I was born prior to most of the modern day technology youth have access to today. Although I was not born into this technology, my early childhood years saw the transition into today's modern technologies. Due to this, I think of myself more as a digital native than a digital immigrant. Though I was born in a time when cellphones and laptops were not quite as ubiquitous as they are today, I spent most of my time with the forms of technology that were available to me. As a 6 or 7 year old, I would play Nintendo 64 or Playstation or Gameboy, which were new and advanced for the time. By the time I was in middle school, I was spending a lot of time on the desktop computer, on websites such as Myspace (shoutout to Tom!). I developed the 'native' skills of twitch speed or parallel processing while going down Wikipedia rabbit holes while playing flash games in another tab.
In Turkle's article "The Flight From Conversation", she shares her perspective on the technological universe that we live in today. She discusses that in our current society, we have sacrificed conversation with each other for simple connection (in the form of our communicative technologies). Though we are all connected together through our cellphones, we are not interacting in the same ways we have in the past. This has left us in a 'Goldilocks' zone according to Turkle, in which we use our technology in order to not be too close and not too far from others. In this zone of disconnection, we can be left feeling alone, with our technologies acting as a crutch we use to fend off the feelings of loneliness while only continuing the problem. She ends her article with a quote that succinctly summarizes her stance on new technologies, "If we are unable to be alone, we are far more likely to be lonely". In Wesch's article, "Anti-Teaching: Conf...
I would agree with you, I also feel as if my digital literacy skills grew as things were evolving around me. I definitely remember playing many classic video games on my Gameboy, and Tom! lol
ReplyDeleteChristian, I totally get where you're coming from. My ColecoVision was put to the test, until I got tired of it. (I have no idea who Tom is though.) And love how you utilized the word ubiquitous. (I actually had to look up that one.)
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