SWA #3: Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Technology and the media inform us about the sufferings of our ‘brothers and sisters’ every single day. Most of the time we either choose to ignore what we see, or we let it make us feel something –sympathy, pity, sorrow, whatever. However, very rarely do we let these sights and destructions actually make a difference in our lives.  We don’t start a charity to raise money for the homeless, and we don’t speak in public to raise awareness for hurricane-struck victims. This is just a generalization, but the majority of the time it is true. We may hear about tragedy in the news on evening, and by the next morning we’ve forgotten all about it as we move along with our days, anticipating the next bit of depressing news we could find out any minute.

Wiesel states that technology lets us know more than ever about or brother and sisters in need throughout the world, but sometimes is can overwhelm us to a point where we become numb to tragedy, family, poverty, terrorist attacks, war, and any other devastation that could possibly happen to us.  He implicates that the media and technology is leading to this, and I couldn’t agree more.  Technology is a fabulous thing, but not in excess. When we’re bombarded with 20 tweets an hour on our phones about the war in Iraq and the devastation of hurricane Irene, we can’t take it in fast enough to care about any, let alone all of it.  ‘How can you care for your brothers and sisters if they’re already beyond repair?’ is what most people think. And it’s perfectly true.  We dismiss more than we should because there’s too much going on in the world for us to care enough about all of it.

According to Wiesel, we can deal with this conundrum by only focusing on small measures one at a time. No one has the power to fix everything in one fell swoop- and that’s how it should be.  As long as we concentrate on one problem at a time, each small act of grace, caring, and kindness can get us where we need to be as a human race- caring for at least one other human being we can consider our brother or sister.  According to Wiesel, we can deal with this conundrum by only focusing on small measures one at a time. No one has the power to fix everything in one fell swoop- and that’s how it should be.  As long as we concentrate on one problem at a time, each small act of grace, caring, and kindness can get us where we need to be as a human race- caring for at least one other human being we can consider our brother or sister.  

In Class Writing 8/30/11

I would say my family has about an average relationship with technology. We don't use excessive technology, but we don't use very little either. All six of us have cell phones, but no one in my family has an iPhone. Almost all of us have laptops. We use a computer at home as well, but it hasn't been updated in a couple of years. My dad just got his first Blackberry, and it took him about 2 full weeks to learn how to use it - probably much longer than it might have taken the average teenager in this generation.  We use our phones to call and text each other all the time, and our computers for schoolwork, email, facebook, music, and movies. My brother is probably the most 'technology driven' in that he plays a lot of video games and watches more than his fair share of sportscenter, and can be cranky when he doesn't get to. We do have Tivo, which probably leads us to watch more tv than we should, since we record a lot of shows. We have a 6 or 7 tvs in our house total, and only 3 real computers. I think my siblings and I have become expert multitaskers in recent years, but we're still teaching our parents how to do a lot of things on the computer. We all have Facebook, but my parents hardly check their accounts. We get along surprisingly well for not having all of the most up-to-date gadgets.

SWA #2

“Technology is rewiring our brains.”  This is one of the many claims made in Matt Ritchel’s article ‘Hooked on Technology, and Paying a Price.’ In the context of the article, Ritchel means to

say that the way we think has been changing over the past 50 years, whether it’s for the better

or worse. Our brains have been ‘rewired’ to multitask constantly, adapting to each different

technology that comes on the scene as we ourselves have grown and changes.  He states that

instead of the maybe 5 hours a day the average person would spend in the ‘multimedia world’

in the 1960s, we spend about 12 hours a day consuming media: most of the time we are awake

and functioning during the day.  People have become adaptive experts at multitasking, without

even knowing it- and that’s what makes our generation so different from that in say, the 60’s. 

Ritchel mentions the Campbell family multiple times throughout the article, using them as the contention for his argument. The reason he does this is to lure the reader in using pathos to

establish a relationship between reader and family. We can all relate to this ‘takeover’ of

technology. I know my mom has a rule, at least, that we’re not supposed to text at the table

because it’s considered rude and intrusive on family time. Whether your parents have

established rules like these or others, almost any audience member can relate to the fact that

his or her family uses technology maybe more than they’d like to admit. The Campbells are no

exception. By telling the story of Mr. Campbell, his semi-neglective attitude, forgetfulness, and

general distraction from his family, Ritchel establishes a connection between what goes on in

the Campbell household, and what may be going on in households all over America. It may

shame the reader, but it gets a reaction, and more than that, it gets a response. If the reader knows that

this particular family is not necessarily benefiting from having so much technology in their home, he or

she may be more likely to recognize the same situation in his or her life and to take action against it.

‘The myth of multitasking’:  This is the argument that people who so-called ‘multitask’ are in fact better at multitasking than those who, persay, do not consider themselves multitaskers.  It is

proven, in at least this one experiment, that multitaskers were worse at juggling more than one

thing and changing jobs than non-multitaskers. This evidence had no effect on me as a self-

considered multitasker, because I know that I am able to handle more than one thing at a time,

and I do believe that technology has taught me that.  All the experiment proved was that non-

multitaskers could recognize new information quickly. While it may take multitaskers longer to

switch between activities, the jobs still get done with ease. Between Facebook, homework,

music, and texting, my brain has been able to adapt to thinking about more than one thing at a

time, solving problems simultaneously. While this makes me sound like superman, I’m far from

it. I simply agree that technology can provide advantages to certain people and disadvantages to

others. 

Get Smarter Response

I thought Jamais Cascio's article 'Get Smarter' was interesting for more than one reason.  His theory that the technology-induced ADD epidemic is 'just a phase' could indeed be true: a short-term problem that could lead to a much bigger leap in the human mind further down the road. However, it could be a worsening condition that will only decrease the attention span of people all over the world over the next couple hundred years. We have no way of knowing.

I also liked that he went into a sort of biological standpoint- that the next few decades could potentially be worse than the last ice age- and Google, along with other rmultimedia resources, could have prepared us for it if we chose to use them...or not. He says that we get smarter after anything potentially crippling to the human race occurs, because we learn from our mistakes. I think that this is entirely true, however I'm not sure that Google and the internet are contributing solely to our gain of knowledge.  I would have to say that in comparison to Nicholas Carr's article, Google may not be making us stupid, it may just be providing us with more tools, faster, to get smarter for the future. In ten years Google may not exist, and computers themselves may be obsolete. The technology we will have had beforehand, however, will most likely have helped us adapt to the changing world around us.

In Class Writing 8/23/11

From the article 'Is Google Making Us Stupid' by Nicholas Carr, I remembered most the story he told about Freidrich Nietzsche and his type writer. I remember thinking that if no one could see, just type or think, our minds would go back to that state of concentration before we had internet to provide us whatever we wanted, whenever we want it. I agree with him, that the internet is definitely affecting us. Maybe not making us 'stupid' persay, but it most certainly is affecting our brains in more ways than one.

From the first chapter in Writing Arguments, I remember that the author said that arguments are not necessarily taking one stance and sticking with it. Arguments can come in many different forms, and should be used more to explore different points of views than to try and prove our own beliefs. I think that this was a well-made point, and it caused me to think differently about how to propose arguments in the future.

SWA #1

One of my best writing experiences was when I wrote an in-class essay in AP Literature and Composition about the novel 1982 by renowned controversial author George Orwell.  We had to read the book in my Literature class. The class was then assigned a 40 minute essay evaluating the behavior of the characters and how this played a role in deciphering the culture displayed in the novel.  We were given a scene from the book in which the main character goes into the house of a woman and her two children. The children act out and the main character contemplates their behavior.

In the essay, I analyzed Orwell’s choice of details, language, and sentence structure to portray how the children’s and their mother’s behavior reflected where and how they lived, and the corrupted world around them.  I tied into the essay themes of human nature and self-doubt, and described how they influenced the main character’s interpretations of the world in 1982.  My literature teacher gave me a score of nine out of nine, and considering that I wrote the essay in just 40 minutes, it continues to be the work of literary analysis that I am most proud of.

My worst experience with writing, however, was about a year earlier. I took US History as a junior in high school, and we were assigned a research paper that we would write in unison with our AP Language and Composition class. We could pick any historic topic we wanted, and I picked the sinking of the Titanic. We were required to turn in the paper once as a rough draft to get both teachers opinions before turning in the final draft.  We were given a number between 1 and 4 indicating how ready the paper was to be turned in. My history teacher gave me a 3- on the rough draft, meaning that it didn’t need much work. Or so I thought. Truth be told, I probably didn’t work on the paper as much as I should have, but when I turned the final draft in, I got a C on it.  My teacher told me that I hadn’t done enough research and that most of my facts were wrong.  I was upset, but I understand that I should have gone for more help when I thought I might have needed it.  I will admit that research papers are not my strong point, as I am not good with writing arguments. However, now I know that in the future I should check with my teacher ahead of time and actually go over my facts to make sure I have them straight.

I am sure that the first described experience affected me the most, because it gave me a lot of confidence in my writing, and contributed to my doing well on the AP Exam at the end of the class.  It made me realize that I can write better than I may have thought I could before I wrote it, and it convinced me that literary analysis is my favorite kind of writing.