Digital Nation Blog #2

     A documentary called, Digital Nation, created in 2010 by PBS, goes in depth on how technology is impacting our world. This film talks about many different topics that technology has either improved or affected negatively. Digital Nation inquires into what it means to be human in today's society. By showing South Korean schooling where they teach children about safe use of technology, or doing testing on MIT students to see if they are actually capable of multi-tasking. The topics that caught my attention are the use of technology in classrooms, and the question of being capable of multi-tasking.

     Imagine a child walks in the door from a “long” day of school, plops down on the couch, turns on the TV, takes out his/her laptop, and starts to play video games. You hardly ever see kids walk in trough the door and sit at the table to do their homework. In South Korea, one of the world’s most technological reliable places, children are having some great experiences with technology but some are having bad ones. Yung Yeild, A fifteen year old boy, spends about seven to eight hours on weekdays using technology, and on weekends stays up all night. His mother said that "he was in the top of his class, and has now dropped down to the bottom." She believes that this is due to his use of technology and that it is a true addiction. South Korea is attempting to improve their students' internet usage. They are teaching how to use the internet in a save way in elementary schools. In some of the elementary schools they have signs posted all over saying things like "that thing on the internet hurt my friend, please do not do that". Just having signs is a small thing, but it makes the children learn how to use the internet safely and also helps them to realize when they are using it in a bad way.

     Some schools believe that technology is only going to improve and we are going to need it more and more in our daily lives. In a High school in Chatman, NJ, Steve Maher, a history professor, is attempting to teach his students using technology.  He believes that we will continue to use the computers more and more. In the Bronx’s of South New York, Middle school Principal, Jason Levy, got every student in the school laptops. He believed by doing this that the school would turn around for the best. Four years prior to this the school was on the verge of collapsing, there were gangs and extreme violence. Their students were not meeting the state requirements at all, only nine percent were meeting it in math. After getting the laptops for the students it made a huge difference in their academic and social abilities. There was less violence and more students with better academic levels.

     I’ve had my own personal experience with schools allowing a mass amount of technology usage. When a child arrived at school about ten years ago, the teachers would have to tell all the children it’s time to stop playing on the playground and to come inside. Now teachers are telling the children it’s time to put away cell phones, iPods, and other electronic devices. Ridley School District, located right outside of Philadelphia, gave every student k-12 an I Pad for “educational” purposes. Ridley has a no cell phone policy, if the teacher sees it they may take it from you. This is due to students cheating on their tests, and not paying attention in class. Now having I Pads, and being able to have them on at all times during the school day, students are less likely to sit on their phones all day, but now sit on their I Pads. This could make students grades decrease due to the fact of the I Pads. I was one of those students. I believed that the use of the I Pads was very distracting.  I for one would sit there while my teacher was talking and would tweet about how bored I was. I also was a senior and had no motivation to do anything “senioritis”. Now being a freshman in college I realize that the technology actually helped me out a lot. I use my laptop or some sort of technology for mostly every assignment I do in college.

     In addition, I thought the question of multi-tasking was very interesting. Students at M.I.T are one of the smartest students but they are also one of the wired students. Many students at M.I.T believe that they are fully capable of multitasking. In California, at the University of Stanford, scientist decided to do a study on students that attend Stanford. They wanted to see if they were actually capable of multi-tasking. One of the test they did was to see how quickly they could change their task without losing focus. The one students results surprised him. He believed that he was actually a great multi-tasker, his results disagreed. They showed that he was much slower while he multi-tasked, and was unable to readjust to each different task he was given. The professor said the students get distracted easily, and he is afraid that this will create generation that will not be able to focus at all. 

     After watching Digital Nation I realized that technology really has impacted the world today. Some people may not be able to adapt to technology or may become addicted to it. In South Korea technology is everywhere so it may be very easy to become addicted to it, but it does not mean that we should abuse it. For others it has helped their lives for the better. The students in the Bronx’s may have never had the opportunity to use a computer if it was not for their principal. And since they did it helped them out so much. I believe that if people appreciated technology and how it can be such a great use for the world, instead of abusing it, the world would be different for the greater good.