The Sweet 16

Thank you for your very kind (and melodic!) birthday wishes today, and for the manageable pile of 16 notebooks to take to Palm Springs, where the book club ladies and I shall convene for our annual end-of-summer getaway.  I’ll steal some time from napping and paddling around in the pool (discussing War and Peace, of course) to sit somewhere cool and read through your work.   In alphabetical order, these are the notebooks I have:  Austin, Bryant, Chikum, Chikum, Coleman, Dayan, Duy, Farquhar, Fisher, Lasao, Miller, Rajan, Reece, Wu, Yap and Yoder.   I expect to find some exemplars!

By the way, if anyone bumps into Giovanni Lasao -- I sent him an email a couple of days ago and I haven’t heard from him.  He may have created a Google account for the blog that he doesn’t check regularly, so if you see him, will you just mention that I do want a response to that email?  Thanks.

I'm offline now until Sunday afternoon, -- if you comment to this post, I'll get it via email but I won't answer until Sunday... Have a happy weekend, and good luck finishing up the work.  It can be done!  The end is in sight!  Don't let fear and loathing keep you from writing!  

Finally, to the musically gifted AP Bio guys:  I have a Cliff’s study guide for AP Bio for sale in my classroom.  Proceeds benefit Mayfair Reads.  Anyone is welcome to make me an offer;  and I’ll give you an unbelievable deal.

A Special Day

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MS. FLETCHER!

/signed Ronald Kem :)

Calc, Physics, and English

I'm going to make this short and simple for everybody. 
APCalculus AB is offered third period while AP Physics B is offered 5th, the same periods as AP11.
For the majority of people taking AP Physics, they can drop down into Honors Physics and continue with AP 11. Sadly, for me, I don't have the option and have chosen to go along with Calc and Physics.

Confirmed 3rd and 5th English by my counselor and the 3rd section was closed due to the lack of students to fill it. I just guess this is the easiest way to tell everyone that might be asking me in a few weeks about my schedule. Have fun in AP11 Class of 2014.

Fletcher Update #3

I picked up three notebooks today!  That was pretty exciting.

One of my new students, however, turned in essays written on a word processor.

I know I stress this in the summer homework meeting, and I include it in the instructions in two places:  all writing must be done by hand.  I don't care if you print or write in cursive, but you must write it out -- and, in black or blue ink only,  please.  I will not read lime green or hot pink, either.

I am not being a hard-headed, cold-hearted wacko; the AP exam is a handwritten exam.

from Chapter 10, "A Thing Like Me," The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr:

Every tool imposes limitations even as it opens possibilities.  The more we use it, the more we mold ourselves to its form and function.  That explains why, after working with a word processor for a time, I began to lose my facility for writing and editing in longhand.  My experience, I later learned, was not uncommon.  "People who write on a computer are often at a loss when they have to write by hand," Norman Doidge reports.  Their ability to "translate thoughts into cursive writing" diminishes as they become used to tapping keys and watching letters appear as if by magic on a screen. Today, with kids using keyboards and keypads from a very young age and schools discontinuing penmanship lessons, there is mounting evidence that the ability to write in cursive script is disappearing altogether from our culture.  It's become a lost art.  "We shape our tools," observed Jesuit priest and media scholar John Culkin in 1967, "and thereafter they shape us."

I always suspected the truth of this, (and also worry about the increased potential for cheating when I accept word processed essays).  I have always required my students to write in longhand -- and when I say longhand, I mean either cursive or printing.  That part does not matter to me.  (I realize many of you are not comfortable or fast when writing in cursive.)

It is certainly my experience that when I write in longhand, I produce a different quality of text than when I write on the keyboard.  I'm NOT suggesting that one is superior to the other; I am merely pointing out that the two modes of producing language on a page ends up impacting the language itself.

If I send you into that test room next May without giving you HOURS of practice of thinking and writing in longhand, I would be guilty of not preparing you adequately.

When I ask for work in a particular format, there is a reason.  When the College Board starts allowing students to test live and online, sitting at a monitor with fingers on a keyboard,  I will change my policy.

Fletcher Update #2

When I will be on campus August 20-August 24

Monday, I'm flying through.  I'll be on campus for less than 20 minutes, and gone by 9:00 a.m.  All I want to do is say hi to Mr. Kailiponi and check the master schedule, put my homework turn-in box in the front office, and pick up my vacuum cleaner (which I left in my classroom).

Tuesday and Wednesday:  On one of these days, and possibly both, I'll be in my classroom for about 90 minutes in the morning -- 9:30 until 11:00.  A colleague and I want to meet, but we haven't really established the date/time yet...if I am in a meeting, I'll put a note on my door.  You are still welcome to come in, and hand me your notebook, but I won't be able to stop and chat with you.

Thursday:  I believe this is Ronald Kem's birthday.  (My birthday is Wednesday, August 22.)  I have a meeting at the district office at 9:00, and after that, I'll be in my classroom working until 4:00.  This is the day you can turn in your notebook early, but please remember --- it's not early if you turn it in after I leave -- so it has to be there by 4:00.  After I leave, the work is not early, but it is "on-time," and work will continue to be "on-time" all day Friday, and up until NOON on Monday.

By 2:00 p.m. Monday, August 27, we need to build the AP class with people who completed the homework requirements, and prepare to print rosters for Preview Day.

I'll be on campus August 27-29, but there will be all kinds of meetings and things on those days, so it's often hard to catch me.   However, in a pinch, I can usually set aside some time — so ask if you need to speak to me.

AF

Fletcher Update

Sixty-one students successfully (more or less) completed enough of the blog requirements to be in the class.  I've updated the posts on the spreadsheet, but I did not update the comments because, frankly, that is tedious work.  Everyone still on the list completed all or most of the comment requirements, and I have them penciled in on an earlier draft of that spreadsheet.  I don't feel like typing all those dates into the little boxes.

I deleted those students from the blog who did not post.  If the blog is still active to you and you can click that button that says NEW POST, you are counted among that initial group of 61.

Next, I await your notebooks.  I will receive notebooks from people who did not blog; there will be bloggers who do not turn in notebooks.  The  people in the first group are considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on the quality of their work.  Their grade will be impacted significantly, but honestly, talented people who hit the deadlines can recover to a solid B by the end of the first semester.  I do not retain anyone who does not turn in a completed notebook.

So I am comfortable saying that we will have two sections of AP English, with between 55 and 65 students split between the two sections.

Thank you, Class. Also, some FAQ

Contact me as soon as possible with any problems or glitches, but I will not be counting comments or reading posts from this point forward.  Focus on your notebooks, on getting all of your summer homework complete, and get your notebooks in to me as soon as you're done.

FAQ

Do you want to look at our annotated book?
No, thank you.  I'd like to take a look at them later.  I used to collect everyone's books way back in the day and it was a mess.

Can I comment on my own post (if I am responding to someone who has responded to me)?
Of course.  That's what we call "a conversation."

Did you really ride your bike 50 miles last Thursday?
Yes, I did.  Thanks for asking.

Did Nicolas Carr write a carefully researched book and provide multiple neurological, sociological and psychological studies just so that he could bag on the Internet and complain about how he feels more distracted?
Uh, no.

Should I be adding my posts and comments to the spreadsheet myself?
You cannot.  You have a "read-only" relationship with that document.  If everyone could put whatever they wanted into that document, the document wouldn't  have much meaning.

When are notebooks due?
Your notebooks are due on Friday, August 24th.  I'm giving a little bump to any early notebooks, and assessing no penalty to notebooks turned in on Monday, August 27th, but I must have them by noon.  Mr. Kailiponi wants a roster of AP kids by that afternoon so we can build our rosters and get kids into the appropriate English class.

Can I still write on the blog?
Yes, of course.  You can continue to write, post, comment -- as you wish.  It's just that I have stopped counting.  So write for its intrinsic value, and forget about the extrinsic reward of points.  Who cares about points?  We have important matters to discuss.

Thanks for your hard work!

The Internet

In The Shallows, the internet is bashed on for not allowing us to concentrate and being a curse. However, it has it's benefits. We are able to connect worldwide with different people and spread news and knowledge. It can be used for good, but we have not yet learned on how to use it responsibly. It takes self-control to know how long we should be on it.

Also, we lose our focus. We used to be able to read at length, but now we can only read for a short amount of time. We like quick answers in a small amount of time. Are we becoming impatient for information?

We Have Become the Subjects

The internet will always be like food to me. In order to fuel your body, you need food, right? Similar to food, I feel as if I need the internet to fuel the entertainment part of my brain. In The Shallows, it is like the internet is becoming a dictator, stopping at no costs. Some of us are becoming weak minded people with the internet controlling our lives. Strangely, we depend on the internet for many every day reasons. Instead of going to the bank, we handle money online. Instead of going over to restaurant and ordering food, we call a delivery man. Instead of going to the library to research for a school project, we go straight to google and type in the topic. We have become so dependent, to the point where I feel as if we can no longer function by ourselves. It makes you wonder how the people in the 1960's dealt without a laptop.

How has the internet intertwined in our lives so smoothly? Why can't we resist the terrible temptations of laziness? Why is the internet more powerful than us? We are all human; We created the technology we have nowadays. Thanks to our own innovations, we have become the subjects and our inventions have become the rulers. Is there any way we can overpower the throne (a.k.a. our technology) now?

Narcoticized By Technological Diversions

As you know, in Brave New World, soma alters the people’s minds so that they lose sight of reality and enter a fantasy land. It leads anyone who takes it to want more. Soma is a drug, and a very addictive one.

We could compare it to anti-depressants or even alcohol, but, really, soma is a subjective term . A book could be described as our soma because when we read, we become oblivious to the outside world. As we grow away from a typographic world though, it is unlikely that a book is your soma. Most likely, technology is.

Neil Postman wrote that television is our soma, but as his book was written nearly thirty years ago, our main technological diversion has changed. It is now the internet. Nicholas Carr warns that the internet delivers a “kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli— repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions.”

 All three authors of the books we have read this summer, prophesize that our actions are dangerous and that we should be aware, but are we so high on technology that we don’t care for the reality of all that it is doing to us?

The Odds Were Not in His Favor

I was disappointed with the ending of Brave New World. I believed that John was strong and nothing would break him. Despite not giving into temptation and not becoming what society wanted him to be, he took his own life. I pondered why he would resort to something so tragic and came to the conclusion that he would rather die with his beliefs than become what he despised.

However, wouldn't it have been better for John to live for his beliefs instead of dying for them? You can't accomplish anything in death. Perhaps John saw it was useless to live for them if no one would be able to understand them. There's millions brainwashed people versus one man with different morals and beliefs. Those aren't very good odds. John might have realized that he would be harassed by society until he changed into everything he was against. He probably believed that there was no pointing in living unhappy as something you weren't for the sake of society to be happy. He gave up rather than giving in. As cowardly as that sounds, it takes a lot of courage to end your own life. His death sends the message of how society can push us so far to be perfect in its eye, but is it worth it when you give up everything you are as an individual?

Our Concentration Vanishing into Thin Air

After reading The Shallows, it opened up a question my thoughts that I never really thought deeply about. Do the internet and all this advanced technology really take an affect on our lack of concentration? Using myself as an example, I have become a procrastinator who can never seem to stay focused on one subject. While I'm trying to read and I hear my phone receive a text, my automatic response is to put down my book and snatch my phone. It's as if all the information that sunk into my head suddenly disappeared in mid-air. Due to the technological distractions, my attention span has decreased and my concentration seems to always hang by a thread.

This goes for other mediums as well, such as television, the internet, and other gadgets. I admit that I have a terrible habit of logging onto all my social networks as I am also attempting to research school work on the web. I would tell myself, "I'll be on facebook for only five minutes and then I'll get back to studying." One hour later I would find myself repeating the same sentence. These mediums and technologies have become so addicting that we are letting our concentration slip away. Is there any way to get my focus back on the target? As hard as I try, with the internet sitting only a few feet away from me, my concentration continues to drift.

Flashing Lights

In chapter 6 in Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman makes an interesting observation of American television being loved more around the world than the actually country itself. It's not hard to imagine why U.S. television is loved more. American television is able to portray thousands of spectacular images in seconds and requires little skill to understand it. Even the commercials are pleasing to the eye.

However, this is becoming a problem on how we present things. Watching television is a good way to relax, but when it comes to the serious and important stuff, we can't seem to get through it without some colorful images or music. Even something as serious as the news has some entertainment in it for our amusement and pleasure. This has me thinking that maybe we as Americans are not using television correctly. We set this ridiculous standard for television that everything must be entertaining. We don't need all the flashy lights and music. We need to be encouraged to think and come up with our own opinions, not wasting our time watching reality shows with washed up celebrities that offer no insight on the world. Not everything on television needs to look like a show from Las Vegas.

Thank you Google!

Yesterday while I was at tennis practice for some reason my coach and I got on the subject about how technology used to be back during her time in the 70’s and how it has evolved into the 21^st century. Some examples are of course the typewriter s to the computers, payphones to cell phones, book encyclopedias to the internet and lastly the library to online books, kindles or shortcutting the books. I will definitely say that I am extremely thankful that we have the internet and I can’t even force myself to complain against it and say that we have it hard. Especially after talking with the my coach and hearing about how she had to actually look up information in the encyclopedia and look through card catalogs to find  articles and old newspaper articles, it made me really appreciate the simple things we take for granted. Microsoft Word and Google are my two main most granted for inventions. Had it not been for Bill Gates and his most famous software we would be writing research papers and thesis’ and other such papers either on handwritten or with the typewriter still. As for Google, Google is my best friend. I have no idea where I would be without my heavy reliance on that beautiful search engine, but unfortunately it has taken away from what I am capable of doing. I am grateful for Google but are anyone of you guys disappointed that is does diminish your capabilities? 

In the End, Does It Really Matter?

Imagine a society with ninety-five other people looking exactly the same as you. Imagine a world where your ideas are considered of no importance and would only lead you to danger. Imagine words that lack originality or the extraordinaire. Imagine having no family or stable relationships with another person. Try living in a world where nature is considered disgusting. Doesn't it seem exciting and grand? [...Not]

Though I see why many civilians would become desperate and fall for the "Utopian world" propaganda, it is just an idea that looks good only in text, just like Communism. When its ideas are actually put to use by society, the result is a robotic and heartless society.  People living in a Utopian world would not realize that they are living in a prison without bars, with the exception of John and Bernard Marx. Would I really want to be part of a predetermined caste system without even having the chance to prove my abilities? Why would I want to have a predestined life where the path was not paved by me?

After reading about the corrupted "perfect" world,  I obviously would root for a free and democratic world one hundred and ten percent, but will it really matter if I am already immersed into the Utopian society, like the people of the World State? Due to so much brainwashing, I would already have become a robotic human, one who lacks true feelings or any inner control of myself, so I would not understand the point of being free and democratic. Why should I want to change when I, as a citizen of the World State, am satisfied  living in a bland world as the way I am after all that drugging and hypnopaedia sessions?

New Mediums of Knowledge

Over the course of history, humans have continued to find ways to improve their lives and create new mediums of distributing knowledge. We are experiencing one of those revolutions with the invention of the internet. Some think that it is altering our thoughts in a bad way because it is a new concept. The internet has encouraged people to skim over articles and get information quickly. In my eyes, the world is progressing not regressing.

Humans sometimes seem to fear change even when it is beneficial. In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, he writes about a dialogue that Plato wrote called Phaedrus on pg. 56. When Plato was writing this, the art of writing was fairly new and people saw it as a bad thing. In the dialogue, the title character, Phaedrus, and Socrates are agreeing on the bad consequences of writing. They say it will make people forgetful because they can easily be reminded by what they wrote. Plato was wondering if writing was beneficial because it was different from the current medium of speech.  Like us, they wondered about the new medium, but reading and writing turned out to be necessary for everything.

The new medium, the internet, is experiencing the same criticism when it could change everything. I think there is nothing wrong with being able to access information quickly. What’s wrong with not being able to read an enormous book because it is filled with large amounts of trivial words? The internet is like “a skilled hunter” as it says on pg. 9. It is helping us to learn faster and it that is a good thing. Hopping from one site to another and learning more sounds better to me. Moreover, staying on one site for too long just to read the ands and buts does not help you gain more knowledge. The internet lets a person cut to the chase and things are improving. Soon they’ll be shooting information into our brain and people will complain that it is cheating. Meanwhile, life is still improving more and more. So do you think that the internet is just criticized because its effects are new to us? Do you also think it will improve us because of its efficiency or make us shallow because we skim over everything?

If it is new...we WANT it!

Being the constantly distracted person I am, I found myself on YouTube rather than completing my final blog posts. Now you guys know about those ads that interrupt before you are able to watch your video; well as I was waiting for the video when the ad started and it startled me as to how relevant it was to the books we have been reading. It was a Verizon fios commercial and the actor was talking about how technology continues to advance and new inventions are constantly being entered in our world. It is so crazy how an ad can make so much sense, but it did! Technological advancements are going to be continuously invented and entering into our society and we are going to keep wanting what is new in the market. We can’t help it, it is part of just wanting to keep up with society. All around I see kids who have smart phones and I do wish I had the most recent and “coolest” phone out there but I don’t need it. Honestly, these iPhones and other smart phones, do we need such phones and the apps ? Do we really need to be spending incredible amounts of money behind a phone when we could be saving that money for our education? Understood that technology will be advancing and at some point our regular phones most likely won't even work anymore, but it frustrates me when people “must” purchase the newest phone out there. Maybe I just don’t understand what it feels like to be the owner of a smartphone. 

Language isn't technology?

While reading chapter three of The Shallows, Nicholas Carr explains that Language is not a technology, but reading and writing is. Now he explains that when you read, you use your mind to put the letters together and create them into the language that you understand, but I was thinking, wouldn’t speaking another language be equivalent to that process? When you speak another language or listen to another language, you process it in your head to understand it. For example, say you speak Spanish, before you open your mouth to speak, you say it in your head to make sure it is right, then, you say whatever it is that you have to say. Also, say somebody is speaking to you in Spanish, you listen and in your head you translate what they are saying into words that you can understand. So if you think about it, wouldn’t speaking and listening to other languages be a technology as well?

Hate the player, not the game.

Reading over Sam Anderson’s article about stupid games, I feel pretty guilty playing them. It is very time-consuming trying to achieve a high score on the leaderboards or reaching the next level. There is a something that I want to point out, which is that in video games, like in all media, there are stupid things and quality things. Video games, like books and movies, have the potential to tell an excellent story.  Examples of games with excellent stories are Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption, and Metal Gear Solid. Both games and books help me to learn new things. My time as a gamer has expand my vocabulary, increase my capacity to reason through puzzles and riddles, and to be immersed in a new world. Video games encourage me to learn about new topics.  Most of what I’ve learned about the Renaissance came from playing Assassin’s Creed 2. When you feel very passionate about something, you tend to want to learn more about it and video games are a stepping stone for that. I’ve read reports of ninety year olds who play their Nintendo DS to fight Dementia and Alzheimer’s with outstanding results. Still, video games are blamed for many of society’s problems.

Why do gamers get such a bad rep? We are all portrayed as lazy, uneducated losers. Whenever there is a shooting massacre, video games are used as the scapegoat. Unexpected acts of violence have occurred way before the emergence of video games. Look at Elizabeth Bathory and Emperor Nero. Would you use video games to justify what they have done? When a psychopath guns down people at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Colorado , the media blames games for training these murderers to kill.  Even our politicians like Hillary Clinton want to ban games for this reason. What makes movies and television any different? When I read the Bible, I realize how much sex and violence is filled in it.  They don’t censor radical radio jockeys like Rush Limbaugh. If we can tolerate Communists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis, then surely we can tolerate video games. I blame ignorant people who criticize things without facts to support their argument. What makes playing a simple game so bad? 

Seriously ?

    Currently both my sisters are enrolled in a junior college and they feel like the need a Mac computer to take notes in class just to keep up with their teachers' lectures. This really shocked me because it made me realize that maybe when our children are in school the classrooms will require tablets or computers to take notes. With the technology rapidly advancing we might not need to learn how to write because typing takes up less time rather that writing on a piece of lined paper. My coach had recently asked if we ever learned how to write a check in elementary school and honestly everyone gave him the "Huh?" face because none of us had. Just think we probably didn't learn it because credit cards were starting to be the main source of buying certain things rather than actually paying with money. Do you think computers would be an easier way or would you rather stick to your own notes and your own writing because it causes less issues?

Information Vs. Entertainment

     After reading Part 2 of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman I realized that some of the main issues were information against entertainment. For example the religion television shows. They started off with good intentions but now I think that it's more about entertaining the audience rather than speaking about God. I'm not saying that they lost faith in the religion, such as Christianity, but I feel like there isn't a good balance of information and entertainment. Like Postman said, they were starting to have theme songs and celebrities and decorated sets. My personal opinion is that I believe all of that is unnecessary. I think that if they wanted to televise church so people at home could watch they should televise a real church in the local area instead of having one on a set. I think church should not be televised because it loses it's purpose. Keep church at church, don't you agree ?

Reel Me In, Sweetheart.

“America’s journalists, i.e., television newscasters have not missed the point [About needing to look good]. Most spend more time with their hairdryers than their scripts…” On page 4 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman points out (just as many other bloggers have) that the news makes appearance a top priority. Many of my fellow bloggers, and Postman himself, have looked down upon this practice. However, I think I understand why news stations would do this: looks matter. It sounds shallow, but it’s true. Most people probably wouldn’t want to watch someone who wasn’t appealing to them for an hour everyday. If newscasters didn’t look perfect, the whole time we would be staring at that giant pimple, or that lazy eye. It's horrible, i know, but that's who we are. We're human, we're shallow, and looks matter to us. I think the news should keep looks a big priority, and keep some entertainment in the news. It’s okay to talk about Miley Cyrus’ engagement, because the looks and the celebrity talk, it pulls people in. It makes people want to watch the news and pay attention to world affairs. Looks and a little meaningless talk is just the hook, to bring people in and make them sit down and pay attention. We’re a class of ambitious and bright kids, so most of us do read articles online or in the newspaper, but look around at our peers. How many other teenagers actually want to read online news articles about riots in the Middle East? How many adults take the time out of their day to Google what’s happening in Syria? It’s almost like when we were first learning to write papers and our teachers advised us to start with something interesting, something that’ll make the reader want to continue. That’s exactly what news producers are aiming at. The news producers know what they’re doing. Yes, their motive is the money, but look at what else is coming out of this. People are watching and paying attention! Isn’t that what we want? Don’t we need a way to get more people interested in world news?

Of Postman and Politics

In chapter nine of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman brings up the fact that TV is causing Politics to be more based on image than actual politics. Anyone who has been watching news about the upcoming election can see this to be true. For example, Mitt Romney made a remark about cookies from a famous bakery looking like they came from Seven-Eleven. This was all over the political news shows that my grandfather watches, and that is what caused the biggest stir, not his plan for fixing the economy or his foreign policy. When Paul Ryan was chosen as Romney's running mate, one of the main things that these same shows talked about was that he "projected a youthful image." Is it right for politicians to use image, both good and bad, as a political tool? It is most definitely effective, but that isn't the real question.

The real question is whether or not society should allow image and impressions to be more important than actual traits, such as intelligence, honesty or experience. Postman quotes Ronald Reagan in saying "Politics is just like show business." Meaning that politicians have to behave like actors in order for people to like them. In essence, politics has become partially a popularity contest. A much bigger part than it should be. Knowing this, will we allow ourselves to be tricked by the media?

Just Another Medium?

Why are we all complaining when we have it so easy? We have the world at our fingertips, yet we are scared to use its full potential. Look at all the information the Internet holds for us. The future is just past this door of research, which can be opened with a key right before our eyes, the Internet. Before, we had to knock down this door with an ax, but now we have a key to make it easier to open... Yet some of us hesitate. “If I use this key to open the door, I might lose all my arm muscles." How ridiculous does that sound? Third world countries do not have the knowledge we do, especially when so many of them lack access to the Internet. Citizens living in Palestine or Bangladesh barely get a proper education, unlike us who already know that we will be going to college.

My point is, look at how much potential we have right now because of the worldwide web. There is a sea of research and knowledge out there, and we have yet to discover more. Even now among us, this AP English blogging assignment involves the Internet. All that we need is more self-discipline and control. If one can fast without food or water, basic human necessities, for long periods of time, then the same can be done with the Internet.

Initially, I agreed with Carr in The Shallows about the Internet's corruption, but several days after finishing the novel, I questioned my own perspective. The Internet has done more favors to the world rather than destruction. In the past, printing presses and books, other mediums mentioned by Carr, were looked down upon and thought of as corrupting by many, yet now the world exalts them. Do you not think several centuries, if not decades, later the world will exalt the Internet the same way as another medium?

Happiness is Subjective

In Brave New World, The citizens are happy with their lives. Mr. Savage, however, is not happy with the way that society has gone. The reason for this difference is that the citizens do not know any better. In the same way, a modern day person who lives without knowing about technology, say a member of a tribe in Africa for example, is happy without technology and happy with the bare minimum, while we would be suffering if put in his shoes. My point is that happiness is what we ourselves believe it to be, not what anyone else tells us it is. (although they often overlap) For that reason, the people of Brave New World  believe that they are happy. If this is the case, is it really right for us to think that they should change? Should we ban the foods of other cultures just because we think they are disgusting in ours? In the past, it was considered proper for women not to own land and not to vote. People of the past would think our society and outrage just as we think the society in Brave New World is wrong.

 My point is that different cultures accept different things. Who are we to question another one, even if ours deems it wrong? If everyone believes that they are happy, even though we wouldn't be in their shoes, do we really have a right to change it?

Life without print or text

I found myself daydreaming about what life would be like without reading and writing. If news and information was only spread verbally, how would I function? How different would communication be? I started daydreaming about this while reading the Shallows. On the last couple pages of chapter three, page 56 in my copy, Carr mentions that, “In a purely oral culture, thinking is governed by the capacity of human memory. Knowledge is what you recall, and what you recall is limited to what you can hold in your mind.” If you’ve ever played the game of telephone, you understand that oral stories are easily altered and are difficult to remain the same each time they are told. If our lives were confined to strictly oral communication, how would we be able to spread new knowledge? Could information ever effectively be reiterated to many people?

                We often spend a lot of our life debating and disputing the use of text and print because technology has advanced so much that we often spend more time communicating behind a keyboard than in person. However, the use of print opened a world of possibilities and has saved countless lives because it simply makes communication so much faster and more efficient. We can find out about events all around the world in the click of a button and emergency situations can be handled with ease by the use of a simple phone call. When technology as such is used for personal and non-business related reasons, it easily creates this addiction to technology due to the everyday use of cell phones and social networking sites. It makes me wonder, if we limited the use of technology to business reasons and emergencies, would we gain our independence from our phones and the internet, and still use technology to keep important communication? It wouldn’t be an easy process, and it may not even be possible, but when we use technology for these social networking sites and texting to replace real face to face communication, we are simply poisoning ourselves. Will we be able to find a medium ground for the use of technology in the future so that we are not as dependent on it while still using the technology for communicating important information? How would this feat ever be accomplished?

Sad New World

e now live in the twenty-first century where sadly technology controls our lives.  Instead of having time to watch television we force ourselves to take shortcuts with our homework and chores in order to make time to watch television. All our efforts to watch television are pointless since they are noneducational and are for pure entertainment only. If television is not enough we have a thing called a computer. You simply turn it on and can talk to others, watch the one clip everyone is talking about, play online games, and socialize with others who you normally will not talk to. How have we lost self control and let technology drastically alter our lives?

Try This ~

Television: it's really just entertainment disguised.

Amusing Ourselves to Death caused me to think twice about what I see on the tv. As I was reading, I couldn't help but continuously nod and agree as Postman continued to make points about television and then follow up with all these good reasons.

Are the things we watch informational, or really just entertaining? When discussing this topic, Postman brought up watching the news on tv. Why do we watch the news? To know about things currently going on, right? What else? He remarks about how after watching, would you really still do anything about it? It's likely you'd just bring it up in a conversation, but not really do anything about it. Mostly nothing about the news will really change how your day will go weather being an exception).

Does this work with any sort of news that we encounter? Well, we have a chance to test that using this summer assignment.

We're reading this book that highlights the problems given to us with technology. After knowing how it affects us badly, are we willing to change our ways or are we just going to talk about them like we do through this summer blogging assignment. Remember, the internet, and any other modern day advancement, is what we make of it.

Why Should I Talk to You

              As more inventions replace the previous standing ones, will there ever be an invention that replaces purpose of society?
             The other day while watching television, a commercial for a new smart phone went on air. The opening scene was an old man in a wheelchair. He is wearing a suit and looks as if he is ready to go out. He starts talking to a female about his day and asks what she wants to eat, finally a female voice reply's,"I don't know about you, but I'm in the mood for some Chinese!". The old man chuckles and looks down at something. Midway through their conversation, it shows that the voice is actually coming from the man's smart phone which is sitting in his lap. The new phone comes with an installed program that you can talk to. The commercial ends with the old man still sitting in his hotel room eating delivered Chinese food as he continues to converse and exchange jokes with this female voice coming from his phone.
          While reading The Shallows, I stumbled upon possibility that it in the future there will be an absence of desire to communicate with other human beings when virtual hand selected personalities will be more pleasing to talk to. Its beginning to look as if this idea is not so far out after all.

AP English 11

Looks like AP English will be periods 3 and 5.  I'm guessing we'll end up with about 60 students, so two sections of 30?  Not bad.

Caught a Glimpse

I was over at my grandparent’s house reading The Shallows listening to nothing but the two fans buzz and the clock tick. In an hour I had read nearly seventy pages. I could hardly believe it. I use to be able to read that much, but lately I have been lucky to get forty or fifty pages in that time. I could not figure out how I had read so much. Then I realized I had literally no technology around me. I had forgotten my phone at home and my ipod was dead. In an earlier post I had said how hard it was for me to focus without music or my phone. I have come to the conclusion that if there is nothing around us to distract us, we would not be tempted to use it. I caught a glimpse of my old brain today. I had forgotten how much I enjoy reading long, meaningful books. I have to agree with Carr. I miss my old brain.

The reshaping of human culture

Reading The Shallows by Nicholas Carr I noticed something, throughout history we're been shaping our whole existence around technology. While I was reading this book i've become to notice that our life is indeed wrapped around technology. I literally had to turn my phone off to start reading this book, i'm glad I did because i've become really interested in it. Carr mentions that the routines of our lives follow the path laid down by technology. Can we agree with this? Look around, no doubt we've been sucked into technology. We post on a blog, text, Facebook, television, etc. Without the use of modern day technology we wouldn't be able to do the complicated surgical procedures we do today. So down to the the main question, are we on the right path? Being dependent on technology to the point if we didn't have it we would be in a state of panic? To me, I think there is no other way to go in our society. We've been shaped by technology, grew up with it and it is now a main factor in our lives today.

INTERNET FRIEND OR FOE

As I read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr it was apparent that the internet both very helpful and harmful to us. In the past in order to research a subject one would have to spend hours in the library reading various books on the topic. Fortunately, now we can learn just about the same information using the internet in a few minutes with a couple of Google searches. We can also use the internet to shop, pay bills, manage our businesses from home, and socialize with our loved ones. Sadly this wonderful creation also has a discrete DARK SIDE.  When browsing the web we want to find the information we are looking for quickly. Often times we don't find what were looking for and begin to skim the webpage in search of what we want.  This bad habit tends to also occur as we read the newspapers, textbooks, books, and important documents. When I started off reading the summer books I really struggled to stay focused and comprehend what was going on. I would easily turn my attention to other things like the clock which I never really acknowledged before. I chose to put the reading aside and read it while abroad in Guatemala. There I had no distractions and was totally embedded in the reading and actually reflected on my readings after I had finished. Now that I am back in the states it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my school work with the internet constantly yearning for me  as me as I pass by my computer. The internet has been helpful to me but it has taken its toll on me extremely impatient throughout my readings and makes me wonder if it is a true friend or a foe in disguise.

Fletcher Comments on the Final Day

Hey Kids:  As was noted in the post "Aw man I procrastinated again",  the blog has been on fire here in its closing days.  If you think the posts are piling up — well, comments are exploding, with pages of new comments being posted every day.  By waiting until the very last minute, you are making me work far too hard, and I don't like it.  It's one thing if you have one or two posts to finish up, and quite another when you post everything in one or two days.

That practice subverts the collaborative spirit that we seek to create on the blog, and reduces the assignment to just another hoop to jump through, without real thought or reflection.  It should come as no surprise then that many of the things that are being said here in the last days are simply inane.

I understand better than anyone how deadlines can sneak up on you.  I tend to work pretty close to the edge myself.  It's NOT that I'm lazy -- I don't even feel like I can call myself a procrastinator.  It's just that I'm busy, and if I don't HAVE to worry about this project or that assignment until later, I'm not going to because there are things that must be done today.

So, I don't want to judge you too harshly for waiting until the last minute.  But I have to say that the half-hearted, simple-minded, non-reflective thinking and writing that I am seeing recently is not what I expect from you.  You can do better than this, I hope.

I am going to Mayfair this afternoon to create my summer homework turn-in box, and put it in the front office. (What this entails: I write my name on a box.)  I also have to talk to Mr. Kailiponi, and study the master schedule.  If you need to see me face to face, you could get lucky between 3:00 and 4:00.

Role of Appearances

            As I was reading through Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman points out in both chapter one and chapter seven how appearances have come to play a role in politics and the news.

            In politics, Postman talks about how former President Richard Nixon gives advice to Senator Edward Kennedy to lose weight in order to make a run for presidency. This suggests that looks play a significant role in who gets the job. It’s as if the way you look is becoming the determinant factor in how skilled you are in modern society. Postman states how it appears that those who are bald, overweight, or do not use cosmetics to improve their look are excluded from running for a political office position.

            Appearances also play a role in who gets the job for news reporters. Postman creates a scenario where there is an employer looking to hire for a job in television news. The first thing that Postman believes the employer would do is group the applicants by faces that are “likeable” or “credible” and by age. Those who are unattractive or too old for the employer’s liking would immediately be excluded from getting the job despite the fact that may have better skill than the attractive applicants. Those who are unattractive apparently “hamper viewer acceptance”. Sadly, I believe that this unfairness with looks is the case with most jobs.

           So, are politics and news succumbing to the entertainment business’ standards where its hosts must be attractive? Is modern society starting to believe that the better you look, the more believable you are and is it starting to increasingly place a larger role on appearances over skills? Is this the affect of television and its visual entertainment?

Open Yourself

Its seems only natural for us to be close minded and focus on only our own problems because it is us who lives inside our bodies and sees the world through our own two eyes. In The Shallows, Carr touches upon how we lose interest and capability to focus enough to read books and how we want only constant mindless entertainment. When we read a book that is written in first person, we are taking a step out of our own body and into that of the characters in a novel. We allow ourselves to see the world through a different perspective. This opens up our mind to understand those in situations we wouldn't probably never face in our own lives. By cutting off this opportunity for one to have a intimate relationship with the world through a broader spectrum, we are forced to be weaker and more vulnerable to fall into the grips of a superficial and self pleasing society. Once we stop taking the time and patience to fully engage ourselves into the shoes and stories of others we lose that sense of open mindedness.

Talk and No Action

In The Shallows, Carr provides many warnings and insights to the future dominance of the internet in our lives. He claims that in order to prevent further damage to our society, we have to take action and make a difference in the world. It is clear that the first step in doing this is by becoming aware of the negative effects and ways our brains have been altered for the worse. The question that concerns me is if we are really willing to do anything about the situations. Of course there are those who see the defects of technology, but is this enough to make cause a great concern? For instance, even though I am now fully aware of the way technology, and specifically the internet, has taken over my life, I wouldn't be able to change my ways or even be willing to give it up. It has so many improvements that I almost don't mind sacrificing the way my brain functions, which is obviously a major issue. Hasn't it gotten to the point where we depend on technology and the media so much that we don't want it out of our lives? Can there really be a difference made or will there still be the rise of damage it is producing in our world? In other words, are we being warned and told to start doing something but know we will still continue to use technology as we normally do?

I Want to Read for FUN

In The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, the author proposes the idea that the internet is taking over our lives as well as our attention span. The more I got into the book and realized how such small technological inventions have altered our lives; I never thought of what side effects it left us with. Take for example a small wristwatch or clock, which we primarily use to tell us what time it is, has made us lose our natural body rhythms. Rather than actually physically being tired we rely on a clock to tell us that we are tired. Another is the creation of the GPS. With the GPS we can’t even use our brains to tell us where these streets and places could possibly be resulting in a loss of our spacial recognition capabilities.  The main focus that Carr shadows over is the idea of the internet causing ourselves to lose focus. This probably doesn’t apply to every individual in the world, but I can certainly say for myself that I am a victim of this theory. I can’t even read a book in one sitting anymore like I used, nonetheless, read a few pages in one sitting. How is that we find it a pain to read books now? Why can’t we just put our phones away and shut off our laptops for a while and just read through a book? I am pretty sure that once senior year is over and I have an entire summer to myself with no homework from school, I will definitely get back into the zone. 

Drug Abuse

In Brave New World drugs are non existent except for soma. This is used by everyone all the time. It causes the user to fall asleep and have their own fantasy in their dreams. It is an easy way to escape the world they live in if things do not go the way they want it to. This is not so far fetched from what is happening today. People today use drugs to escape the problems of the real world. The only thing is that the drugs of today have side effects that can end in death.  If soma were available today I believe many more people would be using drugs. A deterrent for many people from using drugs is the side affects that happen.People try not to drink to much in order to avoid the headaches and vomiting that follows the next morning. As a child we are shown the ill effects from all types of drugs, which is a type of conditioning for us. If you were facing hardships in your life and you could find an easy way out without side effects would you take it? Soma may not be the morale thing to do, but in some cases it is the logical. In todays world it could easily be used for medical purposes. People in surgery or cancer therapy can use it to help ease the pain and make it non existent to them. My self personally would not use some beause the world is what it is for a reason. There are problems and issues facing us to show who we are, but for some people soma would be the best thing. Would it be best for you?

Global Village

The internet is a very subjective product of today's world. Many people believe that the internet is a bad influence because of the easy access to certain parts of it. But it still has a lot more good factors to match the bad ones. The internet connects the world.

In chapter five of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman refers to this connectivity in the world as a global village. I find this connection with other parts of the world to be a very good factor of the internet. For instance, with us being on the west coast, we can communicate with someone on the east coast without having to go through the hassle of getting there (dealing with airplane rides, long car rides, etc..).  This can also be useful when countries communicate. The fault of missing the messenger is less likely to happen now because the internet doesn't require countries to send one on a horse for days to ride to another country to deliver information. This can prevent many problems from arousing, one being the beginning of a war.

So no matter how many bad things are said about the internet, it's undeniably a very convenient tool in today's world.

Televison good or bad...?

In chapter six of amusing ourselves to death, I came across something interesting! Neil postman says “the use of television can be helpful”. Do you agree with him? I have found it true, television has helped me with some of my homework to be honest, but it all depends on the shows you watch. I don’t see why a lot of people accuse television of being a harmful and wasteful use of technology, television isn’t all bad, I’m not going to lie I like to watch television when I’m stressed out or I need to take a little break, it helps me clear my mind. Does anyone else do that? Yes television does affect us, but I think it affects us because we let it. So do you think television is really all that bad? Can television really change who we are or are we just letting it change us?    

  

".. awkward.."

          In the future seen by Neil Postman, technology will allow humans to corner themselves into a place where mostly everything that requires thought and personality will be done for them because of their devotion to the cyber world and television. Human beings are handicapped to a point in which it seems that a human can no longer fluently communicate without the aid of technology. I increasingly see traces of the effect of the internet on relationships in high school. Often times, I will hear teenagers talk about how awkward something is, or how there was an awkward silence. I wonder how many moments were considered awkward to teens in the 80s, where their face to face social skills hadn't been diffused be dependence on cyber social networking. Many of these social situations are labeled as awkward not because they are genuinely awkward situations but because us teenagers are becoming more and more uncomfortable with having to face someone in real life, when we are so used to only having to insert a text into a box with their picture next to it. Of course no matter what day and age, there is always room for awkward situations in the life of a teenager, but with today's teenagers commitment to social networks and a virtual social circle its seems that teens are less inapt to confidently express themselves in a face to face scenario.

Decrease of Skills

After reading all three novels for the summer homework, it became clear to me that we depend greatly on our modern technology. In Brave New World, the characters rely so much on their soma to get through their daily lives that this made a connection to how much we depend on our technology. We can have various information at our hands in a matter of seconds. Instead of fixing a broken item, we have machines to fix it for us. Each day I see countless commercials on the television that advertise the newest products which can make a task much faster with less effort. There are so many things technology has been able to do for us, even if we are capable of doing them ourselves. Although these can be seen as improvements and benefits, can we also be losing some of our skills along the way? Do you think that in the future technology will be replacing what we are used to doing on our own, and that we will need to rely on it more than anything?

Internet = Smarts?

Does the internet make us smarter? It certainly helps me get my homework done faster, but am I really getting smarter? The internet to me is just a bunch of facts. It is more like getting answers for a trivia game than learning real facts. Yes I'm getting the answers quicker, but only because I'm getting better at scanning the web for an answer, not because I'm learning it. The internet is actually affecting our brain in a negative way than a positive one. It is causing our attention span to shorten and affecting our ability to comprehend literature. We have harder time focusing on one thing at a time and not giving into distractions. Books that are hard to read are becoming even harder. So is the internet really that helpful? Is the time saved on our homework worth the damage that the internet causes?

Its Going to be Okay

               In Brave New World, there is discussion that religion is unnecessary in a perfect world, that it is only a means by which people use as a vice to get through hard times. Hard times which wouldn't exist in A.F. 632. Religion allows us to understand that it is our nature to be vulnerable and fall in our paths, that without God we will ultimately fail our life purpose as a mere human human being. If we put our faith in God and follow his commandments, things will turn out for the better. Even if the particular situation doesn't turn out in our favor, we did it while confiding in God so therefore ultimately whatever the result is, because it was in  God's name, it is for the best. It seems so simple doesn't it? Reminds me of what my mother says, "if you do your best, no matter what the outcome is, you've already won". Religion is founded upon people's need for the motivation and comfort from the belief that there is something further, an ultimate relief from the pain suffered here on earth.

Oh, Metro PCS? What a joke? Well it works.

Almost everyone in this generation has a cell phone, even children as young as ten years old. Come on, its the twenty-first century! It's that moment when you have a cell phone, where you want everyone's number. Either its that cute boy staring at you, or its that gorgeous girl with the curves. We all have our temptations or that moment of wanting something you can't have. Whats the main point of cell phones? Obviously to contact someone at any given moment in time. It gives you the ability to reach and connect to someone with the click of a button. Even as phones have advanced, we've been able to create video chats with cell phones. Woah, just only 20 years ago our parents didn't even have flip phones yet. Technology is advancing so quick.
Industries and companies use phones to contact costumers or clients. Teachers and schools use phones to contact parents. Grandparents even use cell phones and lastly teens use phones for everything. Whether its texting to calling your parents for a ride home or asking someone for help on homework. These phone companies are making so much money for such this simple act of connectivity between societies.

Ten years from now as phones advance and technology advances will a now "high priced most advanced" iphone become looked at as a simple joke? or As time progresses the convenience of an advanced item be our satisfaction?

Da.. Dun.. Da.. Dun.. Da.. dunnnnn.. JAWS!

Computers, music, cellphones, movies, televisions and the internet are changing the world every single day. This vast world filled with billions of people, modernizing right in front of everyone's eyes. This new era of technology is just only the beginning. As I was talking to my younger brother, we came across the subject about sharks. Typical brothers talking about these fascinating, dangerous, blood thirsty creatures. He soon brought up the movie "Jaws" as we were talking about the suspenseful music, he tells me that this movie has changed the world. My face droops down and I walk away. At first I didn't believe him, but later that day as I was looking back at Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death, I remembered he brought up a topic about entertainment industry or televisions mixing with our lives and even politics. Later that day I made sure to Google an article about "Jaws" and my brother was right! An old school movie about sharks really did change the world? Exactly, after this movie expanded and became popular, the fascination of sharks also sky rocketed. People became frighted of water, thinking these harmless creatures would be waiting and others went on a search and even killed these helpless creatures. So much chaos caused by a simple suspenseful movie about sharks.

Now that you know how everything is so connected, do you believe a simple funny advertisement or any movie could change everyone's opinion? Even though this useful new technology is for the "better" some say, can it also be for the worst? Should we stop the creation of movies like this or television shows like this because it can harm innocent bystanders'? Or is it can we stop them?

I don't know! Just go Google it...

As I was reading The Shallows by Nicholas Carr I remembered pondering about Google! If Google was a person, I would have no idea how I could repay him. I remember asking a friend of mine a confusing question, and he didn't know the answer either so he told me to Google it. All I had to do was pop up a single question and I would receive pages after pages of elaborated answers and thousands of links. Nicholas Carr quotes Google as a "mission" which is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." (pg.152) Google uses advertisements for income, every click and they receive money. Google isn't just in industry itself but is its own connection. People all around the world refer to Google for answers and humans themselves already have the answers.Though, books and Google were both created by humans. Would you rather hit the books for a simple answer or easily Google a question? Obviously you would use Google. The main point is you want an answer, and Google trains itself for your expectations.

 Carr also refers Google a "distraction" but how can something be so useful used as a distraction? Would you consider homework as a distraction? I agree with Carr. The thing is, everything in the world is a distraction, whatever way you organize it. In the end, our minds focus is for the answers. People say the world revolves around money, so is money the answer?

Just Can't Get Enough?

The online social networks can become very addicting when first introduced. I believe that it is much more appealing towards the younger generations however. Many teens feel the need to be in this imaginary 'loop' that they have created. In the beginning, it is very amusing and entertaining. However, that affect will soon fade away, and we catch ourselves thinking why even bother going on here anymore? There's nothing more to do. Yet, we still keep our page, and go on occasionally when we feel like it, or just to see if there is anything knew or interesting we might want to know about. Then when we do end up finding something that sparks our interest, we get attached all over again, and we find ourselves struggling to let go. Deep down, people know it is really pointless, that this social network is merely for fun and games, and even looks sometimes. Looks can be from updating profile pictures or other pictures just showing off places that you've been to. Though we can't lose sight that it is only a social website and nothing more.

Just Read, Read, Read

On page one hundred and ten, Nicholas Carr talks about how books survived the twentieth century. How even after Edison's invention of the phonograph. Even the newspaper, music, movies, and the radio. The book, I believe, will always be around, or at the least, mentioned. Books have the power to describe anything like no other invention. Just the amount of detail one sentence may describe for a single object is incredible. Movies may help give an exact image, but books go into detail. It provides more knowledge if you take the time to go through it. If not, then what is the point? Books may require just a bit more focus, but   in the end it will be worth it once you have reached the end. I admit, it can be very difficult at times to keep up with a very intricate book, however that too is a learning process. Books are one of the many tools that help expand your mind.

I would rather SLEEP.

When I first checked out The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, my first thought was, "Dang, I have to read another book this summer! I would rather be sleeping, eating, talking to girls, texting, or anything even a tiny bit less boring. Oh well, hopefully its worth it! Here I go." After reading this book, I noticed Carr's elaboration on the topic of how technology is affecting our attention span was absolutely true. I couldn't agree less! Technology is advancing so quickly and our generation is becoming even more connected but what a distraction! Even as i was reading the book, I noticed every ten through fifteen minutes I was switching from the internet, to my cell phone or looking for a bite to eat.

Our generation is so far beyond distracted, instead of searching for an answer and an elaboration we want the easy way out. We procrastinate on the easiest homework assignments and do so many other things that is not even close as important. Can you last a year without technology? or Can you at least not procrastinate?

The Power of the Net

In the beginning of his book, Nicholas Carr mentions that, "The Net has become essential to [our] work, school, or social lives, and often to all three" (9). In this century, most jobs involve technology, it is hard to image  the way we live without technology. Some people however, might feel better off without technology. Although seeing how far technology, and how comfortable we have gotten with using it, I don't think that would ever happen. Pertaining to school however, I don't see how it is all the students responsibility for making the internet necessary for school. Many times, the internet is necessary because teachers or the school itself have made  it that way in order for the students to get more information or for work, such as these blogs we have been assigned to write online. Is that a bad thing though? Putting information up online, say putting up: grades, classes, bell schedules, due dates, or even food menus. In doing so, it can either save a lot of paper and time, or just confuse people. Although, I would think it is easier, just going online being able to look up extra information if needed or not. Concerning our social lives, that is another thing. That is solely our decision, but maybe not always the best decision. A social life online? Does that even count as as a real social life, because i wouldn't think that it would. It is just another place to get information from, or even to try and get a hold of someone. I don't think it is essential for us, just not for our social lives.

The Changing Image of the Library

In chapter five of The Shallows, the public library is said to be one of the most important and influential informational media ever created. I just don’t see it that way, though.

The stereotypical library is a place where books are in shelves everywhere waiting to be knocked down like dominoes and the librarians are mean and always shushing people for the smallest noises.
Obviously, that's not always the case, but it seems that the image of the library has changed. Instead of the “dominating sounds of page-turning, there is the sound of tapping." But, why?

The Computers have invaded the Library.

The shelves of books are still close enough to be knocked down like dominoes, but they're shoved off to the side close to the walls to leave room for the herds of computers. Many of the computers are not even used for educational or studying purposes. The public library used to be a quiet place to study, but that world has long gone and left us, and it’s all because of the Wi-Fi connection and support of the internet.

If the internet had to change our way of thinking, our way of reading, and even take advantage of our growing short-term attention span that diverts us away from homework, I would’ve thought that a safe haven would be the quiet, most “un-distracting” place to be would be the nearby town library. Just how much does this very reliable, yet destructive advancement plan to change our way of living? Will we eventually invent something even more superior to the Net one day in future generations?

Our friend, Google.

A main idea Carr discusses in The Shallows is the negative impact Google may have on our society. He proposes two questions: Is Google "dumbing us down"? Is Google doing the opposite of what it was meant to do? I personally feel that maybe this negative perception towards the internet may just be our paranoia. I know it sounds brain-washed, but look around. Have we stopped all research? Have we given up advancing technology, have we sat down satisfied with where we are now? Not even close. In fact, the race to the future is more pressured than ever, as we tell ourselves how unsatisfied we are with what we have. How many times have you heard, “Nah, I won’t buy the IPhone 4, I’ll just wait for the newer version, it should be out soon”. People want the next best thing, and there a lot of people out there willing to find it. We’re increasing our knowledge every minute, trying to satisfy buyer needs, fix medical problems, be the first to live on Mars, etc. I really don't think Google is "dumbing us down". Look at everyone on this blog. We’re taking college courses, learning things ahead of our level. There’s a good amount of us who want to go into the math and science field, research life, chemistry, computers. Carr says himself , “I can’t keep track of the hours Google has saved me”.  Remember when we learned that scientists have to record their data, so the next person can refer to it and improve it. Well, the internet is recording our data, and we’re the next generation. Google’s just our bottom base, holding basic knowledge, and we’re here to build on it with discoveries. What do you think, is Google a friend or a foe?

A Digression into my Yahoo! Newsfeed

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/ukrainian-commission-wants-ban-gay-spongebob-teletubbie-losers-204737552.html

So here's an example of some television shows that aren't liked for various reasons. Most of these, actually, all of these are there for our entertainment, but are they worth a ban because of what the children do? Sure, they may be acting in ways that the general public frown upon on, but then again, one is but the product of their environment and experiences. Being children, I'm sure they don't have much that they've experienced, but their environment on the other hand is something we can dig into.

Should these shows be banned because of the children? If yes, shouldn't the parents do something about it? They are part of the environment of the child and should watch them and try to mold them into as best a person as they can be. So for this behavior, I have two main questions. Where does it start? Will banning these shows change the children?

"Not all distractions are bad"

As I read more of The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, the points he is making in his arguments are starting to seem more and more reasonable to me. Chapter seven of the novel is called The Juggler's Brain, which digs deeper into the subjects of distractions while reading and the re-wiring of our brains. One point that Carr makes is that "Not all distractions are bad". He brings up the matter by explaining how sometimes if we put a lot of time and effort into a problem we are trying to solve, we may get stuck in a "mental rut"and our ideas become less and less accurate. Carr states that "If we 'sleep on it' - we often return to it with a fresh perspective and a burst of creativity" (119).
I agree with this completely. From experience, I have noticed that sometimes when homework becomes too hard and I can't seem to figure it out, I usually take a "facebook break". I put my pencil down and relax by checking my facebook and instagram to get my mind off of things. This method may sound silly, but it usually works for me. By the time I get back to my homework, I often forget what I was having so much trouble with and I end up starting fresh with the problem that I had been struggling with just a few minutes ago.
Ap Dijksterhuis, a Dutch psychologist, has done research on this topic and has found that letting our minds rest from the problem for a while helps us make better decisions when we try again. But, his research also shows that "Our unconscious thought processes don't engage witgh a problem until we've clearly and consciously defined the problem".
In other words, if we haven't truly examined the problem and have a goal in mind, our unconscious mind will not even try deciphering the problem.

Do you use this technique? Do you think that maybe our unconscious mind tries figuring out the problem while we take a break from it?  Is homework usually easier for you after taking a break from it? Or is it easier for you to just do all the work without stopping?

Brave old world

In Brave New World, they display characteristics that are out of this universe and completely unexplainable. In this book I feel that he is trying too explain too us what can happen in the brave new world soon to come in our lives. As technology increases, more and more people become less intelligent and more reliable on the internet too save their brains which causes people to grow crazy and do stupid things. That is what the author is describing by displaying multiple intercourse partners and many other examples in the story.

Technologic Puberty

Will we ever outgrow our addiction to technology? We're all at an age that we can look back and see how significantly we've changed over the last 4 years. We're completely different than we were as incoming 7th graders. My question is, how is technology going to be when our children are going through high school? Are we going to move past this stage where everybody is constantly depending on the internet for information and entertainment? I know I sure am. Reading these books helped me realize how much technology is taking over, and it shouldn't be too hard to fix it. Cutting back on internet use is not a difficult thing to do. I'm worried about a few others, though. Some people from our generation are already hooked on the lure for technology, and they'll remain that way for the remainder of their life. Do you think you'll grow out of these bad habits, or is it too late for you to get out of the clenched jaws of the internet?

Evolving Literature

In Chapter Six of Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, a newly-developed form of novel in Japan is introduced and called a “cell phone novel.”

These “novels” are described as “strings of text messages” that are then uploaded onto a website called “Mahou no iRando.”  There people can read and comment on them. They seem to be a huge hit in Japan. If publishing companies are impressed, they may even publish the cell phone novels.

However, a popular cell phone novelist called Rin says that “young readers are abandoning traditional novels” because their authors are writing completely complex sentences and are unfamiliar. Are we not interested in the classics because we don’t have the interest to understand them?

There is another type of novel called a “vook.” It is an online book or “e-novel,” as I have recently just figured out, that consists of videos or other multimedia, like audio.  It’s supposed to be more dramatic for the readers.

There have been many innovations in online reading than just scanning the pages onto pdf files and having a digital version of it.  I was wondering if in the future there would be even more revolutionary ways that books would advance into. There are already text messages that are collected to become publishable books and the theatrical e-novels, as well as the online news that has already been around. What other ways could literature and the arts in general evolve though the internet, and could it change our way of thinking about it in doing so?

Technology works its magic

 Nicolas Carr speaks a lot on technology brainwashing us to where we dont do anything manually at all anymore. I agree with him when he says it is brainwashing us but is there a way we can control this brainwashing to a minium?Is it possible too ignore it. My answer is no. I do not believe you can control this terrible brainwashing because technology is EVERYWHERE. You will not be able too get away from it unless you completely isolate yourself from it alltogether. You basically need technology for many of your uses now-a-days which causes us too use it and slowly become brainwashed. This is the companies way of reeling us into the trap of brainwashing.

Let's Play the Blame Game

"Wow. Don’t you know what self-control is?” My brother asked, irritated that I was asking my mother to hide my IPod Touch from me. To me, it was an attempt to focus on school work; to him I was just proving my parents’ opinion on technology correct. They always nagged about how electronics were distracting us from school, and now I was giving in. However, in the midst of all this buzz about how bad the internet is, I still can’t help but feel unconvinced by it all.  My brother always made it clear to me that he felt self-control was the key to prevent the internet from “taking over our brains”, and I agree. In the first couple pages of The Shallows, Carr mentions that this exact thought is a common excuse, but that it is not true. I’ll admit, this does sound like an excuse, and yes I am myself addicted to the internet and everything it offers, but at the same I strongly feel that this is because I have no self-control. I’ve known so many top students that are definitely not dumb, but constantly use the internet. Ada Hui and my brother are just two of those students. Both constantly browse and enjoy the internet (in fact more often than what you would expect), but they still get things done. Both students take more than the typical amount of AP tests every year, and most of those courses are self-taught. Okay, true, both kids are not normal students, but they teach themselves year-long college courses in a matter of weeks. This requires the self-control and focus that both students maintain; regardless of how much they use the internet.  Given this point, let's debate, is Carr actually right? Is our attention and self-discipline decreasing really the internet’s fault, or our own?

Video Gaming

In Carr's The Shallows, there is a section that talks about video gaming (P139). There, it lists many things that video games can help "improve" on. I  believe that playing video games can help with these skills. There are many people who won't face and believe that fact for various reasons. Being a gamer most my life, I myself feel that these improvements are from the hours I spend playing. Many others might not believe, but it can really help. I find that a lot of these team based games can be helpful in communication and that a lot of other ones can teach you how to multitask really well. Two examples would be of team game League of Legends and the rather famous Starcraft II.
Both of these games are very popular in the eSports world and many people pay to watch (another post for another time). But both these games have something for the player. The former is a team based game which can really help with team communication while the latter can refine focus and improve multitasking (APM, or Actions Per Minute is something in the game that can tell someone how many actions they take in game in a minute).
Most people believe games to just be a waste of time. I beg to differ, and I'm here to ask whether or not other people my age feel the same.

Don't Try This At Home

In chapter six of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman claims that “...how television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly to be staged,” suggesting that the media shapes our world. What we watch can be reflected in the way we act (and vice versa). On T.V., shows like “ 16 and Pregnant,” and “Real Housewives” show terrible behavior. Some shows heed a warning by typing  “Don’t try this at home” at the bottom of the screen, but we are an image-based culture. Seeing is believing, not reading. If we really wanted to follow that warning, we would go out of our way not to watch the show in the first place. Wouldn’t you say that television is negatively modeling how we should act? I would say that people should know the difference between reality and television, but many of these shows call themselves reality T.V.  It is imperative that we think for ourselves what’s right and what’s wrong, but “the line between what is show business and what is not becomes harder to see everyday” (Postman, Chapter 6). Do you think that television is influential in how we shape our lives?

When did our dependence on technology truly begin?

Postman, Carr, and Huxley all have one common point. Human society is being controlled by technology whether it be in the form of television, internet, or birth centers.

Now I ask, when did we become infatuated with the idea of technology? In the beginning, humans resisted new forms of technology. They were afraid it would disrupt the status quo of the system. Their fears were correct. The advent of technology changed the world as they knew it. Humans soon forgot their fears and only saw the positive side of technology. The compass, musket, and the wheel brought easy functionality packaged with a variety of benefits. However, the one piece of technology that we use the most today is the clock. Carr also argues that our dependence on clocks have grown. The clock made looking at the sun or moon obsolete. It essentially removed one of our practices because it was much more functional. We have replaced our innate ability to tell time with a mechanical device. This was a premonition of things to come. Most technology has replaced many of the functions that humans used to be able to do. The car has replaced walking. The television has replaced our ability to amuse ourselves. Electricity has impaired our ability to survive by ourselves. The refrigerator has destroyed our ability to keep food fresh. Texting and tweeting have replaced conversation. There are even machines used to help us both eat and breath in hospitals. In the end, the creators of technology have become the children. We are babysitted by our emotionless superiors everyday. We may believe ourselves to be the masters of technology, but technology is simply biding its time until the creation of a super brain that it can use to conquer us all. 

Some may argue that the internet or the phone is used more than the clock. However, this thinking is incorrect. The clock has been integrated into almost every type of device. These devices include the car, computer, television, and the cellphone. Every time you use a phone or a computer, you are also utilizing the clock. Our dependence on this ancient device is shown because it is only one of few devices that have been able to survive the technological revolutions. Our current state of dependance on technology became inevitable as soon as humans embraced the use of the almighty clock.

Now I ask you, do you agree that the clock began our dependance on technology? If not, when do you believe it began?  Do you believe that we are still the masters of technology? If not, is there a way to regain our superiority? What skills do humans have left that technology can't do better?

No fun in school allowed

I was recently reading chapter 10 of Amusing Ourselves to Death and was presented with an amazing point: educational television does not cause children to love learning, it teaches them to love television. Although programs such as Sesame Street can be educational, it is teaching kids to love the amusement that television programs bring them instead of gaining a love for learning. While growing up, I found learning to be exciting. I enjoyed getting answers correct in the classroom and understanding the lessons being taught to me and the thrill of learning new information. I was an avid reader and I did above and beyond from what was expected as me as a student because I wanted to. I wanted to learn and I wanted to understand and I wanted to radiate knowledge from my bones. However, as I started to grow up, this love for learning began to fade. I still love a good book and I still do relatively well in school, but I struggle to stay active in my education and push myself to learn everyday. I become complacent when my grades reach all A's and barely try until they start to slip again. I don't find school as fun anymore. I have learned through the internet and television to love the feeling of being entertained. I began to lose entertainment and contentment in the pure element of learning, and I became addicted to the mindless messages of television and the web. Now, I struggle to care about my homework and procrastinate in thousands of different and unproductive ways. Sometimes I have to reflect back on my attitude towards school when I was younger and realize how much I've let technology control me. I find myself struggling to turn the television off and get off the internet and just study. I love the feeling of being productive and learning still, although my addiction to the technology in my life is overbearing and a habit that will be tough to break. This year I have a packed schedule. Three advanced placement courses, marching band, ASB, and Mariners will mean a busy year and many sleepless nights. However, I do believe that if I strengthen my love for learning again and lose my dependency on my laptop, I will be able to make it through the school year. This makes me wonder however, will the internet and television continue to diminish the value of education? Will our children or our grandchildren eventually forget their studies and become more dependent on technology than us? How will we solve this problem before entertainment becomes a stronger value than education?

Tainted Purity

Religion was a huge part from Brave New World even if it be from the lack of it. As stated by others, in this brand new society God has been replaced by the word Ford. Fordship is the new so called "religion", replacing Christianity, and every other religion known to us. Throughout the book there are rituals shown to celebrate Fordship like the Solidarity Days and Ford Day.

At his Solidarity Day, Bernard Marx lies about feeling his Fordship coming to him, so he can fit in. He does not understand why the rest of his group is saying these things, or get what they are feeling. When Marx goes to the Reservation with Lenina, they witness a ritual and offering by the Indians. While watching this Lenina is disgusted, while Bernard is fascinated and seems to understand in a way what they are doing. If we were put in a situation where we witnessed the rituals of another religion would we be disgusted as well? Why so? Are we so judgmental and single minded that if people do not share the same religion as us they are wrong themselves?

Bernard brings back John the Savage, so he can study how he will react and adjust to the upper world. Upon arrival, John does not understand the actions that the society does aside from what his mother had told him in stories. John is disgusted at their lack of individualism and openness with each other. This is magnified when Lenina goes to his apartment and tries to make John have her. John is appalled by her actions and labels her whore, which in his religion is the natural thing to do. Lenina on the other hand thinks he has gone crazy. Is it possible for people from two different religions to come together as one without making any sacrifices in their own religions? John leaves London because he wants to be alone. He focuses on purifying himself from the wretches of the new world he had lived in. When John was making his bow out of wood, he found himself singing. This angered him because he was betraying the reasons he had gone to the light tower in the first place. He would not find the privacy he wanted, so he could not practice his religion as he had wanted. This caused him to take his own life because distractions from the other world were effecting his pursuing of purity. Would you consider John a martyr of his time? How often does technology distract us from our own religion? In our respective religions has technology tainted our own purity?

Freedom in the New World

After finishing Brave New World, I grew to hate the world that they described in it. The new "civilized" world not only promotes promiscuity with multiple partners at one time, but also the use of soma, or drugs, to bury people's feelings. It looks down upon individuality and encourages its civilians to conform to society or be exiled. In the beginning, Fanny criticizes Lenina on how she only sleeps with one man. Fanny states how it is unfitting in their society to do so and that she should try sleeping with other men as well. Although Lenina never listened to her friend's advise, she still does sleep with a few more men after Henry. The new society also disparages those who possess a different characteristic other than the ones the majority of the population has. Bernard Marx, for example, is smaller than the rest of the civilians in the society. For this, he is mocked and to an extent isolated from his community.

To live in a world where you cannot even voice your own opinion without risk being sent into exile on an island, is not my idea of a perfect world. I would rather suffer and have the freedom to be myself than to abide by these regulations. Besides, to know what happiness really is, wouldn’t you have to have felt pain and suffering first? Wouldn’t you have to understand what it is like to not have happiness for you to really treasure it? Do you believe this is truly a perfect world? Or is it an epitome of what it would be like to not have the freedom you have now?

Finding Happiness?

Don’t you just hate when your day is going good and someone has to ruin it? It feels like whenever I’m happy or having a good time someone does something to make me mad. Has that ever happened to you? I just want to go through one day without getting mad or having a bad day is that too much to ask for? In a way it kind of is to much ask for but it can happen. I go out of my way to make other people happy but sometimes I wish it was the other way around just for a day or two. There are some days where I can be with certain friends that I can be with that just make life. Do you have any friends like that? Those are the kind of friends that I always want to be around. The way I think of it, is that you have to enjoy everyday whether it’s good or bad.

Glass, can we see through it or not?

In The Shallows Carr talks about how attention spans are being decreased by the internet. With this in mind, I was very alarmed when I read about Google's "Project Glass," a project aimed at developing a pair of glasses which have a HUD, or Heads Up Display, which would project movies, videos, and other types of entertainment, as well as ads, directly into your field of vision. The thing that i find so alarming is the fact that the internet is already so distracting and takes up most of our attention, and this would only worsen it. Right now, we have to sit in front of a computer or pull out a smart phone if we happen to have one to connect to the internet. With a device that could allow a switch between the real and internet world simply by shifting your gaze, wouldn't the distraction be multiplied tenfold? "Project Glass" could make the internet truly with us at all times, even more so than it is now. I can only imagine the effect that such a constant distraction would have on our brains and our attention spans. Sure, it would be cool and convenient to have the internet available at the flick of the eye, but the darker potential of this device worries me.

Technology Makes Us More Irritable

I’ve noticed that whenever I wait for a file to be downloaded or waiting for a video to finish buffering on Youtube, I easily get impatient whenever it seems like it takes forever for it to finish.  No matter how many times we hear that a certain new technology has faster internet connection, it never seems to satisfy the user with its speed.  I also notice that it affects on the interaction with others, like how we would usually get impatient for the most smallest things; like waiting in a line or waiting for someone to finish whatever they are doing.  Perhaps the faster the internet gets, the more we are accustomed to its speed which leads us to expecting other daily activities to be the same thing as well.

Even though it’s considered great that the internet is advancing and becoming more faster, it still leads us into wanting it to become more better than the last version.  If a file, document, or video takes up to one minute to be saved or downloaded it would have felt like it took forever for it to finish and leads to irritability and stress.  One would just want it to get it over with and worry if perhaps this new technology is broken already.  Surprisingly, now matter how irritating it is on waiting for a certain item to be completely downloaded we are still dependent on technology and still use it for our daily routines. So my question is what do you think would finally satisfy us for the technology that we have, and how the internet should be?