Technology And Technology : Today 's Youth 's Lives

Should teens be limited to the amount of technology that’s exposed? We’ve all been or are going to be a teenager. There is no way to avoid it. Leisure has changed over time. The definition of leisure to any adult would be playing with friends in the street, doing some homework or maybe even working at a job. Today, it consists of texting on iphones/blackberries, watching T.V or going on social networks. Teens nowadays have Call of Duty, Jersey Shore, iPad and Facebook. It seems today that any teenager would agree that they can’t live without one thing: technology. Is technology straining ones ability to learn? Are our priorities straight? Scientists have been exploring this topic to help our society for a number amount of years already.

In the section titled The Dumbest Generation, “Digital Nation” lays out a haunting narrative describing technology’s negative impact on students today. This section draws from an interview with Mark Bauerlein, a professor and author of book titled “The Dumbest Generation.” Bauerlein claims that reading, writing and math skills of students have all already began to deteriorate. It seems that constant interruption and attempts to multitask are at the heart of this deterioration. I received my first smart phone just before the beginning of this semester, from my own experience I can only agree with the assertion that technology puts a damper on the educational experience. The issue does not come with the technology itself, rather, the desire for constant connection distracts from the learning experience. As the first generation of persons who grew up with technology become parents, I hope they can teach their children the skill of moderation and the importance of education – skills often not taught to kids today by their parents born before the technology boom. These ideas will solve the deterioration of reading, writing, and math that Bauerlein speaks

According to the article “What’s the Matter with the Kids Today”, many adults believe that new technology is consuming the minds of young people. Amy Goldwasser uses research from Common Core surveys as well as Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech to create her argument. Goldwasser uses these examples to explain that if parents and teachers better understood the use of technology, students wouldn’t be punished for their overuse of technology today.

Remember that scary, grotesque, evil monster we were all scared of when we were younger? Well, it's alive, we just can't see it, and it's called technology. As we all know, technology is changing and evolving every day; but it's almost as if the technology is taking over the minds of our future generation. Schools are incorporating technology into learning more and more all the time. Every month there is a new phone, tablet, television, laptop and even thousands of websites. These devices can come in handy and can be helpful, but they almost are consuming everyone's mind and minimizing critical thinking. Many of technology users are children or young adults. Although the use of technology in education can have some positive results, it has more negative effects that are affecting students.

The people of this world, especially today's youth, heavily rely on and engage in technology. With technology comes new ideas and processes that at first may be hard to understand, specifically if the person is from an older generation. Since today's youth was born into technology, most adults consider the youth to be "digital natives". Along with being native to technology and the media it produces, today's youth is also thought to be digitally literate. When someone is digitally literate they generally understand the processes and creation of this technology and how it functions. Due to the fact that technology has such an impact on our lives and the topic of digital natives is such a big debate, it has sparked some conversation on the question of whether or not youth are truly digital natives.

It is unfortunate to say that everything teenagers search for online is not educational or socially acceptable for that matter. For students who do use the internet to their educational advantage, grade higher than those who abuse their privilege online. As McFarlane states, “computer use alone, without clear objectives and well-designed tasks, is of little intrinsic value” (qtd. In Lavin, Korte, Davies). McFarlane states that structure and guidance is the only way to properly utilize the technology in classrooms.

The current generation of children is completely different than the preceding ones. They are living in the digital age. “Technology has blended in with daily activity to become a way of life and children today take for granted all of which is automated. It is hard for kids nowadays to imagine a world that existed without all of the gadgets, electronics and seamless operations that computer technology provides.” (3) “Children in the United States devote some 40 hours a week to television, video games and the Internet.” (12) Many psychologists and researchers are concerned about the impact that technology has on children. Children, tomorrow’s future parents and leaders, are being consumed by the negative effects that technology had on their

Perhaps that makes the 55-year-old teacher sound like a dinosaur. What he discovered is, after all, one of the most obvious realities shaping education policy and parenting guides today. But, as Loewy will clarify, his revelation wasn’t simply that technology is overhauling America’s classrooms and redefining childhood and adolescence. Rather, he was hit with the epiphany that efforts in schools to embrace these shifts are, by and large, focusing on the wrong objectives: equipping kids with fancy gadgets and then making sure the students use those gadgets appropriately and effectively. Loewy half-jokingly compares the state of digital learning in America’s schools to that of sex ed, which, as one NYU education professor describes it, entails

In recent years, technology has become mainstream in the new generation’s lives. We are surrounded by social media, technology, and distractions. In classrooms, there are Ipads, computers, Active boards. Some people think that schools should teach students how to use ICTs appropriately. This thought is obsurd. Schools should not teach students to use ICTs more appropriately.

Students, today, understand this type of model has imperfections. Their parents, who are the baby-boomers, when technology was just beginning to make its appearance, grew up as passive recipients of television and teacher led instruction. The youth of today are shaped by collaborating with digital tools and online experiences.

Author, Eliana Dockterman in her article,¨The Digital Parent Trap¨, exposes the potential benefits of technology use among young people. Dockterman´s purpose is to directly inform us about how studying and learning from computers and hand hale gadgets can actually improve our education mentally. Us the younger generation who are being physically exposed to this more and more should benefit from these opportunities that are being given to us,¨Dockterman¨ stated in her article that using technology is the next step for teens to learn since this is what keeps us a focused. With this being said I conclude that gadgets are the future of learning since we have advanced this 21st century.

If we look at society today and compare it with our society a couple of decades ago, we can see a noticable change in technological advances. Before people gawked at even the prospect of video chatting with someone not even in the same continent. Contradicting that, today’s students and children are considered digital natives. Digital native is a term that describes someone who has grown up with digital technology around them, someone who does not know life before digital technology. Having a computer in every household as well as every school has exponentially increased student’s awareness of technology and also broadened their horizons about the global economy. Students today use cell phones that can do almost anything imaginable such as getting real time updates on their

Globilisation is a continually growing and increasing factor in our everyday lives. As technology improves, the ability for people to communicate increases. The transfer of ideas, information and the sharing of cultures becomes exceedingly simple. As technology improves the people using that technology have access to a much wider experience of the world than previously would have been possible. In this way as each generation grows up in a globalised world, the factors that influence their social queues, their ability to choose peers, and what is accessible in popular culture, vastly changes the dynamic that a younger generation would have in comparison to the generation that came before them. Globilisation is an extremely important factor in the social construction of a younger generations culture.

A class full of elementary students come to school in the morning and visit the classroom website on school issued iPads to check the agenda of the day, and then participate in an online discussion about current events for morning work. Two high school students use their personal devices in a high school algebra class to check homework answers posted on the instructor’s website. Listing examples of the different uses of technology in the classroom could be an endless discussion which goes to prove that the use of technology is no longer an optional activity in an educational setting. Unfortunately, technology in the classroom can also put learners in dangerous situations if they give out personal information online or misunderstand the importance of staying on monitored websites. Even so, learners in the 21st Century classroom are accustomed to technology in every part of their lives and therefore it has become necessary for teachers to change instruction to meet the needs of their students and create a successful learning environments. The use of the technology in the classroom can become a safety issue for learners if they are not exposed to powers and the dangers that the online world can hold. In order to keep children safe, educators must empower their students to safely navigate the digital world.

The popularity of technology is growing larger and faster than ever. The problem is, we may never be able to catch up to it. The young adolescent adults seemed to be more interested in technology. Some experts claim that it does more harm than value. In terms of education, technology is becoming more and more popular and used among many school districts, although this can come with complications and allows students to ease threw assignments without having to fix their own problems. Also, technology can affect teenagers social abilities and let strangers have access to personal information.