JinLee Gunvalson Reflection on Third Edition The intro to my paper is where I struggled the most and is what caused multiple missed points as the reader has no clear idea what direction the paper is headed in.. To fix that I added a sentence to help clarify the direction I wanted the reader to go. While this isn’t a thesis driven paper, the sentence added helps delineate my purpose and theme. Transitions were added between paragraphs and some of my sentences didn’t flow right as you read the paper. It felt like there was something needed to explain the sentence before or connect it to the next sentence. I added an ending sentence to my fourth paragraph to help transition into my next argument which was needed to help the fullness of my essay. My arguments felt half developed and I left the paper on a very open-ended note which can sometimes be okay, but the note I left it on was unexpected. This was because I didn’t clearly provide a theme / main topic and as I read the paper I realized that what I wrote about didn’t correlate to the ending provided. So, I changed it to a more reflective comment about my experiences. Thus, making a better ending to the paper. Another part of my paper that was underdeveloped was the scenario I had with my Dad and how it surprised me. This couldn’t have been noticed because I neglected to include the specifics about why I was surprised. Which was that my Dad and I had a conversation about something I learned from Reddit. To write a complete paper I needed a final scenario that ties up all the experiences I had with tech. What’s better than talking to people online for weeks on end, but then never meeting them in person. It provides the reader with a real life everyday scenario. JinLee Gunvalson Packard, UCOR 1100-18 Paper #1 Third Edition Nov 27, 2018 The Positive and Negative Sides of Tech When I started middle school, I thought everything was going to be fun and enjoyable, especially my classes. But as I started seventh grade something just didn’t feel right. Everyone seemed distracted by one thing: their phones. Soon, the cool thing to have was an iPod Touch or even an iPhone, and it was hard for me to comprehend why I wanted one so bad - especially when I knew I didn’t need it. That is what I thought about technology at first, but as I grew up my life almost revolved around it. Tech quickly became a daily part of my life and I was unsure how to handle it. In seventh grade there were many occasions where kids would take out their phones even after they were told to put it away. The teacher would then intervene, give a lecture on the school’s phone policy, and before I knew it, class was over, and we had spent half of it talking about phones. Eventually this problem escalated and disrupted my learning so much that my parents came in and talked to the principal about it. The problem was unable to be solved, so I stuck it out until I eventually switched to a different private high school. Going to this new school required me to ride the bus, which also meant I had to coordinate rides between my parents, older brother and younger sisters, who all had places they needed to be. Next in my complicated schedule was sports, which I had almost every day after school and sometimes they ended early or ran late. Everyone was in different places at different times and our only form of communication was our cellphones. Unfortunately, they didn’t work all the time, so we blamed each other for not reading the texts we never received. They did however, help my family get through times of stressful transportation. My phone also helped me stay in touch with my group of middle school friends that I left behind once I enrolled in a school 45 minutes away. We would play video games together online, and if it wasn’t for the internet, I don’t think we would have stayed in touch like we did. Sure, we would’ve still been friends, but not to the same level that we are now. My cellphone instantaneously became a necessity, like a wallet. Being in high school with a phone and constant access to the internet changed how I perceived things. As I tracked how I spent my time throughout the day, I saw that I was accessing the internet for at least twelve hours and my social life wasn’t the same because of this. In Daniel Goleman’s book, Focus, Goleman says, “Our social capital— and range of attention — increases as we up the number of social ties through which we gain crucial information, like tactic knowledge of ‘how things work here’…” (Goleman 20). After four years of spending that much time connected to a world outside of my own, my dreams and visions of what I wanted in life changed. Like most kids, I just wanted a simple life and didn’t have huge dreams. But now that I can see what everyone else has and watch videos of other peoples’ lives, it’s just like I’m a little kid again - I want it. I feel hyper focused on materialistic things: crazy cars, expensive jewelry, and cool clothes. My whole mindset has changed because the internet provided me with an endless feed of media. My motivation in life wasn’t what it used to be, my main reason was about respecting my parents and their sacrifices. While those are still very important to me I want to be successful, but because I want to buy anything I want. That mindset developed from watching countless hours of people online show off their possessions. Eventually making me feel sucked into wishing for things I might never have. I lose sense of who I truly am and like in Bosker’s article, “The Binge Breaker,” Tristan Harris says: “In short, we’ve lost control of our relationship with technology because technology has become better at controlling us” (Bosker). After becoming a daily user of social media, I feel this need to constantly be aware of who or what is trending. Whether it’s a sport highlight everyone is talking about the next day, or some celebrity doing stupid things, suddenly everyone – even those not interested in football or singers – knew about what they did. For example, in 2017 the rapper Lil Peep died of a Xanax pill laced with fentanyl and the whole world seemed to know. Even my Dad, who could care less about some rapper dying, read about it on a news site. On the other hand, I found out about his death on Instagram then immediately went to Reddit to learn more. Somehow, it became the topic at the dinner table and to my surprise I had a full discussion about the actual use of fentanyl with my phycologist Dad. This time, the presence of technology struck me because I learned firsthand that 42-yearold parents know what’s trending…even if they don’t like your taste in music. After becoming aquatinted with technology and knowing the ins and outs of my favorite sites. It was time to use it for my future. I needed friends and a roommate for college, so I posted about myself on the school administrated class of 22’ Facebook page. I met some cool and interesting people before school started, but this was all online. The real test came during the inperson meetup, which was a little nerve racking for me because my persona online is true to who I am. Sometimes you wish for the person to be different than who they are online because it’s now normal to judge someone just based on their social media. Some of the meetups went well and we’re great friends…while others didn’t happen at all and we just stopped talking. After about 6 weeks of being in college I ran into one of the people who I used to talk to on Snapchat, but it’s because they were friends with my roommate. They met through computer programming class, which we were all in together. Meeting him was surreal because I forgot about the conversations we had right up until that moment of properly introducing ourselves. Being around technology during what lots of people call a critical growth age changed who I am. At first, I hated how much it interrupted my learning, and wanted to get away from it. Then just like that, my phone became essential in my life because it’s a vital way of communication. As it became essential however my motives for wanting success were no longer for just pride, it was the materialistic items and they flooded my mind. Through my tech filled life though, one thing I learned is that it’s only going to become more advanced and more prevalent in my life. So, I’m going to have to do the same thing – adapt. Works Cited Bosker, Bianca. “The Binge Breaker.” The Atlantic, Nov. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/. Goleman, Daniel. Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. 2015, pp. 20–20.
