Friday, May 6, 2011

Digital Media Good or Bad?

"Do virtual worlds really bring us together with others or do they just make being utterly alone a little bit more bearable” stated Douglas Rushkoff. Technology today is a way of life. Our computers, cell phones, and any other electronics consume our daily life no matter who you are. If we, as a society, rely on technology without learning the basic principals in school and life, then we might not have a future in the real world. Protecting our future is up to the youth in our society. Which could mean that one day we all might be avatars in a virtual world. Protecting does not always produce good results but we could teach our youth traditional ways of learning, communicating and being productive with out a computer then introduce computers when they are able to relate technology with a job instead of everyday life.

The creator of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, told Digital Nation that he created Second Life to rewrite the rules of interaction with others. He claims that our society has become alienated through technology. He used an example of how we use to watch movies together then we watched movies in our living rooms to now watching a movie on an IPod (Digital Nation). But one wonders if technology is alienating us or if we are doing it to ourselves. Most college students do a lot of different things together including homework, watching movies, and playing video games. Honestly all three of those things could or does involve technology but it does not isolate them. But we all know that one person who would rather watch a movie or do homework by themselves instead of with others but there could be a number of different reasons for that behavior. Alienating yourself does not mean you cannot communicate face to face with someone. It could be possible that a person who does not surround themselves with others, but still knows how to communicate is better off, mainly because they will not have temptations of craving that social acceptance. But for those that play video games, as an addiction, may not be able to communicate face to face as well as they do over line. Philip Rosedale lives in a virtual world of beautiful buildings, flying, and socializing through a headset and tells us, as human beings, that it is easier to communicate with each other through Second Life. Could it be possible that Philip Rosedale’s virtual world is protecting people who think life is too much to handle face to face? 


As for the children of our technology society, video games devour their lives like playing outside did only 10 years ago to the generation before them. So should our children be learning basic skills and knowledge off of video games? Katie found a school based in New York that shares technology and gaming to children in this school (Digital Nation). If a child is only learning one way their first couple of years in school then how will they succeed in a different school or even in real life? Today’s society is not all gaming, only a few jobs involve playing video games. Katie’s main reason for creating a learning environment with games was because it kept the students interested in their work. Should we worry about the next generation not knowing how to handle the real world? Yes and no. Technology has grown tremendously and us, as a society cannot keep up. The children today know phones, computers, and video games all too well, which can be scary to the older generations. Considering we already have people pretending to live in a virtual world who knows what the children of the future will create. In the other aspect maybe the younger children our going to be great inventors of cyber, but is that always a better way of life? Today’s children know nothing but what the computer tells them, where as even the generation before them know how to survive without the latest technology. Technology was invented to help us but one wonders if the younger generation is being destroyed by overwhelming advances of technology.

Technology is not at all a horrible invention but our society needs to stand up and say enough is enough. Teach the children how to survive and learn without games or computers, then give them computers. We as human beings are extremely intelligent, but we are extremely lazy. From virtual reality to video games in school, we have become too lazy to even learn how to ride a bike. Slowing down our technology crave is not always a bad idea or are the older generations just blown away from how children learn nowadays. Rachel Dretzin said, “Maybe there is something these kids are getting that we aren’t able to value yet.”

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