Unit
3 Reflection
In
this third and finally unit I really gained a more full and in-depth insight
into my topic as well as the inquiry of the entire class. At the beginning of
this class I thought what “Technology and Identity” really meant. As I
brainstormed I kept coming back to the issue of how individuals in college are
always looking on their phone and their laptops whilst in class. So this
spurred me into doing a lot of research in this area. I began to find studies
that showed that more and more college students were spending more of their
time on their devices. Additionally, I found that the increase in the use of
mobile technologies was actually lowering the average human attention span. As
I dove deeper into the concept of technology and its effects on the human
attention span I started to wonder about what other negative impacts could technology
be having on society. That’s when I started to peace together that socially
humans were becoming less and less physical in their interaction. This had not
been clear to me the entire first Unit as well as most of the second. However
whilst writing my Unit 2 research paper a decided that it was necessary to add
in.
In
the first Unit I really had no idea what my target audience was going to be.
However, when I arrive on the audience of college students during Unit 2, it really
helped me to focus in on what I really want to be saying that will directly
relate to college students. I decided to turn my argument into something more
of a critique of the modern college student as well as how technology has
affected them. Being a college student really helped me when crafting my
project because I knew what facts and points would resonate with my audience. I
was able to add in different aspects to my project that I knew would be
digestible as well as informative to my target audience.
When
it came to deciding which medium to present my research to my target audience
through I decided to use Microsoft PowerPoint. Yes, it might not have been the
most creative and outgoing medium to choose, but I knew that if one can make a
PowerPoint correctly it is the best, or one of the best ways to effectively
present information to an audience. Additionally,
college students are accustomed to viewing PowerPoint slides in their daily
lectures. So they are accustomed to digesting the information in a slide
format.
When
completing my Unit 1 and Unit 2 portfolios I received a lot of helpful comments
and feedback that really helped me develop my ideas. One good comment that I
received stated,
“I liked this breakdown of
technology and the way it specifically affects our generation. We were the
first to really grow up with cell phones in our hands all through our middle
and high school years, which definitely changed our social development. I
always notice similar things when walking around campus, everyone has ear buds
in and is looking down at their phone and I'm guilty of it too. I thought the
initial comparison of our attention spans to a goldfish's and how much it has
dropped was a very good use of an introduction because that is shocking so it
makes you want to read more. I also liked your use of quotes and thought you
did a good job of "unpacking" them like the rubric says to.” (Nate
Moffitt comment on Unit 2 paper)
This comment isn’t necessarily feedback in the sense that
it was stating areas in my paper in which I should change. However, this
comment really came at a time when I was unsure of what idea to do. This
comment reassured me that the topic I was heading towards was something that
was applicable to college students and society as a whole. Another helpful
comment that I received stated:
“I really like this
introduction, but I think that I'm missing the link between your pitch and the
intro of your paper. Make sure to include the difference between the
"writing a note" and being on your phone, from the pitch. Also make
sure to avoid comma splices. Your source seems really interesting so far, and
I'm excited to see where you are going to go with the rest of this paper: maybe
having that "roadmap" somewhere in the intro of your paper would help
to see where the reader is going to be taken with your ideas.” (A Wilson
comment on Unit 2 rough draft)
This comment really help tie all my facts and ideas
together into one full project that flowed nice and smooth through one idea to
the next. Additionally, this person helped me a lot with my grammatical and
spelling errors within my research paper.
Lastly this comment was given by the same person as the
previous one (A Wilson) in response to my Unit 2 pitch. It stated,
Make sure to spell-check
again. You can also delete "however" from the 5th sentence. Add
commas to make sentences more clear, again in the 5th sentence. You need a
qualification for "Technology has shortened the average attention span of
teens and young adults". You need a "so" in this sentence,
because it could be more effective if you had a reason why this was important
to your overall paper, as well as in the pitch as a whole. You can link this
sentence to the second to last sentence with a comma to give it that
"so". You also don't need the semicolon. Generally, I really like
your ideas for this paper. – AW
Other than attending to my grammatical errors in my pitch
this comment really helped my address what I was writing about. Previously I
was only really writing about how technology was lowering the attention span of
humans. But after the comment I turned my writing into more of how that change
in attention was affecting society. This was the “so” that I was addressing in
my paper. This comment really helped me steer my project into what it is now.
As
previously stated I translated my Unit 2 research paper into an informative
PowerPoint presentation to be presented along with my narration to my target
audience. When opening my presentation, I gave a fact that opened many people’s
eyes due to its absurdity. The fact that opens my presentation is one that will
draw my audience in and it is that “The human attention span has actually
decreased over the years and is now lower than a goldfish’s attention span.” (Unit
3 presentation) Now that I was able to capture my audience I can really address
the real problem, which is how technology is shortening the human attention
span and changing the social dynamic of this modern society. I was able to
convert many of the facts that I had drawn from my research into info graphics
which I used to visually represent my argument. I felt that by doing this it
would be a more effective way of showing my target audience verses telling
them.
The
reason for me doing this presentation and choosing this topic is because I
would hope that after viewing my presentation and reading my Unit 2 paper my
target audience would understand what technology is doing to society and maybe
attempt to use their phones less. In this project I am not trying to argue that
technology is bad for society, because it definitely is. I just want them to
understand that using certain types of technology such as phones and laptops
excessively is actually affecting them in ways they may not expect. I hope that
after viewing my project individuals will go out and explore the world and meet
people verses keep their attention, and in a way their life, in the virtual
world of the internet. The world is a beautiful place filled with many
interesting people, why not go and see what it is all about?
