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vnarvaezfullsail

You Can Teach Old Dogs New Tricks: The Factors that Affect Changes over Tim...: EBSCOhost - 0 views

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literacy social technology

shared by vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • This study attempts to establish whether changes in digital literacy, through a period of five years, are age-dependent or the result of experience with technology. The study is based on empirical findings from two independent studies of Eshet-Alkalai & Amichai-Hamburger (2004), which investigated digital literacy skills among different age groups, and of Eshet-Alkalai and Chajut (2009), which investigated changes over time in these digital literacy skills among the same participants five years later. In order to distinguish between the age-related and the experience-related factors, the present study reports on findings from control groups of a similar age and demographic background, which were tested with tasks similar to Eshet-Alkalai & Chajut (2009). Results show two major patterns of change over time: (1) closing the gap between younger and older participants in tasks that emphasize experience and technical control (photo-visual and branching tasks); (2) widening the gap between younger and older participants in tasks that emphasize creativity and critical thinking (reproduction and information tasks). Based on the results from the control groups, we suggest that experience with technology, and not age-dependent cognitive development, accounts for the observed life-long changes in digital literacy skills. Results, especially the sharp decrease in information skills, suggest that the ability to find information or use digital environments does not guarantee an educated or smart use of digital environments. (Contains 1 figure.)
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14
     
    Sharp decrease in information skills.
vnarvaezfullsail

The 4 Negative Side Effects Of Technology - Edudemic - 0 views

www.edudemic.com/ive-side-effects-of-technology

decrease literacy skills education damage

shared by vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Declining Writing Skills Due to the excessive usage of online chatting and shortcuts, the writing skills of today’s young generation have declined quite tremendously. These days, children are relying more and more on digital communication that they have totally forgot about improving their writing skills. They don’t know the spelling of different words, how to use grammar properly or how to do cursive writing.
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14
     
    Declining Writing Skills
Robert Linsenbach

Texting, Twitter contributing to students' poor grammar skills, profs say - The Globe a... - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article4304193

Literacy poor Texting

shared by Robert Linsenbach on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Cellphone texting and social networking on Internet sites are degrading writing skills, say even experts in the field. "I think it has," says Joel Postman, author of "SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate," who has taught Fortune 500 companies how to use social networking. The Internet norm of ignoring punctuation and capitalization as well as using emoticons may be acceptable in an e-mail to friends and family, but it can have a deadly effect on one's career if used at work. "It would say to me ... 'well, this person doesn't think very clearly, and they're not very good at analyzing complex subjects, and they're not very good at expressing themselves, or at worse, they can't spell, they can't punctuate,' " he says.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Texting and social networking have a degrading effect on writing and literacy skills. Punctuation and capitalization is ignored. Emoticons, that can be acceptable in informal online communication, are being used more frequently offline and in professional settings.
  • "Thirty per cent of students who are admitted are not able to pass at a minimum level," says Ann Barrett, managing director of the English language proficiency exam at Waterloo University. "We would certainly like it to be a lot lower." Barrett says the failure rate has jumped five percentage points in the past few years, up to 30 per cent from 25 per cent.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Failure rate is increasing in the past few years from 25% to 30%.
  • Emoticons, truncated and butchered words such as 'cuz,' are just some of the writing horrors being handed in, say professors and administrators at Simon Fraser
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  • "Little happy faces ... or a sad face ... little abbreviations," show up even in letters of academic appeal, says Khan Hemani. "Instead of 'because', it's 'cuz'. That's one I see fairly frequently," she says, and these are new in the past five years.
  • Punctuation errors are huge, and apostrophe errors. Students seem to have absolutely no idea what an apostrophe is for. None. Absolutely none."
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14
     
    Cellphone texting and social networking writing skills
  • Robert Linsenbach on 14 Jul 14
     
    Cellphone texting and social networking on Internet sites are degrading writing skills, say even experts in the field. "I think it has," says Joel Postman, author of "SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate," who has taught Fortune 500 companies how to use social networking. The Internet norm of ignoring punctuation and capitalization as well as using emoticons may be acceptable in an e-mail to friends and family, but it can have a deadly effect on one's career if used at work. "It would say to me ... 'well, this person doesn't think very clearly, and they're not very good at analyzing complex subjects, and they're not very good at expressing themselves, or at worse, they can't spell, they can't punctuate,' " he says.
Robert Linsenbach

Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? | UCLA - 0 views

newsroom.ucla.edu/...logy-producing-a-decline-79127

shared by Robert Linsenbach on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • "Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades."
  • Another study Greenfield analyzed found that college students who watched "CNN Headline News" with just the news anchor on screen and without the "news crawl" across the bottom of the screen remembered significantly more facts from the televised broadcast than those who watched it with the distraction of the crawling text and with additional stock market and weather information on the screen.   These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.
  • Visual intelligence has been rising globally for 50 years, Greenfield said. In 1942, people's visual performance, as measured by a visual intelligence test known as Raven's Progressive Matrices, went steadily down with age and declined substantially from age 25 to 65. By 1992, there was a much less significant age-related disparity in visual intelligence, Greenfield said.   "In a 1992 study, visual IQ stayed almost flat from age 25 to 65," she said.   Greenfield believes much of this change is related to our increased use of technology, as well as other factors, including increased levels of formal education, improved nutrition, smaller families and increased societal complexity.
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  • As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined
  • Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said.
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14
     
    ""Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades.""
  • Robert Linsenbach on 14 Jul 14
     
    Studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary," Greenfield said. "Reading for pleasure is the key to developing these skills. Students today have more visual literacy and less print literacy. Many students do not read for pleasure and have not for decades." These and other studies show that multi-tasking "prevents people from getting a deeper understanding of information," Greenfield said.
amkodya

Is 'texting' destroying literacy skills | drwilda - 0 views

drwilda.com/...ing-destroying-literacy-skills

texting Education technology literacy electronic damage digital refute

shared by amkodya on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Back in the day there was this book entitled “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know.” It was published in 1988 and was written by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Moi liked the concept, some others, not so much. “Cultural Literacy” is defined by Education. Com: Having sufficient common knowledge, i.e., educational background, experiences, basic skills, and training, to function competently in a given society (the greater the level of comprehension of the given society’s habits, attitudes, history, etc., the higher the level of cultural literacy)
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Literacy is defined as having sufficient common knowledge.
  • Middle school students who frequently use “tech-speak”—omitting letters to shorten words and using homophone symbols, such as @ for “at” or 2nite for “tonight”—performed worse on a test of basic grammar, according to a new study in New Media & Society.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Tech-speak is defined as purposely shortening words, combining numbers with letters for abbreviation and using homophone symbols.
  • Drew P. Cingel, a doctoral candidate in media, technology, and society at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., conducted the experiment when he was an undergraduate with the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State University in University Park, Pa. under director S. Shyam Sundar. The researchers surveyed 228 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in central Pennsylvania on their daily habits, including the number of texts they sent and received, their attitudes about texting, and their other activities during the day, such as watching television or reading for pleasure. The researchers then assessed the students using 22 questions adapted from a 9th-grade grammar test to include only topics taught by 6th grade, including verb/noun agreement, use of correct tense, homophones, possessives, apostrophes, comma usage, punctuation, and capitalization.
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  • Mr. Cingel, who published the study while at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Mr. Sundar found that the more often students sent text messages using text-speak (shortened words and homophones), the worse their grammar—a concern as 13- to 17-year-olds send more than twice the number of text messages each month than any other age group.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      The more that students send text messages that use tech-speak, the worse their grammar is. 13-17 year old send more than 2x more text messages then any other group.
  • People get creative in terms of trying to express a lot. The economy of expression forces us to take shortcuts with our expression. We know people are texting in a hurry, they are on mobile devices, and so they are making these compromises,” Mr. Sundar said. “It’s not surprising that grammar is taking a back seat in that context. What is worrisome is it somehow seems to transfer over to their offline grammar skills. They are not code-switching offline.”
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      In order to get a messages across quickly in our fast-paced lives, we're allowing a margin or acceptable errors that seems to be increasing as time goes on. This is starting affect how people use grammar outside of text messages.
  • In that way, students who use tech-speak differ from those who speak multiple languages; multilingual children have been found to switch back and forth easily among their languages in different contexts and may actually be more flexible in other ways of thinking. Tech-speak is similar enough to standard English that researchers believe it may bleed over into different contexts more easily….
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Multilingual and those who speak tech-speak differ. Multilingual's easily switch back and forth between their different languages and are more flexible in thinking. Tech-speakers blend the tech-language into the English language.
amkodya

Technology and Damage to Literacy - 0 views

eserver.org/...Hobbs

technology literacy damage refute

shared by amkodya on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • However, our dependency on technology can also make us lazy. Why bother to strain our eyes reading when the television will tell us about important occurrences and entertain us? Why write a letter when your family member or friend can be talked to directly over the telephone? Avoiding the practice of certain literacies will eventually lower the level of one's literacy. To avoid decreasing levels of literacy caused by technology certain precautions must be taken.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      TELEVISION
  • Raskin argues this point and also states that computers as teachers may be a bad idea. Students may never acquire adequate social skills and also may not learn efficiently if computers are the main sources of instruction. Ogbu writes that minorities may have a disadvantage in educational institutions. Because technology can be used in classrooms more often there is more potential for inequality. The schools with more resources will be able to offer students more technology and an even better education. Technology can damage education and literacy
  • Hirsch says that in order to be culturally literate one only needs to know a certain amount of specific ideas. If there are 5,000 ideas that when known are adequate for understanding a culture then if it were easy to look up these 5,000 ideas on demand the culture would be understood. Raskin proposes that a computer could store a list of these ideas along with descriptions making "it easy for an uncultured person encountering one of the expressions to look it up in the database and get the general picture" ( Raskin, p. 202). Hirsch believes that schools provide the common background, but if a database of cultural references existed then schools would not need teach what the students already have easy access to. The schools could teach the students how to use the database and the students would never need to become culturally literate
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  • Technology does have the potential to destroy cultural,
  • The select group of ideas important to a society must also exist before technology can make memorizing the list pointless. It is only possible for students to be taught so much information in their academic lives and for all schools to collaborate and decide what should be taught would be impossible. In the generation of Hirsch's father the amount of knowledge the world possessed was not as great. The more the world learns the more options there are for subject material taught and the harder it becomes to unify subject material. It is probably true that teaching methods are improving while we learn but it seems like unless there are incredible improvements in teaching there will always be vast amounts of knowledge which cannot be taught in an academic life. Also, if schools go in the opposite direction of Hirsch's desire then the population will have a diverse knowledge instead of equal. Communication may not be as good but there are obviously benefits to diversity. If we ignore certain subjects then we may miss out on making possible discoveries. If Hirsch were successful in getting schools to agree on subject material, then schools might agree that studying certain types of cells in trees is unimportant because more time should be spent on Shakespeare so references and communication could improve. The world of people would lose out on some specific areas of study so people could communicate better. It is possible that by studying a specific tree cell less for the sake of communication could cause a disease cure not to be found if the extra study of cells would lead to a discovery.
  • standard education is important in creating literate adults.
  • Hirsch, in "Literacy and Cultural Literacy," states that standard education is important in creating literate adults. Hirsch believes that "we will achieve a just and prosperous society only when our schools ensure that everyone commands enough shared knowledge to be able to communicate effectively with everyone else" ( Hirsch, p. 32). If everyone has a similar education then communication is made easier because certain things can be assumed. Hirsch uses examples which occur in the US such as knowing about currency and which side of the road one is supposed to drive on. For more complicated ideas, schools are responsible for supplying the knowledge. These direct comments about education and literacy strengthen his position. Schools are the primary sources of background for most people. For instance, Hirsch says that in his father's generation his father could say to his colleagues, "there is a tide" ( Hirsch, p. 9), and because his colleagues all had been educated in Shakespeare's writings his colleagues would know to make some important business decisions
  • as technology continues to improve the imbalances will only increase. The schools which have adequate money will be able to buy computers and other technology which improves education. All public schools are supposed to receive near-equal money from governments but public schools can receive donations from parents and other organizations. Depending on the location of a school the school might receive a lot of money or only a little. Schools located in poor, predominately minority areas such as the schools in Ogbu's examples would be likely to not have adequate money for new technologies. If other students are benefiting from being taught from computers and also are becoming computer literate, a skill applicable in the work-place, then the students lacking technologies will not be able to compete outside of school. The fortunate students will have a definite advantage and the unfortunate students will be even further behind.
  • Raskin fears that a computer could damage students, claiming that "computerized instruction robs the student of the warm human guiding hand, thus dehumanizing the process of education and cognitive development-possibly with unimaginably monstrous long-range consequences" ( Raskin, p. 32).
  • Young students are likely to mimic and acquire attitudes from teachers and experiences, so if the computer "teacher" were to appear mean the student may acquire mean attitudes and act violently towards other students. The computer could act friendly but it would be difficult for a computer to appear personal. The student may learn that computers are friendly and begin to lose trust in humans. Damage such as this, if done at a young age, could inhibit a successful social life for the student. Nonetheless, in the case where human teachers are abusive or violent the computer teacher may be an advantage even if the student acquires some alienation towards other people. Still, the best scenario for young students is for them to have friendly, human teachers. This way the student becomes familiar with interacting with people and receives a "warm human guiding hand."
  • This progression has led software developers to become more advanced but allowed common computer users to be less advanced. The developers' computer literacy must be very high so that the full capabilities of the computer can be taken advantage of and a profitable product can be made. The common user is willing to pay for products which are easy to use but that takes the user farther away from what the computer is actually doing. A user can be naive about how computers work, thus being less computer literate, and still be able to use computers effectively. It is good that technology is becoming more accessible to people but it is bad that this is allowing literacy to decrease. However, it is possible that this decrease in literacy may be acceptable. Higher technologies can be used without the literacy and instead of people spending time learning how to use technology they can spend their time acquiring other knowledge.
  • Technology does have the potential of damaging literacy. If Hirsch is correct about cultural literacy depending on a certain set of ideas then technology may advance to the point where we can use databases constantly and not need have as much knowledge as we do now.
  • students do not need to develop social skills to interact with a computer and may even be damaged from this lack of human interaction. To prevent this, schools should not use computer teaching a majority of the time
  • performance is not hindered regardless of whether or not a student's culture is predominantly oral since "children of illiterate Chinese immigrants have done quite well in American schools" ( Ogbu, p. 4). So if a student of a certain race can become literate independent of what culture he is from then literacy must depend on education. Schools teach the literacy skills needed to compete for jobs: "in modern societies the school is the principal institution adapting children to bureaucratized industrial economy" ( Ogbu, p. 32). If a group of students is not receiving a fair education then that group will not be able to compete in the work-force. If the discontinuities in education are fixed then literacy will improve for the groups which were being hurt. Ogbu has a strength in that he believes that educational institutions provide means for later survival but he also makes it seem like our schools are unfair and it is impossible for everyone to get a good education.
parodyband

Technology, The Root of Depression and Loneliness? | Teen Opinion Essay - 0 views

www.teenink.com/...t-of-Depression-and-Loneliness

technology root

shared by parodyband on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • parodyband on 17 Jul 14
     
    technology can foster lives as if they were cocoons and became butterflies making them aware that they go out their with the ample amount of social skills provided for them. What if there was no technology, there has to be at least one thing that keeps you going through the day, for me it's my cell phone and without that communication to others would be gone and I'm sure that it is the same for a lot of other people. So technology is not always bad it can help our modern day society and our social skills in more way then one.
amkodya

Education World: Does Texting Harm Students' Writing Skills? - 0 views

www.educationworld.com/..._impacts_student-writing.shtml

texting writing literacy technology damage skills

shared by amkodya on 15 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Cyber slang is suspected of damaging students’ writing acumen. Cyber slang is a term used to describe shortcuts, alternative words, or even symbols used to convey thoughts in an electronic document. Because so many digital media limit the number of characters an author can use at a time, students are becoming more creative to get the most out of their limited space. Common cyber-slang terms that have made their way into popular speech include BFF (best friends forever), LOL (laugh out loud) and WTF (what the ____).
  • “I think it makes sense for these social conversations to be lightweight or light-hearted in terms of the syntax,” said President of Dictionary.com Shravan Goli. “But ultimately, in the world of business and in the world they will live in, in terms of their jobs and professional lives, students will need good, solid reading and writing skills.
  • The Times Daily newspaper cites a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life Project, "Writing, Technology and Teens," which found that the cell phone text-based abbreviated communications teens use are showing up in more formal writing.
  • amkodya on 16 Jul 14
     
    address
sharesta

Children who read on iPads or Kindles have weaker literacy skills, charity warns | Mail... - 1 views

www.dailymail.co.uk/...racy-skills-charity-warns.html

decrease reading literacy skills damage technology social digital

shared by sharesta on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust, said: 'While we welcome the positive impact which technology has on bringing further reading opportunities to young people, it's crucial that reading in print is not cast aside.
amkodya

The Future of Reading - Literacy Debate - Online, R U Really Reading? - Series - NYTime... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...27reading.html

literacy technology damage decrease digital reading education refute skills

shared by amkodya on 17 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
  • At least since the invention of television, critics have warned that electronic media would destroy reading.
  • Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Often, they argue, writers on the Internet employ a cryptic argot that vexes teachers and parents. Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sounds, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games or sending instant messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best.
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  • Last fall the National Endowment for the Arts issued a sobering report linking flat or declining national reading test scores among teenagers with the slump in the proportion of adolescents who said they read for fun.
  • According to Department of Education data cited in the report, just over a fifth of 17-year-olds said they read almost every day for fun in 2004, down from nearly a third in 1984. Nineteen percent of 17-year-olds said they never or hardly ever read for fun in 2004, up from 9 percent in 1984. (It was unclear whether they thought of what they did on the Internet as “reading.”)
  • “Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., wrote in the report’s introduction, “they provide no measurable substitute for the intellectual and personal development initiated and sustained by frequent reading.”
  • Critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. “What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” said Mr. Gioia of the N.E.A. “I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests.”
  • Reading skills are also valued by employers. A 2006 survey by the Conference Board, which conducts research for business leaders, found that nearly 90 percent of employers rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with bachelor’s degrees. Department of Education statistics also show that those who score higher on reading tests tend to earn higher incomes.
  • The simplest argument for why children should read in their leisure time is that it makes them better readers. According to federal statistics, students who say they read for fun once a day score significantly higher on reading tests than those who say they never do.
  • Neurological studies show that learning to read changes the brain’s circuitry. Scientists speculate that reading on the Internet may also affect the brain’s hard wiring in a way that is different from book reading.
  • Some scientists worry that the fractured experience typical of the Internet could rob developing readers of crucial skills. “Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,” said Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.
vnarvaezfullsail

Study Says Older Adults Less Negative About PersonalComputers: EBSCOhost - 0 views

web.a.ebscohost.com.oclc.fullsail.edu/...detail

digital literacy social contact older adults

shared by vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 14 Jul 14
     
    "TECH TALK Dateline: MUNCIE, IND. In a 10-year span from 1989 to 1999, older adults grew less uneasy using personal computers but were still wary of social changes caused by technology, a Ball State University study reports. A survey of 94 people 60 years and older in 1999 found 39.4 percent said they would never learn how to use a personal computer as compared to 66.3 percent in 1989. The study, compiled by Ball State sociology professors Dr. Ione DeOllos and Dr. David Morris, updates a previous report by Morris done in the late 1980s when personal computers were relatively new in the average American home and business. The updated study is expected to be published in the Journal of Educational Technology Systems. "In 1989 the personal computer was not nearly as widespread, less understood and more of a mystery to older adults," DeOllos says. "These people had not grown up with the computer revolution and were less likely to own or use a computer. "The 1999 response suggests ambivalence in attitudes which may simply be predicated by more exposure, contact and experience," she added. When asked if some people can't be taught computer skills, agreement dropped from 62.2 percent in 1989 to 42.4 percent in 1999. "This reflects attitudes toward other people and may simply be indicative of real-life experiences such as community learning programs," DeOllos notes. When it comes to the social significance of computers, however, older adults believe that computer technology is damaging personal relationships. In 1989, 26.6 percent of the respondents agreed that computers isolate people by preventing normal social contact. In 1999, 50.6 percent agreed with the statement. "While computers may facilitate some forms of social contact, it appears that respondents are concerned that close, person-to-person, face-to-face relationships are suffering," DeOllos said. ~~~~~~~~ By Ronald Roach"
amkodya

10 Ways The Internet Is Destroying You - Listverse - 0 views

listverse.com/...the-internet-is-destroying-you

literacy technology facebook electronic digital damage refute

shared by amkodya on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Email, videos of cats falling over, frivolous list-based websites—there’s no-denying that the Internet has given us some pretty wonderful things. However, all this awesomeness comes at a cost, and that cost is the destruction of our minds, sanity, and social lives. That’s right: For all the good it’s done, the Internet has the potential to make us very miserable, very angry, or very dead.
  • 10 Email Is Addictive (Just Like Gambling)
  • The trouble is, email follows something called the “variable interval reinforcement schedule,” which is the same process that drives gambling addiction. In both cases, you perform an action (check your email or put a coin in the machine) in the hopes of receiving a reward (an interesting email or a whole lotta money). But that reward only comes at unpredictable times—causing you to perform the first action more and more frequently. It’s one of the strongest habit-training methods known to man, and nearly everyone who owns a computer has been subjected to it for years. 
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  • 9Facebook Makes You Miserable
  • according to science, it’s making us all miserable.
  • Facebook usage for two weeks while simultaneously keeping tabs on their mood. They found that frequent users reported lower life-satisfaction both at the end of the fortnight and after individual visits to the site. In other words, a single visit to Facebook was roughly the equivalent of watching a puppy get punched for four hours—but the bad news doesn’t stop there. A separate German investigation discovered that the primary emotion felt by young people on Facebook is envy—as in, proper green-eyed, bile-spitting, rage-inducing envy. The theory goes that most of us inflate our achievements and happiness on our profiles, but somehow miss the logical assumption that everyone else is doing it too.
  • 8We Get Twitter Rage
  • Chinese researchers studied over 70 million posts on Sina Weibo (China’s version of Twitter) to see how different emotions spread across the network. They found that anger utterly trounces every other emotion for getting retweeted—leaving joy, disgust, and sadness trailing in its wake. Now, the study obviously only looked at Chinese users, but a quick non-scientific glance at the sort of topics trending on Twitter suggests it applies over here too. In short, social media is steadily making us less happy and more angry. But that’s not all it’s doing.
  • 7Facebook Also Makes You Racist
  • We all know that the Internet is a breeding ground for racism; anyone who thinks otherwise can try spending an hour or so surfing YouTube comments and report back.
  • A recent study looked at the links between social media use and racism and found that people who spend a lot of time on Facebook are more likely to be accepting of prejudice. Researchers set up a fake profile for a fictitious white guy named Jack Brown, then asked participants to rate how much they agreed with his statements. One statement claimed that whites were superior to blacks, another that whites are victimized by society, while a final one gave examples of anti-black prejudice “Jack” had witnessed. Overwhelmingly, those participants who were frequent Facebook users expressed strong support for the “superiority” statement, i.e., the most racist of the lot. Now, this could simply mean that racists are more likely to frequently use Facebook than us non-racists, but either way it’s a pretty grim result.
  • 6 It Might Make You Dumber
  • In 2009, the journal Science published an overview of studies about the effect of new media on our cognitive abilities. They found that while the Internet can increase “visual literacy skills,” that increase appears to be offset with decreases in other areas, such as critical thinking, inductive problem solving, imagination, and “abstract vocabulary.”
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Offsets critical thinking, problem solving, imagination and abstract vocabulary.
  • we’re becoming dumber in might be more important: Critical thinking and imagination are pretty vital human traits. If we end up trading them in for super-duper “visual literacy skills,” it won’t exactly be the trade of a lifetime.
  • 5It’s Rewiring Our Brains
  • By scanning the brains of 125 students in London, researchers noticed a direct link between the number of Facebook friends the students had and the amount of grey matter in certain regions of their brains. Since these regions are thought to play a part in memory, social interaction, and possibly even autism, this is kinda important. Now, the study can’t tell us for certain whether social media is causing this rewiring or whether people with these different brain structures are simply more likely to flock to Facebook. But there is plenty of evidence that the Internet is affecting the way we behave, so who knows what else it might be doing.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Direct link between facebook friends and grey matter in certain regions of brain. The grey matter plays a part in memory and social interaction.
  • 4It Allows Companies To Influence Us
  • 2 It’s More Addictive Than Heroin
  • Sufferers show symptoms of withdrawal when unable to get online, while those that do seem to undergo a process in their brains that’s near-identical to that experienced by cocaine and heroin addicts. That’s right: Using the Internet every single day apparently effects your brain very similarly to shooting up behind a dumpster.
  • 1Social Media May Destroy Empathy
  • There’s a lot of research out there to suggest today’s youth are way less empathetic than youth 30 years ago—precisely 40 percent less, according to the study cited in that link back there. Students today are less likely to feel for others, to show concern for others, and are significantly worse at prescriptive talking—the ability to perceive other people’s thoughts, feelings, and motivations. No one knows for sure why this is. It could be a wider societal problem, or down to the cultural rise of aggressive individualism, but some think the blame lies firmly at the door of social media.
  • scientists are suggesting that that may be down to social media forcibly slowing our compassion responses.
  • Judging by this list, the entire Internet will be full of miserable, angry idiots shouting their opinions at one another and sadistically reveling in the misfortune of others.
Robert Linsenbach

Impact of the Internet on Critical Reading and Writing Skills - Reading Horizons - 0 views

www.readinghorizons.com/...eading-and-Writing-Skills.aspx

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  • the internet is making us all a little more A.D.D.
  • Experts describe this habit of darting from page to page as "associative" thinking. They have especially noticed this habit in younger children, whom are comparably less focused on studying, reading, and writing then the age group was when measured in the past. This is damaging to reading ability because it decreases our ability to comprehend what we read.
  • Another way researchers believe the internet has impacted our critical thinking abilities is that we now use less reliable sources to learn about new ideas. We often accept any article as fact. They found that students children’s reading abilities now do less research before answering a question. They also found that they trusted their friends for answers more than adults. They attributed this habit being a result of internet exposure, but it could simply be that children are more trusting and less skeptical.
  • Robert Linsenbach on 14 Jul 14
     
    Experts describe this habit of darting from page to page as "associative" thinking. They have especially noticed this habit in younger children, whom are comparably less focused on studying, reading, and writing then the age group was when measured in the past. This is damaging to reading ability because it decreases our ability to comprehend what we read.
amkodya

Adolescent Literacy: An Imperative | Raising Awareness and Finding Solutions for the Ad... - 0 views

teenliteracynow.wordpress.com

literacy technology damage education digital decrease social electronic adolescent solutions awareness

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  • are our schools meeting this demand? In short, no. Or at least, not well enough. As a country we have devoted many resources to early childhood education initiatives that teach children to read. But once students possess these basic skills, they must be taught to interpret the information they read, to think critically, to write clearly, and to communicate effectively. Unfortunately, middle and high school students are not meeting state and national standards for basic reading proficiency, let alone developing higher literacy skills. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 38% of twelfth graders read at or above the proficient level.
  • Promoting adolescent literacy cannot be limited to reading and writing. To be highly literate in our culture involves mastering many different types of literacy- digital, financial, health, media, etc. If a student graduates high school able to read and write, but is unable to use a computer, we would consider their functional literacy limited. Yes, this is an oversimplification, but it serves to illustrate this point: literacy is defined and influenced by cultural and societal standards. And in a consumerist society such as ours, our jobs dictate many of those standards. These jobs demand digital literacy.
amkodya

Destroying literacy | Life is what you make it - 0 views

specialdee.wordpress.com/...destroying-literacy

damage literacy refute technology electronic facebook

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  • Some social critics are of the opinion that the spread of the electronic media is destroying literacy. Standardized test scores of reading and writing ability have in fact gone down in recent years. Are the new media the main cause?
  • the number of hours spent watching television declines as the education levels of viewers rise, but education-related differences in the amount of television use are not large and they have been narrowing
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      TELEVISION
  • Volti notes that Marshall McLuhan was of the opinion that television affected viewers by requiring they use all their senses, that viewing television was not like reading, which is linear. Television is less concerned with sequence than reading.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Studies have shown that television viewing may actually be detrimental to the perceptual development of children who are not already deficient in language ability and visual skills
  • It is my opinion that reading works the brain. I know that when I read, I can use my imagination, I can draw on information I already know, I can absorb new facts and ways of thinking about things. Volti says that reading fosters “imaginative continuations” that televised stories do not (242).
  • Finally, Volti states “There is also a fair amount of evidence that television watching may contribute to underdeveloped reading skills in children” (242).
amkodya

Is Text Messaging Destroying the English Language? A Reflective Essay on Texting and En... - 0 views

www.brighthubeducation.com/...estroying-the-english-language

text literacy technology damage refute digital electronic education skills debate messaging

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  • Is text messaging destroying the English language? Numerous protectors of the integrity of English have certainly suspected so, and such concerns are raised constantly in the media.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Supporters of the integrity of English are claiming texting is destroying the language.
  • There is an increasing concern that the birth of a heavily abbreviated text messaging language could bring about severe problems for the English language in the near future. One could argue that such fears are founded upon mere parochialism among the middle class, yet the evidence to suggest that text language is having a detrimental impact upon English is highly compelling. Journalists across the globe have condemned the casual usage of text language in formal mediums such as emails, yet the world only seems to have recently started to take notice. Could it be that the prevalence of text language is leading not only to poor spelling but also to the death of the English language as we know it?
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Casual text language is moving to more formal platforms such as e-mail. The effects of text language include poor spelling and dwindling of the English language. There is loss in translation from English language to text language.
  • It is a recognized fact, of course, that text language can be a quick and efficient method of communicating with one another in an informal environment. Abbreviations such as ‘tbh’ instead of ‘to be honest or ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ are certainly practical ones in the hectic lifestyles of the denizens of the twenty-first century. There simply isn't the time to write messages in full, many will argue, yet it is feared that these lazy spelling forms are gradually penetrating the official English language.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      The fast nature of text messaging is causing increased abbreviations.Text language is efficient but not formal. Hectic schedules mean less time spent on proper grammar and spelling. Abbreviations allow people to be lazy and actually turning into the norm for the English language.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • numerous employers have complained of the sheer volume of job applications they receive written in text language [1]. In particular they note that many applicants have a tendency to speak informally and use text message abbreviations, giving the impression that they are corresponding with an old friend rather than a potential employer. Such prospective applicants seem therefore poorly educated, lazy, and unprofessional. Needless to say, in most cases such applications are thrown in the bin and never thought of again.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      People who talk in text abbreviations are viewed as poorly educated, lazy and unprofessional. Texting language is not always appropriate. It is informal and it is as if corresponding with friend rather than a professional peer. Future employers do not hire those who are informal and use the lazy text language.
  • this casual, lazy usage of text language outside of the world of mobile phones is becoming something of a contagious disease. Phrases such as ‘lol’ and ‘k’ (meaning ‘laugh out loud’ and ‘okay’ respectively) are being used increasingly in speech and in email correspondence. The result is that many employees and prospective employees appear highly unprofessional in the work place, particularly when corresponding with their superiors.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 15 Jul 14
       
      Text language is being used in the work place and makes businesses look unprofessional. Text language should not be used when conversing with a superior.
chester312

Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological gadgets impair learnin... - 0 views

www.slate.com/...d_technological_gadgets.3.html

literacy technology damage education skills decrease

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  • Meyer, of the University of Michigan, worries that the problem goes beyond poor grades. “There’s a definite possibility that we are raising a generation that is learning more shallowly than young people in the past,” he says. “The depth of their processing of information is considerably less, because of all the distractions available to them as they learn.”
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      The coming generation is learning more shallowly due to all the distractions available to them
  • Two years ago, Rosen and his colleagues conducted an information-age version of the marshmallow test. College students who participated in the study were asked to watch a 30-minute videotaped lecture, during which some were sent eight text messages while others were sent four or zero text messages. Those who were interrupted more often scored worse on a test of the lecture’s content; more interestingly, those who responded to the experimenters’ texts right away scored significantly worse than those participants who waited to reply until the lecture was over.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      Rosen and his colleagues conducted an information-age version of the marshmallow test. College students who participated in the study were asked to watch a 30-minute videotaped lecture, during which some were sent eight text messages while others were sent four or zero text messages. Those who were interrupted more often scored worse on a test of the lecture's content; more interestingly, those who responded to the experimenters' texts right away scored significantly worse than those participants who waited to reply until the lecture was over.
vnarvaezfullsail

TV found to have negative impact on parent-child communication and early literacy compa... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...110914122317.htm

technolgy television

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  • Since the first television screens lit up our living rooms scientists have been studying its affect on young children. Now scientists have compared mother-child communication while watching TV to reading books or playing with toys to reveal the impact on children's development. The results show that watching TV can lead to less interaction between parents and children, with a detrimental impact on literacy and language skills.
  • The team found that when reading a book with their children parents used a more active communication style, bringing the child into contact with words they may not hear in every day speech, thereby improving their vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. In contrast watching TV resulted in significantly fewer descriptions and positive responses than mothers playing with toys. "Reading books together increased the maternal communication beyond a level required for reading, while watching TV decreased maternal communication. This is significant when we consider the amount of time young children spend watching TV. In some cases children are left alone to watch TV, missing out on any parental communication at a critical stage in their development," concluded Nathanson.
  • vnarvaezfullsail on 16 Jul 14
     
    Television Impact
vnarvaezfullsail

Television and Literacy - 0 views

eserver.org/...smetana

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  • There are other studies that support the theory that watching television does decrease literacy. In 1976, the National Assessment of Education Progress found that teenagers who watched three hours of television the night before an exam scored significantly lower than those who watched less than 60 minutes of television. (Hornik 195) The students who watched three hours of television scored a 59% compared to the 69% of the ones who only watched one hour. (Hornik 195) The number themselves are not striking; however, the similarities with the homework are more surprising. The same group of teenagers scored a 58.5% when they did not do homework and a 72% when they had done homework. This shows an interesting relationship between time spent watching television and time spent in academic studies. The National Assement study gives credibility to the displacement hypothesis. Two other studies observed similar effects. The California State Department of Education conducted a study in 1980, that showed that television caused a "relatively sharp decline on mathematics, reading, and written expression examinations at both the 6th and 12th grade levels". (Hornik 195) The second study conducted by Morgan and Gross found correlation between television hours with each reading ,mathematics, and language competencies. The study found correlations of -0.20 for the sixth through ninth graders that participated. (Hornik) The important point in the past studies is that television affects not only literacy but also mathematics, and language skills. This is the strongest evidence yet that supports the displacement theory, along with the Alwin and Hall studies this is the strongest evidence yet for the displacement theory.
chester312

Multitasking while studying: Divided attention and technological gadgets impair learnin... - 0 views

www.slate.com/...d_technological_gadgets.2.html

literacy technology education damage skills decrease

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  • David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan who’s studied the effects of divided attention on learning, takes a firm line on the brain’s ability to multitask: “Under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. It can happen only when the two tasks are both very simple and when they don’t compete with each other for the same mental resources. An example would be folding laundry and listening to the weather report on the radio. That’s fine. But listening to a lecture while texting, or doing homework and being on Facebook—each of these tasks is very demanding, and each of them uses the same area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex.”
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      "Under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. It can happen only when the two tasks are both very simple and when they don't compete with each other for the same mental resources. An example would be folding laundry and listening to the weather report on the radio. That's fine. But listening to a lecture while texting, or doing homework and being on Facebook-each of these tasks is very demanding, and each of them uses the same area of the brain, the prefrontal cortex."
  • The moment of encoding is what matters most for retention, and dozens of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when our attention is divided during encoding, we remember that piece of information less well—or not at all.
    • amkodya
      amkodya on 16 Jul 14
       
      dozens of laboratory studies have demonstrated that when our attention is divided during encoding, we remember that piece of information less well-or not at all.
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