Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction

      Its great isn't it? Finding and stalking eachother has never been easier since the emergency of new social media technology and Web 2.0. Phone books are dead and so is my goldfish. What do these two things have in common you ask? I don't need to put effort into either of them anymore. Morbid and startling? Only slightly. Over the past decade, more and more sources of social media are made public. The only problem is that kids these day's find it to be the only thing worth their time because old forms of mediums "take too much time and effort." These can include anything from books to maps and landlines to radio.

      In an article by Matt Richtel, "Growing Up Digital, Wired For Distraction," Ritchtel explains the problem with today's addictive online sensation of blogs, Facebook, and YouTube; that the new generation of kids will grow up with a different mindset and will have more diffculty engaging in traditional learning practices. Vishal Singh, a student interviewed by Ritchtel, insists that reading books are a waste of time, and that online websites like YouTube may offer "immediate gratification" of any school assignment. Singh is missing the point to the work itself. He is more determined to get the work done as opposed to actually learning from what he studies and appreciating it. Why? Because reading a book takes forever, especially when you're glued to a computer screen. Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston says: “Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing, and the effects could linger...The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.” In saying this, Rich explains that trying to teach new generations will have difficulty in focusing on their studies and that changes in teaching methods and subject matter may need to be considered.

      Like anyone who's ever overcome a life crisis, we learn to adapt. In a new world of digital media communication and connection, maybe that's all that's neccessary to get kids to learn. Richtel explains that the principal of Woodside High School by the name of David Reilly sympathizes with the students, explaining that he is currently finding new ways to keep the students engaged by integrating the new technology into the class room. However, at the same time, parents and teachers alike are having a hard time trying to pry their children and students from websites such as Facebook and Youtube as well as their iPones and Blackberrys. Maybe all this could be is just the downside to Web 2.0 and all that it has to offer. After all, it's not the Web's fault for being so addicting and a lot more interesting than reading print on paper.

     If we recall back to point of Web 2.0 being neither bad nor good, we are able to see the correlation between it's uses and from our perspectives. If we use Web 2.0 for all the right (or wrong) reasons, then I don't think we are on the grounds to really judge how it is used but rather how much we use it. Everyone uses the best of Web 2.0 as much as they can because it's something that is constantly changing and therefore is never able to become old or dull. Then again, this could be a naive thought going back to the never ending myth. However, it would seem that Web 2.0 is not something people are able to grasp in their own hands. It is something only few people are able to explain and would seem to be a complex subject, yet Web 2.0 is not something to be replaced as opposed to being constantly improved, expanded, and growing just like our minds and ideas. It seems that Web 2.0 will not control but it would seem that we have trouble even trying to control ourselves. In a new age of digital communication we find ourselves lost within it's new and shiny future but I don't think we'll be able to use our phones to find ourselves within it.