they would leave some influence on us as consumers.
Beer also makes a good point about how to conduct research on social network sites. He says that researchers should join into the SNS craze. If you can't beat them, join them right?? Even when joining these sites, will researchers gain the same understanding of social network sites as the people who have currently incorporated them into their lives? Is it important to realize that these researchers are only joining these sites to gain knowledge about how they function and the people who use them rather than using them as a connection to friends?
On this note, perhaps just being on the social network site will help researchers clarify how users of these sites see things. Beer quotes Lash in his article stating, "we make sense of the world through technological systems" (520). Simply stating that since these technologies have such a large part in our lives and that we are so connected, it is hard to form an understanding of something without looking at it through an SNS's eye. We have already seen the changes to the way that we define a friend, what else will change because we are no longer seeing the large separation between our online and offline lives? Perhaps we should document the ways that these social network sites are changing the way we view things such as the definition of a friend so we can keep track of how technology is impacting our lives.
Boyd and Ellison discuss what makes social network sites unique is not the ability to "network" with strangers, but to instead make visible your social network to people who are already part of your social network. In her book, Always On, Naomi Baron mentions how when using Facebook and other social networking sites, users have the ability to portray themselves on their "best day." But why do we need to portray the best of ourselves if we are only using social network sites to communicate with people who are already a part of our social network and know us at our best and our worst? Are we actually looking for networking opportunities or are we just that narcissistic and feel the need to impress everyone around us?
The term narcissism means love of oneself, and refers to the set of character traits concerned with self-admiration, self-centeredness and self-regard. Using Facebook profiles as an example, very few people have a blank information section. Instead, profile pages are filled with interests, favorite movies, quotes, books, etc. And how can I forget the "about me" section which is usually the most narcissistic of them all. Boyd and Ellison discuss how "social network sites are structures as personal (egocentric) networks, with individuals at the center of their own community." This goes right along with the idea of editing that was also mentioned in Baron's book. We have the ability to edit who we are and present ourselves however we may chose on these sites. An important idea that needs to be addressed in future research is the variety of ways people portray themselves on these sites (humorous, serious, etc). Does it have something to do with personality type, how a person was raised or something completely unknown at the present time?
Maybe social networking sites are making our population more hypercritical and judgmental. This is something that will not be able to be determined right now; however, if the attractiveness of one's Friends and the postings on his/her Wall impact our impression of that person, I would say things are not going very well. Is it right to create an impression of someone based on their Facebook profile? If it is true that our social network site profiles are only portraying us at our "best" then that impression may not be accurate or reliable. I mean if you show up to class looking grungy and not having showered for a few days, I don't think your Facebook profile, no matter how good you look, is going to help change opinions about you.
Dr. Beer's article begins by addressing the title of SNS (social networking sites) used in boyd and Ellison's article. Beer states that this title is not clear enough in defining the sites it encompasses. I agree with the concept with the idea that these sites are not used so much for networking. Facebook in my mind is presents the illusion that we have a vast social network of friends and acquaintances. In reality, how many new friends have we made because of Facebook? These social networking sites have enabled us to increase our amount of socializing, not necessarily networking. However, the problem I had with the beginning of this article was the author's argument that the title SNS did not "fit the parameters of its definition" (519).
In Chapter two of his book The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlen states that according to survey responses, higher-income households don’t produce proportionately higher reading rates. To most people this would be surprising. Many people would assume that the more money your family has the more emphasis that your family would put on education. To me, this is not the case.
Chapter two of "The Dumbest Generation" by Mark Bauerlein follows begins with same punch that is found in chapter one and I assume the rest of the text, our generation has been dumbed down by technology. Not only does the author continue with his accusations that our generation is the worst the world has ever seen, but he supports his argument with flawed statistics. The first mistake Bauerlein makes is by overwhelming the readers with numbers. There are statistics from every major firm and agency in the country about the consistently falling educational scores of our generation. Now before diving into the problems with most of these statistics, I do want to say that some of these facts are alarming. The idea that there is a majority of students our age who are more likely to identify Germany or Japan as an ally to the U.S. in World War II is scary, regardless of the sample. With that said, the majority of the statistics presented are flawed or lacking the necessary information to be credible
Mark Bauerlein's book The Dumbest Generation has some interesting findings on student's reading for pleasure. He presents data on how many books college freshman and seniors read for their own enjoyment or as a supplement for course readings. While these numbers are dismally low one has to argue that with the heavy course load students encounter how can you expect them to find the extra time to read for fun? This not only affects college students, but also students in high, middle, and elementary school.
We are in the age of No Child Left Behind, legislation that has set the standard high for students. Kids have to score at a certain level of improvement for their schools to receive funding from the national government. Students are taught how to choose the correct bubble on standardized tests, and are only expected to read enough to get the point of the story - not to actually enjoy what they are reading. Having this constant pressure to perform at an increasingly difficult level could be leading students to become burned out and no longer excited about learning. This could explain why fourth and eighth-graders show improvement, but at the high school level this tapers off. By the time students reach high school they are no longer excited about learning, because it has become just learning to the test.
Bauerlin also has data that states children are no longer reading for fun because they feel it has no benefits at all. But couldn't you argue that children are just engaging in reading different mediums, such as reading magazines, blogs, stories on the internet, etc.? Reading these un-educational books could provide a break from the rigorous work that students are encountering in school. By raising the standards in school and pressuring students to achieve such high test scores are we turning children off from reading or learning?
