#WJ12 "The Power Team"

This article was actually very interesting to me. However, I had mixed feelings about it. Being a Christian, I am very into my religion and enjoy when the "word" is exciting to me as a teenager. I thought that what the Power Team was doing was definitely a good idea. It's hard to try to get people into religion that don't want to be. Using a circus act seems like a really good idea to grab a young audience. Where I have a conflict is I was always raised to not try to force someone into a religion, or in this case trick them. The use of the word "bait" was very intriguing to me though because "you can lead a horse to water but can't make him drink". In this article they seemed to lead the people to God but couldn't force them to convert to Christianity! At first when I was reading I was thinking to myself that it is not God-like for them to try to make money for these events, but it was simply for the funding of their many shows and travels. So even though I questioned the motives of the power teams at first, in the end I think that what they did was very smart. Especially in the schools where the focus was not religion but sex, drugs, and alcohol. I like that they did not necessarily make them convert but gave them the information that they needed. I liked this a lot!

WJ11 "A Plague of Tics"

In this essay, Sedaris did a very good job of using his voice. You could tell it wasn't just a story told by some narrator of something, but it had some type of valuable meaning to the writer. He made the story funny, and it was easy to read and also interesting. I think that what we could learn from him so that we can use our own voices in our projects and not try to make our papers seem as though they are coming from our own minds and not try to make them sound.

#WJ9

The question I propose to answer in my paper is “what effect does technology have on society, and is it more good or bad?” I will also answer the question “should we limit our intake of technology and should we limit our children’s technical devices. My personal thesis statement is: although technology has come at an abrupt pace and some say it has caused some problems, at the end of the day, all or at least most of our technological advances are benefiting us more than they are causing us harm. What I currently know about the topic is that there are many tests that have been done involving this topic. I also know that the debate has equal sides of defense. I have also learned that technology’s affect on someone depends on the individual. Also technology has been making a huge impact since it first began making its presence known even back to the late 19th century. Another thing that I have come across in my research so far is the theory that it is not the things that are produced by the technology, rather the actual technology themselves! I have learned that technology is to blame for things like obesity, murder, and at this point even the economy! Things I still need to find out about the issue are, more about some of the test that have been done. I also need to search more about the different types of technology besides just the internet, phone, and television. I want to research more about what different age groups think about the issue and hope to conduct an interview or a poll to find out what everyday people think about the situation. Another thing I want to know is how the technology is affecting our brain development if at all.

Arguments that oppose my thesis include but are not limited to:
- Technology causes people to be inactive causing them to be overweight
- Technology encourages children to be violent
- Technology has made us socially dumb and unable to communicate properly with each other
- Technology is doing all the work for us and we are getting more uneducated

Sources I have looked at include but are not limited to:
- Marshall McLuhan books on technology and media
- Articles about the effects of media and technology including one we used in class
- Research documents done by scientist.
- Documentaries
- Audio documents.

Reaction to Lines on Plagiarism

I think there are a lot of reasons students today plagiarize. For one it makes life so much easier. The majorities of students who do it do not get caught and therefore will most likely continue to do it. I agree with the article when it says students feel like since it’s on something like Wikipedia then its general knowledge and belongs to everyone. Also I think because the information is online students feel like it doesn’t matter who said. When doing a research paper students might also think to themselves, “its research, the teacher should know its not from me”. Another reason might be that students after reading something so good cant think of a better way to say it but at the same time dont want to cite everything because then they would have more citations than information.

Research Topic WJ#6

For my research paper I have decided to research a very broad and controversial topic. I choose to take what we discussed in the debate and go deeper into the investigation. I'm a communications media major and therefore have a very strong opinion on how the media effects society. So in my research I want to investigate what type of social test have been done and studies have been constructed that may lead to a conclusion of what effects the media and technology have on society today and is it more good or more bad.

some exploratory questions I will bring up in my paper:
-Has technology taken over the lives of the youth?
-How much has technology been incorporated into the business world?
-Is technology making us socially dumb?

one annotation

McLuhan, M. and Q. Fiore (1967). "The medium is the message." New York: Bantam Books.

In this book Marshall McLuhan talks about how the media is what shapes how we live today. He says that it is not what the media transports to us, but rather, the actual technology in itself. In this book McLuhan speaks of how the printed media have nothing on the technological media and even though we do not notice it initially we have all fallen victim to the changes.

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price (response)

In the Article by Matt Richtel the complicated question about technology is brought up. Is technology hurting us or helping us? The Article brings up points for both sides of the argument stating that technology causes up to try and multitask when our brains are not constructed to do so. The article talks about how multitasking actually hurts us because it makes it difficult for us to weed out irrelevant information. Like a drug technology has even become an addiction in the lives of many who use it such as Mr. Cambell and his son. However, the article does play fair by mentioning that also technology can help us. Those who play video games can gain better vision, and internet users as a whole have been shown to have a better research ability as well as increase our brain activity.
I think most people that use the internet can agree that it does become a major distraction at times. Just like Mr. Cambell got distracted by a tweet, a lot of internet users get distracted when they are trying to do something important. Especially if its more or less, well, boring, like writing a paper. For example, as I read the article about technology with my five separate tabs open I also continued to hold a chat on Facebook with three different people. Also I took short breaks in between sentences to listen to a new song that one of my favorite artist had just posted a link to on twitter. The distractions caused by technology didn't stop there though. As I read the article and noticed a link to see how good I was at multitasking, I just had to click it. With all the distractions on the internet an article that should have taken 20 minutes to read, took about 50 minutes.
We can't escape the world of technology in my opinion. Its too convenient. Of course it has its flaws, but so do we. While we must hope that people can at least control their need for a technological fix while driving, it doesn't matter how much research, in whatever schools, is done; The times that we live in will be a technological time probably until the end of time. As i sit at the dinner table with my family and my and both my sisters have a fork in one hand and our phones in the other; or as I totally neglect my five page paper I have to do because my twitter app is not working or the trending topic excites me; or even as me and a group of friends sit in one room not saying a word but all communicate through Facebook, I know that no matter what studies are done about the effects of technology, we're hooked!

Hey It's Tash!! :)

Hello, my name is Natasha Nichole Richardson-Norman but that's a bit long so just Tasha will work! I'm currently a second semester sophomore at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where I study Communications media as well as Spanish. I would consider my self a cool person. I get along with just about anybody who will take the time out to say hi to me. In my spare time the thing i enjoy most is listening to, and writing music. If I'm not doing that then I love to spend time with friends out doors doing something such as bowling, skating, eating! etc... I love to write my opinion because I happen to be a very opinionated individual and love to debate. One other fact about me is I want to in the future, write major production films. In this blog you'll read a lot of my opinions about different things I come across, so stay tuned!