Blog # 2 Unflattening our Discourses on Technology- Unpacking Multitasking

First of all, I would like to apologize that this post is submitted late. Now, I decided to do the first part of this blog. Clifford Nass argues that digital multitasking is making us less at tasks like socializing, and makes us less smart than usual. He believes that people are easily distracted and believe that they are able to multitask when in reality; it is difficult to focus when they are switching from one subject to the next or going back and forth between the tasks they are trying to complete. During his study, he divided people into groups and found out that “the people who multitask the most are the ones who are worst at it” (Clifford Nass, CBS news) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-multitaskers-bad-at-multitasking/ .

I have to agree with Nass on his argument. To be honest, I was surprised that the people who said that they multitask the most are the ones that are the worst at it. Also, I found it surprising that “the more media people use the worse they are at using any media.” We think that we are able to multitask, yet in reality, we are not good at doing it. For example, people thought they were able to text and drive that the same time, but in reality they were not able to do so and it resulted in multiple car crashes. When it also comes to multitasking, our mind tends to focus on things that get our attention. For example, when I was in high school, I would watch TV and work on my homework at the same time. However, the more I watched the TV, the more I seemed to forget about my homework assignment.

With all of this in mind, I do believe in the thought that we are distracting ourselves to death. The reason is because people including myself seem to have an obsession over technology and of the different types of media out there. There are times that we feel the need to connect to people online. If they are not able to get online, people try to connect to others using their phones all the time, texting while doing other tasks.  Another example would be my younger brother. He would always be on his phone either checking his email, Facebook account or texting his friends. No matter where I saw him, he was always on the phone even at the dinner table.

The concept of ‘Always On’ pretty much means that people are connected to technology all the time. No matter where people go, there are always distractions of technology. Even I would always get distracted by my iPod and plug in to listen to my music/videos. In high school, I was on the swim team and we went to the State competition. When I had a huge break in between my swim events, I would end up plugging in instead of cheering for my other teammates.

In Nass’ statement, he is lacking in a few dimensions. On the internet, we are able to describe ourselves as a completely different person from what we really are. Giving ourselves a completely different identity. Now, people are having trouble socializing with each other in public since we are not doing that much face to face connections. I think that multitasking is associated with technology because with the wide variety of the different types of technology out there, we want to be on as many as we can. This will definitely affect people when it comes to job interviews.

Blog # 1 Why Study the Internet

The internet is an interesting topic to talk about. There are times that it is easy for us to use and there are times that it isn't. As we study the internet, we will be able to understand it better and be able to navigate through the vast amounts of information coming through the internet. I believe that we study the internet is because we want to know what type of information we could get. Varying from searching for words to define, searching for locations on Earth, even information on the social lives of our friends and family. After careful thinking, I do believe that we are able to extend Foot’s methodology so that we could study social media sites.

When it comes to the internet, people are able to place and remove any type of information that they want.  I believe that we would have to change this in order for people of different ages to use the internet and be able to find what they are searching for without the need to go search for the site and end up with multiple sites with the same word but not the same content.

I do believe that there is a dynamic nature change in the SNS’s. The reason is because SNS’s are expanding and practically everyone has or will have an account on one of these sites. For example, there are a lot of people who have a Facebook, Twitter, or Blog account. As people post their thoughts and links on SNS’s, we are able to immediately find out what is happening. Also, as a society, we have started to connect to people online, making it easier for us to connect with them. For example, most of my classes this semester require me to communicate with my class and teacher through Twitter. So if I ever need additional notes or need to know something that happened in class that I missed, I am able to find out by searching my class tweet. This makes it easier for me than scheduling an appointment with the teacher to know what happened.

If a competitive study between Foot’s post 9/11 and the 2013 marathon bombing were to take place, I believe that it would result with high emotions and tons of feedback describing about the incident and their opinions about it. These events are considered dark days in our history books, and the SNS allows people to go in and express our emotions about the events from sadness to the loss of lives to the hatred and anger on the people that did it to us. Personally, I still believe that the 9/11 postings would still get the most responses. Though both of these events are the result of terrorist attacks, the 9/11 event took place before, took more lives and was an attack that hit deeply when terrorists hit the heart of New York City and it destroyed two of our national buildings. It is still something to remember in the history books.

Introduction

My name is Jeffrey Yalung. I am majoring in DTC with a Fine Arts minor. I am currently a senior and this will be my last semester here at WSU. After college, I plan on getting a career involving animation. One day, I hope to be working with Disney and be working on different types of animations for their films.

For a little background info, I lived in Arizona until I was 12 years old. I moved up to Bainbridge Island, Washington when I was in the 8^th grade and graduated Bainbridge High School in 2010. When I first moved to Washington, I found it quite difficult to adjust from the Desert environment of Arizona to the cold and rainy environment of Washington.  But after a while, I got use to the weather and enjoyed being here.

 In my family, I have an older sister and two younger brothers. My older sister just recently graduated in Spokane with a Nursing degree and now it is my turn to graduate. As for my younger brothers, one of them is in the Air Force Academy and the other is finishing up high school on Bainbridge Island. Thinking back, I keep wondering how each of them are doing.

My hobbies are playing video games, swimming, watching TV, playing music, working on animation and playing the Trombone. I first started playing the Trombone when I was in the 4^th grade. At first, I wanted to play the Trumpet since it was a very popular instrument. However, since I had braces on at the time, it was decided that playing the Trombone would be easier for me to use and after a while, it did and it became my new favorite instrument. With my Trombone, I also decided that I wanted to be in a marching band. So during high school, I joined the marching band and it was a lot of fun to be in. Being able to perform great halftime shows for people at the football game. So much fun that when it came to decide which college I wanted to go to, it had to have at least a marching band to be in. With that in mind, I decided to come to WSU. Being in the Cougar Marching band is a lot more fun than it was with the high school. Here I am able to perform for a lot more people and the games are fun to be at. When it comes to the band we have a saying, “The band always wins”.

As for my animation skills, I have currently made a few clips of animation with the help of the animation classes and the Maya software. Also, I am currently working on two more animation projects for the DTC film festival this semester. I plan on making these projects as best as they can be so that I can impress future employers with my animation skills. I think that this class is going to be interesting  and I am curious to see how much our society/lives depend on technology. I hope to get along with everybody in the class.