Family Business

   As I was scrolling through YouTube one late night I came across a TedTalk by Laurie David titled "Dinner Makes A Difference". In this talk she mentions how families are losing their connectedness due to technology. This video automatically made me think of "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman since both the speaker and the author mentioned how technology is taking over our world. This was a topic that continues to surprise me since eating together as a family is a normal action in my household. I enjoy eating dinner together as a family because I get the opportunity to have a conversation with them although we all live such busy lives. It is truly a beautiful feeling knowing that no matter what is going on in our lives, we all make sure to set time aside so we can talk to one another. Once we hear my mom yell "Food's Ready!" we all head to the table and converse about our day. I never realized how much of a privilege this actually is. When watching a different TedTalk on the same topic, the speaker mentions how she met a girl that had never ate at the dinner table with her family in the nineteen years of her living. She said dinner in her house was in front of the television set. I understand we all have hectic lives therefor we have also made eating together as a family lose it's value. Back in the day, eating together was a given but it seems like over the years this tradition has vanished in families across the world. Today with technology, people are more resevered or comsumed in their own lives to make time for others. I'm going to take a wild guess and say most of us spend our days in our rooms using some sort of electronic and so do the other members in your family. This ritual doesn't even have to be a long time, just taking ten minutes out of your day everyday will make a change. Do you think eating dinner together would make a difference in your household? I just believe that this is an important tradition that many of us have lost. If this actions of eating separately from your family continues, families will be even less connected in the future and parents will have no idea what is going on in their child's life. I'm interested to hear your outlook on this tradition. Do you think eating together at a table with your family is important?

News Was Always Entertaining (Ch 7 Postman)

In chapter 7 of Amusing Ourselves To Death, Postman focuses on the news and how it has become a form of entertainment. It is likely that your parents have told you " be quiet, I'm watching the news," or "shh, this is important" when you were younger. This set the precedent that news was very important adult business and that kids rarely take interest in. This made it difficult for me to see it as a form of entertainment at first.
Postman explains the use of music and attractive people that make news more engaging. When you think about those two factors along with the fact that many news casters make small jokes or puns, the news sounds like a fun show to watch, and not serious at all. This is the danger Postman warns of, the news is made out to be serious but it is still just entertainment.
This wasn't the case when all news was in newspapers, right? While many newspapers were far more serious than today's news channels, they were still meant to be slightly entertaining. Newspaper publishers often added small comic strips to the side of papers for kids and even adults to get a laugh out of. For this reason, I believe that news was entertaining before television and even before the printing press because entertainment is what kept people listening or reading. If news is boring no one wants to watch the news channel or buy a newspaper, entertainment always has, and always will, sell.
-Jenee Turner

How Computers Have Improved Learning

Today there was a city wide blackout which lasted for a couple of hours. It didn't last long, but it was an inconvenience as most of my summer homework is online and I was forced to stop working. This blackout made me think about how dependent we are on the internet, and Postman's warning about the use of computers and television in school.
Being able to have conversations online, particularly this blog, provide a huge advantage for us as students to exchange ideas about the summer homework. This is also helpful to our teachers we can get to know us through our writing before the first day of school, and have a better understanding of how we work and our current abilities.
Postman believed that televisions and computers would change our school system. This has undoubtedly happened, but was it a change for the better or the worse? I think it was for the better because students can now access additional information about topics that they've read, take notes on programs such as google doc, and communicate with classmates and teachers in an academic setting.
-Jenee Turner

Artificial Intelligence is Making us Less Intelligent

      After reading the debate "Is Artificial Intelligence Taking Over Our Lives?", one of my previous beliefs about AI's has actually changed. I've always believed that as more robots get created, they will eventually replace human occupations. However, one of the debaters, Gary Kasparov, states differently.
     Kasparov explains that even though robots may replace certain human jobs, new jobs will be created. For instance, he states "machines have been replacing humans since the first one was invented many thousands of years ago — and on the very next day it probably created new jobs when three people were needed to fix it." Robots can be seen as just new machines, and will definitely open up new jobs when they need maintaining and work. Another debater, Susan Bennett, argues that we don't use our brains as much because we have such easy access to AI's in our phones that'll do it for us. The more reliant we become on technology, perhaps the less intelligent we will become.
       Personally, I believe that AI's are doing more harm for us than good. I am already super reliant on my phone, especially when it comes to using it for homework assignments. I am constantly searching up answers to questions, where certain quotes were in a book because I'm too lazy to search for the quote myself, steps to a math problem, and more. This all could be playing a role in making me less intelligent, instead of using my brain and trying to figure out the answers on my phone, I use a device that I have at my finger tips, as I'm sure most of us do.
                                                                          -Brooke Wiersema
   

Is Our Society to Blame for Teens Internet Addiction?

     In today's world, the internet and technology is all around us. Because of this, many kids and teens have become glued to their screens enjoying the plentiful amount of things they can do on them. In the article "Is Internet Addiction a Health Threat for Teens?" many people debate whether or not the internet is harmful to teens. 

     One of the debaters, Boyd, argues that parents refrain kids from going out with their friends a lot because of outside threats, which in turn causes kids to use the internet to interact with their peers more. Although correct, Boyd doesn't take into consideration that kids aren't always using the internet to text their friends, but also for online shopping, videos, games, and so many other things. Another point that Boyd makes is "for many teenagers, technology is a relief value" When kids become overworked with homework and other activities, they tend to turn to their screens as a stress release outlet. One of the last points she made was that kids use the internet as an escape from their own lives, and how they can almost always find someone else to relate too on different social media platforms.

     Personally, I agree with Boyd and her main idea of society being the problem and not out screens. Our phones are filled with so many good qualities, such as research for school work, checking the time, setting alarms, checking the weather, and more. Yes, it also has the problem of people spending too much time on them, but it's a response to the society we live in. Teens sometimes feel like a better version of themselves on social media, which makes them want to use it even more. Teens and kids are also constantly able to keep tabs on and communicate with their friends, which is naturally desired by almost any kid. I personally love going onto Instagram after a long, stressful day and laughing at a funny video, so I guess phones really can be a relief value. 

                                                                                         -Brooke Wiersema

The absence of authenticity in Brave New World and in a Long Read

   As I was reading my second long read, "It's genuine, you know?" why the online influencer industry is going authentic" it mentions how social media is filled with posts that aren't authentic. It lead to me making a connection with the soma in Brave New World , and how the soma helped them escape reality.

   For us our soma would be our social network sites, where we are able to see the lives of many people and are able to compare it with ours. We often compare and contrast ourselves with other famous people because of the way we look. A very common example would be our bodies, we see all these famous women with the "ideal" body and then compare ourselves to them. Many of them were capable of getting their perfect image because of surgeries, or also their pictures could have been edited, which is not genuine.

   Then the soma in Brave New World helps then not see the truth and live in  a fantasy where no one ever ages. When Lenina encountered an old person she found him disgusting, but little did she know that's what it is like to live. Eventually we all get old. The soma made them live without being authentic, it made them live in a world that everything remained the same and change wasn't an option.
- Mayra Guerrero

Should Trump Be Allowed to Block People On Social Media?

In the Room For Debate "Should the President Be Able to Block You On Twitter", they talk about Trump and how he uses social media all the time. He likes being vocal and doesn't censor himself on it, which is what people wanted for a president until they saw that he doesn't share their views. If Trump is so vocal and gets criticized and embarrassed enough on his Twitter, shouldn't he be able to do something about it? However it isn't just about being allowed to do something, it's that should he be allowed to block people on his Twitter.

The answer to that question is yes. He isn't infringing the the 1st Amendment because Twitter is a privately owned company and he isn't infringing on anybody's free speech. There is no censorship involved, it's just that he doesn't have to deal with harassment of people for what he says if it offends them. At the end of the day, he is a US citizen that has his own rights and is allowed to do as he pleases, just like anybody else. If other people like celebrities, republican/democratic politicians alike can block people, why can't he? He has just as much criticism as them, and blocking does not fully block those tweets from him.