So I decided to read the longer text, and honestly towards the end I pretty much just tried to pick up the most important points. While reading though, my mind kept wandering back to the beginning of the school year when we had to do the partner responses and Elvis' post talked a little about the good in technology. I thought "ok so that might be true, but there's nothing beyond that" but this text opened up my mind.
Johnson brings up some very interesting points that I would honestly not think of otherwise. First we find out that reading for pleasure has declined, which wasn't much of a surprise to begin with, but also that people who read are more "active" So I thought "ok this is someone else saying we should read more often"
But I was wrong. Johnson pretty much wants us to see that video games and such could be just as helpful, or even more than reading books. He states "Non-literary popular culture is horing different mental skills that are just as important as the ones exercised by reading books" so video games are actually helpful, they keep our minds thinking , we must "decide, choose, and prioritise" between things in this video world. Even though we still think about the game after playing were actually planning and finding strategies that can help us win.
He claims that there's a four part process that enhances these mental skills as well. These are to probe, hypothesise, reprobe, and rethink. I thought this was very interesting because before I thought of being game being simply addictive, nothing beyond that. It didn't even cross my mind that behind those addictive noises and graphics there was something more. Something that gets us hooked and makes us think, without realising we are actually thinking , or better yet without realising that were thinking in a smart way.
Even though I don't really play video games, I do occasionally fall into the trap of SIMs and the Wii and what not, but I do enjoy reading. I don't think I gain knowledge from doing either though, unless I'm reading a non- fiction text. I read to pass time, enter a different world, kinda the same thing someone who constantly plays video games would do. I think we learn some things but on occasions more then for learning, its more like an escape almost.
Anderson unlike Johnson, does not believe technology brings any good. Feed tells us that teens today are becoming mindless, stupid, dumb beings who don't have emotions and can't feel what life truly is. Its like a game of tug a war, we are being told on one side "stop and realise what's going on! How fucked up your lives are turning out to be!" While one the other side we hear " actually its not that bad." So which side do we listen to, which side do we pull with?
I guess we can be in the middle, learn to balance out, even though were so far failing at it. We can learn that there's always two sides of the story and that one might not necessarily win. Technology will always be around and people will keep debating about its good and bad points.
I still believe technology isn't the best for us though, I mean sure video games can help stimulate mental skills, but what about ipods? Phones? What's the good in that? It seems as though there's so many little sections in the technology issue that can help or not the issue of how good/ bad it is. I don't think one side will ever truly win.
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