Response

I think the media and technology have a lot to do with society and social status in a culture. The environment we are surrounded by and the advantages we have growing up affect the way we learn and our desire to learn. Our desire to learn affects the way we learn. If someone goes to a school where there is computer access available at their fellow students' homes and they don't have a computer so they have to write more or go out of their way to go to a library and they have other obligations like a job or taking care of kids, that person might be struggling a lot and feel as if they are not doing as good as other students because they are having more trouble with their work. If they see themselves as a "bad" student, they will just stress themselves out more and perhaps even feel like they should just quit.

I feel like instructors would have a tough time too, dealing with students who don't have the "latest technologies" or surround themselves with a different culture rather than our American society. What if a teacher didn't have access or involve themselves with technological advances? Learning can be enhanced with these new technologies, but it could also mislead them into the illusion of learning. To me, learning comes with interaction and communication amongst people. Along with learning facts and how to do things through an educational structure, communication and how people learn develope social skills and people related learning. If people learned how to communicate clearly and with empathy and understanding, there would be less negativity in the world and more sharing of ideas and mental expansion. Learning, theories, and information would just grow and there would be a mutual understanding of human emotions and behavior if people just knew how to communicate peacefully without getting defensive and/or feel isolated.

I'm not saying that technology can't help improve communication. Computers and internet access are great ways to get information out there for the public to view and to organize information. But how do you know your information and ideas are getting out to the public? Are people interested? Are people even aware of what you're talking about? How will people learn things if they don't know there are things to be learned? This is where our media comes into play, and how through technology, the media along side corperate industries distract the masses with information that doesn't really affect their self happiness or health. Some of this information is used as an escape from "the real world" and some of it is used to distract us from political issues that are actually important, in my opinion. An example of this could be what I read yesteday on my "news today" on AOL. With the headline "Do you believe you are not racist? Take this quiz to find out the truth on how racist you really are!" I thought to myself, you are what you believe you are and you are what your conscious and subconscious ideas display to yourself and others. A quiz is not needed to determine if one is racist or not, being honest with yourself determines this, not even that but one's behavior. Racism issues, gay rights issues, abortion issues...I'm not claiming that these aren't significant in one's life, but the only reason they are is because they are displayed that way through the media and it keeps us busy thinking about these issues that shouldn't really exist, and keeps us debating amongst ourselves about what is "right" and what is "wrong" when in reality nothing is "right" or "wrong" especially these issues; what the government does with our money, all of the things we don't know about, that we don't even know to question because we don't know of its existance because the people and the government have been seperated through our axis of money and power...these are issues that should be discussed, not only discussed but have action sought upon them. Things that affect our country as a whole, a man or woman's freedom to be a human being, which is to live their life and decide what life means to them instead of being born in a society where you pop out with a blind fold on and you don't even realize you have a blind fold on because you've been blind your whole life. Technology feeds the public mind what they want to hear, not what they need to hear, it desensatizes the public to others, real life issues, and themselves and their conscious awareness.

Facebook and Myspace are also both potentially damaging to the way people interact with each other. There is no emotion behind written words, language is very important. To me language is body language, the tone in someone's voice, the intent behind the words and the understanding of words between two people. Texting and messaging through the internet leaves too many variables to be sure that a mutual understanding is being created though conversation.