Going Digital

Recently our class researched topics on the Digital Nation website (click post name for site) and presented what they learned to the rest of the class. Each person chose a tab to research. I did Learning, Raquel did Relationships, Jordon did Virtual Worlds,  Dalton did Waging War, and Vince did Living Faster. I learned quite a bit from the presentations of the other topics.
Raquel went first with her topic Relationships. She talked about a girl who created an online personality about herself, and another girl researched her eating disorder online and blogged about it. Raquel also talked about an 83 year old grandma who makes a cooking show with her grandson, and she is thrilled about using the new internet technology to touch people's lives. In Relationships, they're showing how people can connect to each other and even lead separate lives online, and how lives can be changed from the internet. But there was a dilemma with the internet, with parents wanting their kid's Facebook passwords, and even a kid who committed suicide because of online bullying. But everything in life has it's strengths and weaknesses, and I believe the internet connects more people than it hurts.
After Relationships was Virtual Worlds, presented by Jordon. She talked first about how they were using virtual games and scenarios to help cure soldiers of PTSD. They use sights, sounds, and even smells to trigger reactions from the soldiers, helping them relive what happened during the war so they can slowly come to terms with it. Then Jordon talked about a young teen in South Korea who is addicted to internet gaming. With South Korea being the most wired place on the planet, a teen boy named Young Il spends at least 8 hours a day on the computer. He's addicted to computers and gaming and so is 10% of South Korean teens. He recognizes his problem and is trying to get help, but the real problem is the parents and even the internet itself for allowing Young Il to become addicted. Lastly Jordon talked about creating virtual avatars of kids and adults, sometimes for therapy and sometimes just for research. The studies found that time spent with a person's own avatar was profound, and that people learned something about themselves. Also, if a kid saw their avatar doing something there was a good percent chance that the child would honestly think that THEY did that action themselves. It just goes to show how much virtual reality can affect the mind.
Dalton presented after Jordon with Waging War. Dalton's tab was about how technology is being implemented to help the military and even to help recruiting for the military. He talked about this gaming center in California that allows teens to come in and play all sorts of violent video games while recruiters walk around the center just talking to the kids. They don't actually recruit them, they're just there to "answer questions" and talk to them, but if a kid comes up to them wanting to join the military, then they go into action. This caused a moral dilemma within the community and there was mass protesting about it. There was an argument that these kids believed war to be like the video games they played like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, but war is NOT a video game. There's no respawn in war, your life is really on the line. Dalton also talked about how Marines use simulators to train, using realistic video imaging and situations called Immersion Training. The Marines have to clear a building that can be loaded with hundreds of different scenarios, and they train and train until they get it perfect every time. There are also people in the military who control unmanned aircraft that conduct bombing missions and then go home for dinner to their family. Even these pilots of Predator Drones suffer PTSD from trying to separate their military lives from their home life.
Vincent wrapped up the presentations with Living Faster, talking about just how technology impacts our lives. Technology connects us, helps us interact, and even controls what we do. Kids now are wired all the time, having smartphones and computer messaging, they're always connected. Their focus is less on the world and on school and more on their phones and friends and their technology. Technology has created a less peaceful environment for the world, everything is busy and there is technology everywhere. One couple talked about reading with their Kindles in bed, but how it wasn't peaceful anymore because of the annoying click of the button for next page. There was another researcher who believed that the hearing of the new generation has diminished from being able to hear 300,000 sounds, to only 100,000 sounds. He says that the senses are being dulled by the overload of information and noise that this era involves. The question is, do we try to prevent this, or just let it happen?
Digital Nation has much to offer, and anyone who decides to look into this site will learn great things about technology and the new digital world. I know that I myself learned quite a bit about how technology affects us all and how it's being applied in the world today. And in this world today, you can't afford to be ignorant about technology.