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In a world so caught up in social media, in the words of a great video I watched recently, it’s anything but social. We stick our noses so far into our phones we don’t bother to look up and enjoy the world around us. Crystal and I would waste 30 minutes or more sitting next to each other without talking while surfing Facebook on our phones. We spend so much time on our computers, phones, wasting hours of our days reading meaningless crap about people we don’t even talk to. Let that sink in for a minute. Is it nice to see what friends are up to? Sure! But why not actually socialize with them using, I don’t know, your words? Call them, text them, or even better go spend time with them in person. You don’t ever really see the true side to someone on
their Facebook profile. You see a image that they want you to believe is their life. On the surface you see that I have a wonderful family, a adorable kid, and a great life. But what about my personal stuggles? I don’t put them on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You have to actually get to know ME if you want to know all sides of me. This waste of time has brought Crystal an I to realize that there is more to life than the internet and social media, cable television and being lazy. We want to live a more full and rich life that we won’t accomplish by sitting on our butts reading about what someone thinks about politics, or what you had for lunch. That in NO way benefits us! (Unless your lunch looked bomb, then we might ask for the recipe).
Take Over The Mind
02 He typically favors Facebook, YouTube and making digital videos. That is the case this August afternoon. Bypassing Vonnegut, he clicks over to YouTube, meaning that tomorrow he will enter his senior year of high school hoping to see an improvement in his grades, but without having completed his only summer homework. On YouTube, “you can get a whole story in six minutes,” he explains. “A book takes so long. I prefer the immediate Students have always facedistractions and time-wasters. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning. Researchers say the lure othese technologies, while
it affects adults too, is particularly powerful for young people. The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention. “Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing,” said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media 21st-century students. He has asked teachers to build Web sites to communicate with students, introduced popular classes on using digital tools to record music, secured funding for iPads to teach Mandarin and obtained $3 million in grants for a multimedia center.
to be distracted by computers is rivaled by his
IS TECHNOLOGY MESSING WITH OUR HEADS?