Amanda Brown
Mrs. McDaniel
Technical Reading & Writing
22 May 2014
Ignorance is Not Bliss
My childhood consisted of little technology. My days were spent constantly climbing the
tall tree in my front yard, exploring my miniscule backyard, getting lost in books, and pretending
that I was good enough to be a cheerleader as I practiced cheers alongside my prissy cheerleader
neighbors. Having over-protective parents, I was never given internet access as a young child.
The first time I was allowed to use the computer, my step father hastily set up parental settings
so I would not stumble upon something deemed inappropriate by his standards. As my step
father watched over my shoulder as I waddled around and met new friends on clubpenguin.com,
I could not help but feel severely annoyed by the overwhelming amount of surveillance that I
was receiving. Growing up, I have become thankful that my parents were so overprotective about
my access to the internet (and their efforts to push me out of the house and enjoy the outdoors).
Although my generation is considered to be Digital Natives, I grew up paying little attention to
digital technologies. The amount of time that I had spent not focusing on technology has allowed
me to increase my literacy from an early age, my imagination through the books that I have read,
and the time that I had spent playing imaginary games around my house. My capacity to hold
childish conversations with my peers was also impressive, considering that I had never been a
fan of calling my friends from our bulky home phone. Instead, I talked to them in person.
My childhood experiences have allowed me to open my eyes to the amount of excessive
technology that we are exposed to from a very early age, as it has negatively impacted us in
many ways. As a Digital Native observing my own generation, it is arguable that the enormous
amount of technology that we have access to is diminishing our intelligence, our face-to-face
social interaction, and our narcissism as a whole. Our abilities to create physical and verbal
relationships with one another are also continually being offset by our dependency with texting
and instant messaging. The amount of negative impacts that digital technologies have brought
onto our society is outweighing the positives, at least from a social standpoint.
What exactly is a Digital Native? An official term by the Oxford Dictionary, a Digital
Native is described as a person who was born or raised during the rise of digital technologies,
and therefore tend to use digital technologies such as computers and the internet with ease.
Digital Natives represent the younger generation in our society, but where do older generations
fit into the digital technology lifestyle? Digital Immigrants is a term that represents the older
generations found in our society, because they have not been as heavily exposed to such a large
amount of technology compared to Digital Natives, considering that they have not grown up
around such a vast amount of digital technologies.
Going to an average public elementary school, my educational experience consisted of
white boards with dry-erase markers, yellow pencils, notebook paper, and old, worn textbooks.
This type of education pales in comparison to what younger students are now being exposed to.
Educational practices have changed dramatically with the increase in digital technologies found
in today’s society. Smart Boards and updated computers are making debut appearances in
classrooms across the world. A census conducted by the U.S. government in 2012 even states
that 3 out of 4 households in United States own a computer with internet access, making school
research and information available for many school children. But are they necessarily retaining
as much information compared to previous generations? While students have easier access to
information, we may not be benefiting from the amount of digital technology constantly
surrounding us. For example, text books may soon be replaced with online books, and the
traditional pen-and-paper style of completing assignments may be replaced with personal
computers and laptops altogether. With the amount of technology dominating our school system,
it may be possible that eventually students will do their schoolwork online at home, as online
schools have become increasingly popular in the past decade. But the amount of information that
students have access to is disposable, as assignments are easily completed with a few quick
Google searches. This lack of retained knowledge has contributed to a decreased amount of true
learning overall.
Many would argue that the Internet has allowed us to have access to an infinite amount of
information at our fingertips. Any topic of interest may be viewed within seconds. But are
internet users actually learning applicable or valuable information? A recent publication titled
Our Fragile Intellect by Gerald R. Crabtree suggests otherwise. In Our Fragile Intellect,
Crabtree speculates that human intelligence has peaked over 2,000 years ago, and has since been
steadily declining. According to his publication, our modern high-tech lifestyle has decreased our
intelligence compared to previous generations. This may be associated with the fact that our
personal devices are completing our tasks for us. With spell check associated with many personal
devices and writing software, it is easy for us to rely on machines to correct our spelling errors.
Considering that many students rely on the internet to complete assignments and type countless
reports and papers, it is easy to get lost in the convenience of Google and spell check.
The constant use of social media has also caused Digital Natives to spend less time
interacting with each other, and spending more time online, chatting through instant messengers
and making friends on various social media sites. From personal experience, social media has
allowed me to connect with people that I never would have previously communicated with. It
allows us to build relationships that we would otherwise be too shy to build in person. But this
shyness may be posing as a problem. As we are able to share our emotional feelings with others,
it has become increasingly hard to do so in person. We are not able to express our true feelings to
each other in person. I personally have said things to people over the Internet that I would be too
shy to say to their face, as many introverts share similar experiences. But what happens when
you start to build a relationship with a person and you don't have the skills to verbally express
how you feel?
A recent film by Spike Jonze titled Her touches on subjects that are becoming very real in
today’s society. In the movie, Theodore (the protagonist) falls in love with an operating system,
as he is too introverted to find a relationship in the physical world around him. As he falls in love
with the operating system, which he has named Samantha, he finds comfort in knowing that
Samantha is faceless, making Theodore unable to see the reaction on her nonexistent face or her
body language as he speaks to her:
This conversation is so real for many people who express their feelings to one another
online or through text. The ease of expressing your feelings without the pressure of seeing the
other person’s reaction is comforting to many individuals. In Her, Theodore is able to express his
feelings so easily to Samantha because she is not a human, and she is not physically with him in
person. The situation itself is calming to the protagonist, because he is unable experience social
anxiety with a nonexistent person. The movie Her also correlates well with a recently published
article written by Dr. Scott E. Caplan, titled “Relations Among Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and
Problematic Internet Use,” which suggests that social interaction on the internet may contribute
to an increase in social anxiety amongst frequent Internet users. This only adds to the fact that we
have become a generation that spends an increasing amount of time interacting with each other
online and less time gaining social skills that are necessary in order to succeed in the real world.
A recent article published by the New York Times suggests that we are also becoming
more antisocial with the way that we choose to interact with one another. Examining the book
The Flight from Conversation, it depicts the heavy use of digital technology in a negative tone. A
quote from the article brings to light another issue that has resulted from our lack of face-to-face
social interaction: “A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost
wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a
conversation.” This statement alone is an example of a problem that many humans face. The
constant amount of social interaction taking place online has caused us to lose vital
communication skills in the real world, and may even lead to social anxiety among many others.
Narcissistic traits are also on the rise. Many social media users are concerned with how
they are portrayed by others, especially in the virtual world of social media sites. Their selfadvertisement allows them to connect with others who share similar interests as them, or also to
gain admirers who show support through their likes and retweets. Through likes and retweets,
social media users are able to gain confidence and even feel powerful, as if their self-worth is
related to the amount of publicity that they are receiving online.
A new study conducted by the University of Michigan quotes that “Facebook is like a
mirror, and Twitter is a megaphone” when discussing the frequent use of social media amongst
young adult college students. In the study, researchers found that among college students, those
who posted to social media more frequently were scored higher in certain aspects of narcissism.
The study also shows that narcissistic adults and college students use social media in different
ways to boost their egos, self-confidence, and to control how others perceive them online. This
sense of total control that heavy users of social media use may translate into real world
experiences, where they are viewed as conceited, manipulative, and controlling.
Compared to the lack of digital technologies found in my childhood, children and
teenagers of the current generation are being exposed to new and innovative technologies from a
very early age. This may correlate to a lack of creativity, imagination, unselfishness, and
independence from digital technologies when writing and spelling for future generations. The
amount of information found on the Internet is at our fingertips, but we are not necessarily
retaining enough information. The relationships that we are beginning to form may forever be
defined by how we initially establish our feelings online, which will make it hard for us to
verbalize our feelings for each other when we are not hiding behind a computer screen.
Communication itself has been forever changed by the excess amount of digital technologies
surrounding us. As a Digital Native viewing the changes found in my own society, it is clear that
we must put effort into valuing the amount of information at our hands (via the Internet); we
must try harder to maintain face-to-face relationships; and we must not let our egos get the best
of us as we constantly post online. Though the negative implications of digital technologies have
clearly been defined, it is up to our current generation and future generations in our society to not
let digital technologies define our entire lives.
Works Cited
Caplan, Scott E. “Relations Among Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and Problematic Internet Use”.
CyberPsychology & Behavior. 1 April 2007. Web.
Crabtree, Gerald R. “Our Fragile Intellect”. ScienceDirect. 2 October 2012. Web.
1 January 2013.
Economics and Statistics Administration. “Computer & Internet Trends in America”. U.S.
Census Bureau. 3 February 2014. Web.
Jonze, Spike. “Her Quotes”. Internet Movie Database. 1 January 2014. Web.
Lodge, Jason. “Education in the information age: is technology making us stupid?”. The
Conversation. 2 December 2012. Web. 21 May 2014.
Turkle, Sherry. “The Flight from Conversation”. The New York Times. 21 April 2012. Web.
University of Michigan. “You're so vain: Study links social media use and narcissism”. Science
Daily. 11 June 2013. Web.
“Definition of digital native in English”. Oxford Dictionary. 2014. Web.