CHAPTER 5: UNDERSTANDING YOUTH AND DIGITAL MEDIA

                This chapter basically challenges teachers and other adults to re-evaluate the way they consider young people and how they learn/interact with technology. The author discusses the many ways that the youth of today are actually still very much like the youth of yesterday, they just happen to communicate their angst by way of different forms of technology. Something of interest that the author discusses is the effort put into texting, which is a huge form of communication amongst young people. She proposes that even though many text and instant messages composed by the younger generation appear sloppy and almost without any thought, are actually very controlled contributions so as not to seem vulnerable to their peers. Later in the chapter, some examples of how the media sources students use most can be used to engage them in learning.

                I have to be honest; it is difficult for me to see kids on cell phones constantly. I am open-minded enough to realize that yes they can be beneficial—I really did like the way the teacher used email and instant messaging as ways for her students to interact about literature. I did find this chapter interesting in that I had not thought about the way students spend their time texting and IMing today, really is similar to how my younger sister used to spend two hours or more at a time on the phone talking about really nothing. I guess my struggle is that, yes they are communicating and that’s great but are they forgetting how to speak to others and hold meaningful conversations? A lot of the verbal cues are lost when you cannot hear how someone says something. Emoticons cannot replace true emotion. I suppose, as I observe others out in the world on their phones, I am always curious about whether we are losing touch with one another even though we are more connected than we have ever been. (An example of this—I eat out a lot and enjoy watching people. I can’t count the times I have been in a restaurant and observed a couple sitting at a table where they are both on their cell phones texting others. I assume they are texting others, it would be really sad if they were sitting across from one another and texting each other instead of talking. So what I see, is that people are present, but they are not there with you, they are not engaged.)