PBS Digital Nation Argumentative Analysis

Ever since technology began so prominent in the modern world, can anyone remember going outside for more than 30 minutes and not see a cell phone or computer? Probably not, as these pieces of technology have become so ingrained in people’s lives, no one wants to leave their home without still being connected. And there is no reason to, as friends, family, and strangers share the same sentiments. Unplugging from technology is not only a decision people don’t make for personal reasons, it simply isn’t conducive to a productive life, as many people’s work and social lives wouldn’t be the same, if exist at all, without being connected to other people or the internet with just a single touch.

In the essay “Multitasking can make you lose … Um … Focus” Alina Tugend exams why multitasking causes you to lose focus and how it is counterproductive. Tugend explains what multitasking is in the first section and that since the 90s we have widely accepted it into our daily lives. She also brings a credible professor named Earl Miller to elaborate on multitasking and how it is explained in a scientific manor. As this professor goes on he talks about how its misleading and that multitasking doesn’t actually benefit us, it actually hinders are ability to be productive. Tugend uses multiple case studies to back up this information and to even support her own argument that multitasking causes loss of focus.

Every individual is in constant exposure to all sorts of different types of technology. This continuous display then creates a major decline in all social interaction. People are content with their lives and remain unaware of what’s really going on in the world around them. In modern day society this can also be seen. With technology becoming more and more part of people’s daily lives, it has become more evident that we are drifting apart from each other. Communication is now being done through the use of social media instead of talking face to face. All through the day the average person is using such devices as phones, computers, and TVs during their free time and also when working. Activities such as writing letters along with the use of things like newspapers are slowly being replaced with the use of newer technology. Even books are starting to be a way of the past just like in the

Do you have dinner with your family or with your phone? Having dinner with your family creates more bonding but having dinner with your phone or technology cause you to get dumb and dumber exponentially. Meaning starting slowly but increasing rapidly over time. From the article by Ron Friedman “A New Year’s resolution for the workplace,” Friedman talks about how study shows that devices or technology has been (can) cut our thinking ability in the workplace. He also talks about how phones can be such a distraction and you can get most out of it by keeping it away. This article talks about how technology is getting in the way of you making friendships or interpersonal connections with humans. A survey from “Pew Research Survey” from feb. 14-23 of 2014. “When is it okay to use your phone?” from 4 different generations. In “The Giver” by Lois Lowry, everything in the community is controlled by technology and that really limits them from knowing that technology is only hurting them. Technology hinders society because it gets in the way of person to person interaction, community is too dependent on technology, and lowers cognitive performance.

With this type of mindset, you are so focused in making connections with other people, that you ironically separate yourself by trying to know what everyone is doing and imagine we are at all these places. While this is not a realistic possibility no matter what form of technology we have, being able to view all this information in one place has deceived society into spending its time receiving information about life, instead of actually experiencing it for themselves. Social networking is another prime example of an attention grabbing technology. You can learn about all the information on your friend’s activities in one place any time you feel like it. While it is extremely useful to be able to be able to do this, connective technology is only truly beneficial if you are able to use it as a device to interact in person. Unfortunately, the intensity of this addictive isolation can be multiplied when a person is being controlled by more than one form of digital technology. This can lead to living a life where you are never in the present moment or as Samuels puts it, “If you're routinely using three screens at once, distraction can feel like a way of life”

Most people when asked “what is the benefits of technology?” would say without hesitation “it connects people closer together”. In reality, most of us are more disconnected than ever and don’t even know it. The ease in which we are able to reach each other has inadvertently gotten us away from the interactions that once put us closer together. My artifact 1 focuses on these issues of technology, and how technology makes us more disconnected than ever before.

We live in a time considered to be the “Age of Distraction”, although this age has many opinions on the effects it has on the people. Technology seems to be the main point of discussion when coming to terms with “distraction”. Some authors, such as Alina Tugend and Abigail Leichman, have written articles explaining technologies negative effects on people. Tugend claims that people who multitask with technology the work they produce is usually of lower quality. Leichman focuses more on the fact that people disconnect from one another when they put their focus into things like iPods. However, Jordan Kramer claims in his article that technology hasn’t made people less social. Even before people had accessible technology such as phones and music

“Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation in today’s society.” (Melissa Nilles “Technology is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction”) Because of technology, the interactions with other people have no meaning, and that we are no longer in touch with the world that we live in. Since technology makes it easier to connect and converse with friends, family, etc. it gives people the opportunity to avoid face to face interaction at all, which leads to isolation and loneliness. This is because as human beings, physical touch is something that we

The people of the world are plugged into the internet at all aspect, and changing the way they think. However, when is being plugged in too much? Is it safe to say that, the cellphone, tablets, and the computer is killing the modern society or today's family? The children of today’s youth, have cell phones, that can have no restrictions on the device. Is the internet taking over and changing the way we think and act towards other people? The people today are videotaping violence rather than helping someone. People find themselves constantly using Apps on devices and ignoring other people by sending a caller to voicemail on purpose. By sending text messages instead of holding conversations, the human interaction is fading away. By doing this,

Ever since I was young, I have known technology to be a large instrument in my development and everyday life. Everyone had a technological device of one sort or another, just as they do now. I watched people cut themselves off from the world as their reliance on technology grew and the light dim from their eyes as their screens got brighter. The limitation of direct human contact due to the use of technology has had far more negative effects on society than positive, including (but not limited to) a new danger with strangers, distraction and alienation from human contact, and a wide variety of physical, emotional and mental disabilities. As the amount of direct contact has decreased, artificial or indirect contact has substantially increased, using the Internet as a primary platform. There are three very

Has technology ever helped students in their personal study time? Of course! In fact, completing research without technology nowadays seems almost impractical for many students. Students use technology every day for a variety of reasons, whether it’s for studying purposes or just checking social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Technology surrounds almost everybody and most students use it on a daily basis. Though Nicholas Carr argues that the Internet makes us “shallow learners” because of the many distractions, the Internet can be a great tool for all students (2011). Chabris and Simons argue against Carr and claim that the internet can actually help us and it has our generation at a high level it’s never been before (2011). Focusing while on the Internet can be a very difficult task to complete, and self-discipline is crucial for students or anybody that wants to focus due to the fact that the Internet opens room for multitasking. According to Annie Murphy Paul “multitasking while learning has the biggest potential downside.” Multitasking is more common when people have access to technology. There are still many benefits and advantages to using technology in our studying time. Technology enforces active learning, collaborative learning, and personal learning styles. Though technology may be the source of distractions, proper use of technology in a student 's personal studying time offers many great advantages.

Over time, we have developed more and more advanced technology from radios to robots, this has impacted us in a way no one would imagine. In Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk “Connected, but alone?,” Turkle clarifies how technology is redefining human connection. She points out that our cellphones are keeping us away from interacting with society and has a more significant influence on our communication in person than online. In addition, we tend to seek social media as a way of comfort and attention, and the more we are using our phones the more isolated and alone we become. Is technology really redefining human connection?

In a three hour window, students were distracted thirty five times in that three hour window. These distractions took up nearly 1/6th of the study time (Ackerman, Calderwood, & Conklin, 2014). If multitasking is making it harder to study, why would students do it? A study found four main reasons why students multitask with media. Students find that multitasking is more task efficient, it can be entertaining, it enables people to connect with peers, and some can be addicted to multitasking in general( Knononva, Chiang, 2015). While multitasking is becoming more and more abundant, the question whether it is helping or hindering studying is still in question. How well can humans retain information while focusing on multiple sources at the same time. Is it truly plausible that we can read and retain information while being distracted by other sources of information. Trying to determine the effectiveness of multitasking and finding a valid conclusion to it’s effectiveness, could possibly help us better understand our capabilities as humans. These finding could help us construct expectations and reveal limitations of our capabilities as humans. Doing this could help us create better study habits and display a correct way to operate as

With the advancement of science and technology, the virtual world is gradually seeping into media, marketing, entertainment, and our daily lives. With wide reaching effects on gaming, socializing, education, and military of other things, virtual worlds have exploded in number and presence over the past few years.

The modern technology for telecommunications has made the general public increasingly lazy and dependent on such things as the Internet, the phone, and Instant messenger. The pre-telecommunications societies had so much more productive time when considering the amount of time spent on useless modern communications. “The more time people spend using the Internet ... the more they lose contact with their social environment.”(Stanford) Of course the telephone and Internet do sometimes provide useful information; however, compared to the hours spent surfing the web and socializing, the actual amount of productive time spent is relatively small. Telecommunications technologies have also made the modern society very lazy. Societies without telecommunications have constant interactions; their children play with each other, discover and learn together. In the modern, developed countries, people no longer interact face to face as frequently, the children spend hours conversing on the phone, chatting on the internet, or just sitting in front of the computer playing video games. Bringing the world together through a network of wires seems less appealing when considering what it takes from us.