VOL 34 Issue No. 5
January 2014
Montana Tech’s Student Run Newspaper
In This Issue Features 2 Sydney Norris 3 Korey Krumm 5 Entertainment 6 Digger Infographic 8 Sports 9 The Back Page 12
Is Social Media Making us Smarter? Jessica Tonkin There are many claims out there that suggest today’s generation has been dumbed down because of the vast amount of time spent on social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. But a new study conducted now argues that social media is actually making us smarter. Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, claims that social media—especially Twitter—is making us more literate than ever before. There is powerful evidence that all this time spent texting and tweeting is helping to make young people write and to think better compared to previous generations. Experts have warned that excessive online activity has zombified us and has destroyed our ability to communicate clearly. We use LOL-talk and emoticons to express ourselves, but this mixture of fun status updates, hard news is opening us up to massive amounts of information, new ideas, opinions, and new words on a daily basis. The fact is, this generation is writing more than any generation ever before.
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Editor’s Commentary: A Fond Farewell Adam M. Hawks The Montana Tech Technocrat is the voice of the student body on campus. The newspaper is written for everyone on campus to help influence their day to day lives. Gandhi said “to be the change you wish to see in the world.” For Montana Tech, that instrument of change is the Technocrat. But change inevitably happens in the world, for better or worse. The goal of every editor at the Technocrat is to grow the paper. I started at the Technocrat in 2008 with Stephanie Gruss as the Editor-in-Chief. She worked tirelessly to take the newspaper online. Her efforts did not come to fruition. However, she did create a handbook for future editors that followed her. Darcie and I had the privilege of working with Aaron Briggs. Aaron changed the format of the newspaper to the magazine styled layout in your hands now. He brought the Technocrat online with a website and even connected the newspaper to social networks. The final editor I will ever work for is Darcie Evans. Darcie’s efforts in her short time as editor ushered in a new era of student participation and a new way of distributing that participation. She reconnected the Technocrat and the Montana Tech Athletic Department, and expanding our coverage of Oredigger athletics. She hired Ali Almeshaal as a videographer to film various student activities on campus. And finally we have a group of talented writers including: Jennifer Grant, Jessica Tonkin, Kirstie McPherson, and myself.
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