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Month: February 2018

“Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”

February 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Although I found many of Twenge’s claims not to be evident in my own life and many of her examples I considered exaggerated or to be the most extreme cases, I do agree with her claim that smartphones are negatively affecting teens’ sleep. Twenge states “In just four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep. The increase is suspiciously timed, once again starting around the time when most teens got a smartphone.”; in this quote Twenge provides a statistic to back her claim that teens’ sleep is affected and then ties it’s time frame to that of the smartphone to support the other half of her claim that the smartphone is the cause.  Further than the statistics provided by Twenge, there is science to why smartphones inhibit sleep; the blue light that is emitted from the screen has been proved to delay the release of sleep inducing hormones. Also, I find this claim personally to be true; often times I find myself exhausted laying in bed at night yet still awake because I am caught up on something on my phone: Netflix, social media, or just the internet itself.

I worked on adding in a relevant quote and would revise it’s framework.

Boyd Chapter 1 Key Quotes

February 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

“They see social media as a place to gather with friends while balancing privacy and safety with humor and image.” (Pg. 47)

“Impressions we make on others are a product of what is given and what is given off.” (Pg. 48)

“Teens…are grappling with battles that adults face, but they are doing so while under constant surveillance and without a firm grasp of who they are. In short, they are navigating on heck of a cultural labyrinth.” (Pg. 53)

I found chapter one of It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd to be very insightful as it refers to a number of perspective on how teens take on online identities. I agreed with the point that how you portray yourself online is becoming increasingly more complicated as we deal with how different audiences view the posts – from our peers to potential employers. I have definitley experienced this myself; I find myself considering what my grandparents and teachers would think when posting photos online.

TED Talk Summary

February 21, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Sherry Turkle in her TED Talk “Connected, but alone?” discusses how technology is negatively impacting how we engage with others and how we view solitude. While she argues early on that “technology is taking us places we don’t want to go”, Turkle’s talk isn’t about giving up technology completely; rather that we need to be more self aware of our relationship with it and ourselves. She goes further to claim that technology is so “psychologically powerful” because it provides a constant companionship – a false empathy – but without the risks of intimacy. This controlled connection is always there and allows us to retouch, edit, and carefully plan out what we text, tweet, or post; thus giving us more control than traditional conversation. Turkle says that this is leading us as a society  to expect more from our smartphone than our friends as it appeals to us when we are vulnerable and lonely: “being alone is becoming viewed as a problem to be solved”. The TED talk is concluded with the idea that if we are never able to be alone, we will become more lonely; Turkle’s solution to this is issue is that we need to come to recognize our vulnerabilities and value solitude.

Other Punctutation

February 12, 2018 / / 1 Comment

My high school English teacher harped on the correct use of commas so much that the comma rules are forever etched in my brain. Yet, when it comes to the use of other forms of punctuation, specifically colons and semicolons, I struggle.  This lead me to overview the section on colons (P-6) and semicolons (P-2) in The Little Seagull Handbook. I learned that semicolons are used to join related independent clauses, so the fragments before and after the semicolon must be able to stand alone.

Ex.) Our team had poor communication last night; we lost the game.

Also, I learned that colons are used to set off a list, quote, or explanation.

Ex.) On my walk to the grocery store I went over what I needed to get for dinner: potatoes, chicken, and cheddar cheese.

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