Growing Up Distracted, Wired to be Digital – Teens and Tech

In some classes, you knew the teacher would take your phone away for the day if you were caught. In others, you knew you could comfortably text atop your desk while half-listening to a dated Physical Education VHS without the teacher so much as raising an eyebrow, beyond caring. Others appreciated attention while they were addressing the class but didn’t care how you chose to spend your work time. Some would make an example of you. Most, if not all, were disconcerted by cellphone use, and shocked by its consistency in teenager’s lives. That’s natural, considering it is downright rude to not give your attention to a speaker. I wonder, though, what those teachers would have thought about the cellphone use on a fundamental level.

Richtel raises an issue concerning technology used by teenagers today, including but not exclusive to smart phones. He suggests there is a problem emerging to do with the constant multi-tasking, gadget-using youth of today who are finding it harder to concentrate then ever before. The real concern is, that this in turn is harming the learning and good habits that should be occurring during the high school years. Richtel centres his analysis of what is going on around a newly aspiring-to-be filmmaker, aged 17 years old by the name of Vishal Singh. Other teenagers at Vishal’s school are also observed and interviewed. Richtel examines how schools are struggling to adapt to this new age, trying to utilize technology to help engage students in learning what is being taught to them.

Co-constitution suggests that technology is creating us as much as we create it. There are times, I must admit, I do not like what it is creating. But do I blame my procrastination on my beeping cellphone? Do I refuse accepting any responsibility for my laziness and say it is because I have easy access to Youtube? No. I don’t leave my blog at fault for my short attention span, or despise my cruel fate of being born into a digital era.

Perhaps I am not the right person to ask, because I don’t have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even a cellphone that I check often. But I can still smell bullcrap when Allison, a student at Woodside High School, blames technology for her grades, and not herself, being what you might call an extremist when it comes to texting. Richtel must have loved that, seeing as his view on texting by teens is reduced to abbreviations and “quick greetings”. But hey, they can get more meaningful that, as he points out, suggesting that gossiping about drama exemplifies the most “in-depth” conversation a teenager could have over text-messaging. From experience as a student in high school, I have had wonderful and fulfilling conversations about the world, art, music, philosophy, nature and even simple ironies in life that make you go “huh” and stir a desire to share it with someone else.

Richtel speaks from the position of someone who is concerned about teenager’s priorities – someone who is a part of the adult community responsible for shaping future contributors of society. But at times he writes about them as if they are aliens to the world, completely unaware of anything and in dire need of guidance. I can’t agree with that completely, and I didn’t enjoy reading him describe an experiment with boys concerning brain activity and go on to describe rat experiments, making the teenagers sound like test-subjects and not free-willed human beings (no offense to rats intended). I wouldn’t mind seeing Richtel speak for people of his own generation to consider the right and wrong doings concerning adults and their uses of technology. They are, after all, the ones who market smartphones, video games and TV programs to teenagers.

There are studies that suggest the Internet may affect our cognitive abilities and attention spans. But I could just picture the loud burst of laughter of my older family members in reaction to this, who would heartily exclaim that such problems with youth concerning laziness, ability to focus and distractions existed long before this digital age. Sean of Woodside High School made mention to this, that his obsession with video games would have been channeled into something like TV had he been born in an earlier generation. Sean makes an interesting observation – rather than blaming technology for distracting him as the other interviewed teens did, enticing him with its splendors and boredom-killing charm – he says that video games (and arguably other vehicles of “distraction” such as Facebook, Youtube, cellphones, etc) aren’t responsible for the void in teenager’s minds. Their roles begin and end at filling it.

I want to make one thing clear, however - I definitely agree that there is something bizarre about this need to constantly be stimulated and absorbed in technology, eyes ever-glued to a screen. My friends tell me of feeling distressed and that they are missing out on something important when not able to connect to the various social media platforms they are a part of. Why is it that these students feel an unbearable need to be distracted, fulfilled with feedback and comforted by instant gratification so incessantly? That, to me, is the more important question. Knowing why might actually help to create and facilitate a more harmonic balance of priorities in today’s youth, opening their eyes to the peace found in moderation and the knowledge obtained in reflection. It is easy to be overwhelmed in a world that seems to take so much of our time and measure it in dollar signs; it is no wonder we multi-task. The only real way to combat it and still be a part of it is to achieve a balance.

I often want to shake the stranger next to me while we wait by a bus stop and shout at them. Look up at the sky, look how beautiful and vast it is! Appreciate it with me, if only for a moment, and then return to your phone. Upon doing so they may notice it has gone black, the screen now reflecting the sky above them. I do not suggest here that the world this stranger left for a second to be with me is a “virtual” one, as Richtel irritatingly put it, but that it is another world. Perhaps it might remind them to try and spend quality time in both.

Look! It’s a Fix for Value-Torn Individuals in Conflicting Cultures: Awareness! A Critical Analysis of “A Fine Balance – The Life of a Muslim Teenager”

This article weaves an intricate portrait of a young Islamic man by the name of Mohamed Ahmed. The writer appears to remain out of the profile, only a presence which Ahmed acknowledges through the soft-spoken truths said to this invisible narrator, reflecting on the past and considering himself as a split person. Ahmed is a Muslim teenager in America who has found it to be a unique struggle to fit in amongst his peers, who despite making him feel welcome, have almost polar opposite values and lifestyles. He is torn between his Koran-taught values and the culture he finds himself a part of.

Though depicting a frustrating confliction within this typical Muslim teenager, the article has some hopeful meaning emanating from some of its less obvious details. Yes, Mohamed feels regret and even guilt for some of his past experiences, possibly due in part to his strict upbringing from his more traditionally Muslim parents – but a majority of the article describes a boy who is accepted and cared for as a friend and respected as a talented student. He was even valedictorian. When I read this article, I acknowledged the difficulties Mohamed faced, but also felt happy for his achievements both socially and academically. It was comforting for me to know that individuals varying in their principles and values can have such success in the same fields of education. Hopefully we will continue on the path of embracing cultural differences and maintain the respect needed for them to exist as freely and unrestricted as possible.

Whatever can be done for teenager’s like Mohamed to feel welcome and safe to explore their religious boundaries, without accidents like he had with his friend Michelle happening, should be exploited. Mohamed even said himself that after 9/11, people around him in America knew nothing more about Islam than what was told to them in news broadcasts. An example of what might work to help occurred yesterday, at UTM. It was Muslim Awareness day, where held in the CCIT building were exhibits of art, culture and information about things people might actually be afraid to ask about. The better people understand one another’s values, the less people seem like the “other” and the better it is to work and play more fluidly. This doesn’t just concern people of different religious backgrounds - it also can be applied to issues concerning race, gender identity, sexuality, the mentally/physically challenged and more. There is a broader lesson to be learned here.

The article was well-written and informative. I have to admit one point that stood out to me, a guideline of Mohamed’s parents, and I found it particularly unfavourable. It was a request for him to only be surrounded by and be friends with other Muslim children at his school. I think that is potentially a dangerous notion of a lingering, harmful separatism. Mohamed’s different relationships and experiences during his academic years will help him indefinitely in whatever career path he chooses, where he will have to be in a similar environment to what high school and university/college simulated for him.  I am aware should people be separate by choice, or because they are most comfortable that way (Mohamed had trouble relating to some of his non-Muslim friends), it won’t necessarily hurt anyone. But what it might hurt is the functionality of a multicultural society that only works for the benefit of all when relationships and communication are fostered among the rich variety of people who are a part of it. Love thy neighbour, am I right?

George Orwell: Linguistic Entropy, Political Conformity and Too Many Metaphors

I have read George Orwell’s Animal Farm and have heard nothing but praise for his popular dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Because of this, I was intrigued to see a non-fiction essay written by Orwell and read it in one sitting on the bus home from school. What I read, I realize, is not only important for emerging students to consider but something vital to speakers and readers of any language, and a chance for them to (I’m going to use something Orwell would disapprove of here for the desirable effect) look in the mirror and reflect (I wonder what Orwell thought of puns?).

Orwell makes his stance on the state of the English well known from the opening sentence of the essay. He deliberates reasons for why it has ended up this way, ranging from political entropy to paradoxical notions of bad writing supporting bad thoughts creating more bad writing. George argues that the English prose is riddled with vagueness and meaninglessness, and that its most harmful place is in politics. Orwell is particularly loathsome when it comes to politics, it is possible that he was deeply influenced by the various wars he experienced, sometimes first-hand. He suggests that the use of ready-made phrasing, lousy words, pretentious diction and other fillers are merely replacements for the author, allowing them to avoid having to come up with his or her own means of expressing thoughts/ideas. Orwell goes on to actually suggest their might be a cure for all that was gone wrong with the English Language, stating six rules such as “Never use a long word when a short one will do”. To me, that particular rule is the most important one, necessary in the delivery of efficiently and effectively writing. Reader comprehension and precision in writing is key to Orwell, something he believes has been lost in the mess of dressed-up sentences and even scholarly work, as pointed out in his examples of ugly, unclear writing.

I recognize that in this blog entry, I will have committed some of the “mental vices” George brought forward in his critique of those examples. I can’t help but wonder how much more time-consuming writing would become if we made an effort to make every aspect of writing our own. Humans are creatures of habit and copy each other; that is part of how we learn. Though Orwell stresses the simplification of language, he advises the complete avoidance of ready-made phrases, the elimination of various literary techniques (who is the judge of what ones are acceptable) and to completely change the attitude towards writing. There is much more, and that alone makes writing sound like an immensely complicated craft that everyone has to learn all over again, because according to Orwell, we’re doing it wrong. That’s intimidating, to say the least; I also cannot help to think that if we all were to write in this ideal fashion, some wise and critical thinker, not unlike Orwell, would rise to find gaps and major flaws within its logic, deeming it detrimental to society, prove it is used corruptly for political gain and harmful to the way we think. It seems impossible and too grand a task to change the way humans write, and consequently think. The variety of conflicting opinions that could rise would constrain progress (for example, some people would not call it progress at all) to a slow crawl. Who, then, decides what is best for the English language? The government? If that’s the case, I’d rather see a horde of academics fight it out, actually.

I am skeptical only because I feel a strange sensation of intrigue and distrust in anyone’s claim to absolute truth; I intend to use doubt not to feed my cynicism but as a healthy measure for balancing the information entering my head day to day. The more evidence George provided, the more convinced I usually found myself of his arguments. I recognize Orwell is far more learned and clever than I should ever hope to be on this subject. If I were to completely replace meaning with metaphors and vague phrasing, I would say: “Orwell is a tall tree and I am a sprout, only recently having poked my head out of the soil. I am overwhelmed like the prisoner who escaped Plato’s cave, blinded from only just seeing light, while Orwell is, how do I put it? Heavily sunburnt.” There I completely replaced the information, though my point is perceivable. I think there is some room in essay writing for poetic relief, given the appropriate informal circumstances (in this case, a blog entry).

I appreciate the inspirational tone in the conclusion of the essay in an attempt to persuade me to try and change habit, if even for my own benefit. To apply oneself to helping people think more clearly and more easily express that human thought - without the clutter of unnecessary factors - is admirable, and I am already observing my writing in new ways because of it. Though Orwell probably had civilization as a whole in mind, I can imagine he’d have been pleased to know that.

  

References

Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English Language. Horizon, 8

A Discovery in the Joy of Writing - On an excerpt from 'On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' by Stephen King

Personal narratives often facilitate emotional connections to the reader, particularly when they speak of something as nostalgic as the blurred, hazy memories of our childhood. In this article, Stephen King describes a situation he faced when he was around 7 or 8 years of age, too sick to attend school and finish the first grade. He explains how he spent his days at home, while his brother moved on in school. But his life did not stand as still as one might think; he read comics and got lost in their narratives to the point of inspiration. King goes on to explain a vital learning process in reading that I found myself identifying to very well: where imitation takes a fundamental role in shaping the creation of writing. He copied the core of stories and added his own touches to them and showed them to his Mom, seeking approval and deeply enjoying the satisfaction of it. She did, however, encourage him to write his own stories, which he consequently did with four more. He received a quarter for each, and King describes this dollar he earns as the first he made in his career of writing. A dollar, in substance, seems so little. But when we consider the circumstances and what separate kind of truer worth this dollar had, we see it as a tiny milestone in his journey of being a renowned writer.

By reading this article, I have formed my own theories as to why King not only became a fantastic writer but also leaned to the paranormal and fantasy genres. Being sick for any length of time induces boredom, a kind of mental discomfort in an already depressive state. King's escape into comic books and narratives appear to have been just the distraction he needed to get him through a difficult part of his life; the idea of an ill body but a thriving, exercised imagination depicts evidence of the human resilience and spirit.

I imagine people caught in the net of their dreary repetitive lives, detached from the world in a way similar to King as an ill child, hungry for an escape into narratives so vivid and captivating that they transcend a reader's own reality. For them, King's writing has the power to do just that.

Joey Ness

1000801652

http://critical-blogger.blogspot.ca/

Annotated Biblio

King, S.(2000). Writing The Literacy Narrative. In S. Blau & K. Burak (Eds.), Writing In the Works (42-50). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.