“How many hours do you spend on your digital-media device?” This question seems like always appearing around me in this several years. And it seems like my answer keeps increasing. It has increased from 2 hours to 3 hours, 3 hours to 4 hours, 4 hours to so many. Now I think my answer is: almost every moment.
“Networked and programmable media are part of a rapidly developing mediascape transforming how citizens of developed countries do business, conduct their social lives, communicate with one another, and-perhaps most significant—think.” (Hayles, 1)
Without a question, media are transforming our ways of communicating with each other. For example, we used to contact our teachers in person. After email was invented, we contacted out teachers via email. Nowadays, (I don’t know if it only happens in EMAC major) we contact our teachers via Twitter. Anyway, the way of communication has changed.
Media are changing the way of learning as well. Today, most children read electronic books. Readers even purchased books online, and just purchased mobile apps to read on their mobile devices.
So what else? Abundant examples can be provided.
Hayles’ passage also mentioned about “multitasking”. Younger generations are “alternating homework with listening to music, using computers, reading, and watching TV” (Hayles, 3). “Multitasking” also affects students and professors. Why? Let me take an example. During the lecture, how many students are alternating lecture with paying attention to their mobile devices? I think this question answers why Hayles indicates that “efficiency declines so significantly with multitasking” (Hayles, 3).
It makes me to remember that I watched one TV show, which talked about how social media harm the business corporations. This TV show indicated that some corporations need to pay more over-time salary due to the declined efficiency. So why did the efficiency declined? One of the reasons was that workers keep paying attention to Facebook during their office hours, and they were not able to complete their task during the regular office hours. What a funny TV show.
And so how do the media transform out social lives? Let me take one of my daily-life examples. Sometimes I hang out with my friends at one place, let say a restaurant. The first thing we usually do is not seeing what food is available on the menu. What we do is to take out an iPhone, and open the Facebook app, and then “check-in”, and tag the friends who are here.
So how many hours do you spend on your digital-media device?
Tags: attention, EMAC6300, mobile device, multitasking
November 6, 2010 at 11:58 am |
You identify several different ways in which social media are impacting our lives and our attention patterns – the way we communicate with teachers, the way we read, impacts on productivity in the workplace, and the way we socialize. In the future, consider selecting one example and exploring it more in-depth.
In any one of these examples it would be interesting to think more about the impact of social media. Does Twitter communication change the relationship between teacher and student? Are the increase in e-books and mobile e-readers indicative of our desire to retain some of our “deep” activities? etc.
December 1, 2010 at 1:13 am |
I agree that our devices have become, like McLuhan says, an extension of our bodies, and for some literally since sometimes it never leaves our hand. I think this new technology has definitely created a different way of communicating and interacting with others, and it will continue to change it.