Teachers and Students

According to:

(http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html)

“The teacher is no longer the center of attention as the dispenser of information, but rather plays the role of facilitator”.  With the use of technology students can teach themselves, make their own decisions and evaluate themselves.  The teacher plays a much more passive role while the students are much more active.  As opposed to a few years ago, students didn’t have the ability to teach themselves these subjects and topics.  Now they have the technology to do so.  They can take their work home with them and learn on their own time.  This reversal of the student/teacher role has impacted learning and development.  It is changing the way schools are teaching.  Technology is much more common in the classroom than ever before.

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Social Interactions

According to:

(http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/excerpts/technology-can-have-positive-and-negative-impact-on-social-interactions)

Games and television have the impact of social interactions.  The articles states, “web sites have been found to be an avenue for people to display their narcissistic traits online”.  With gaming in particular preteens have established a way of life in which all their free time is spent alone, on the computer or television monitor.  By not making personal connections they are contributing to the idea that the world revolves around them and their needs.  Gaming is isolating.  Although they have the ability to talk to another gamer, it is through the interface.  It is not a personal connection.  However, an adolescent might be enrolled in sports and use video games as a form of escape from the real world.  Either way their brain development has changed within the last ten years.  Growing up, I did not have the option to choose real life or fantasy.  I have to choose real life every time.  With television, social interactions are diminishing because watching televisions is also isolating.  Although there might be an instance when families come together to watch, mostly television is done as a form of relaxation.  This time is usually spent at a time when you do not feel like interacting with anyone.  There is a difference between choosing television as a form of entertainment and relaxation or choosing it as a form of interaction among groups of people.  Either way people have been affected by the increasingly more hours of television watching. 

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Writing Skills

According to:

(http://www.edudemic.com/the-4-negative-side-effects-of-technology/)

The writing skills of children today have quickly gone down.  Teachers and parents do not spend as much time working with their children on these particular set of skills.  With the help of autocorrect, language and writing skills are not as important as they used to be.  Since there are computers and iPads in schools now, students do not write long hand as much anymore.  They do not have the emphasis on learning to write cursive, like we used to as children.  Their book reports are all done on the computer.  Therefore their writing, spelling and artistic skills are diminishing. 

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Richard Serra

While discussing the affects technology (television specifically), has had on people:

“You are the product of TV.  You are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer.  He consumes you.”

With these comments Serra means to say that television controls you.  It grabs hold of your interests and sucks you into the world of advertisements and consumers.  Television is modified to fit your interests.  Shows are broadcasted simultaneously with advertisements.  They are targeted toward a specific audience.  For example, if you are watching a show made for children the advertisements are targeted toward capturing the child’s attention.  The child then wants to purchase this item and passes the message on to their parents.  By intriguing young children the entire family is suddenly in this tangled web of consumerism.  All day the television just spews out information.  This information is modified to fit your needs and targeted toward a specific audience.  The delicate act of capturing an audience is what makes watching television so successful.  Even with TiVo, audiences still consume the information projected onto them.  They recognize commercials based on catch phrases, songs, colors, actors and materialistic items.  Advertisers have done their job even if we have the ability to fast forward.  Television surrounds us.  Whether it is in a restaurant, at the doctor’s office, on at a friend’s house, or just playing in the background we subconsciously absorb these pieces of information.  Serra concludes his research with discussing propaganda and corporations.  He says, “you pay the money to allow someone else to make the choice”.  This goes to show that propaganda and advertisements are out of our hands. 

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