Assessing Assessments

I don't believe my book is scholarly enough. It was written by credible doctors, yet the subject of the book may be a little inappropriate. Indeed it gets my point out in a way, but i'd have to tweak it in a way that the reader would understand why i chose that source. It's a little difficult to find a book that would easily relate to my thesis. The only other book i could think of to support my thesis would be a dictionary or a thesaurus of some sort.

I think i have assessed my resources pretty well but they all still need work. I need to tweak them down to the point that it makes perfect sense of why i chose them, and how it helps my argument. I also think i need more because i don't have enough information for my claim to be accurate. My claim is obvious to any person that has experience with technology, yet writing down on a piece of paper would be difficult without more assessments.

Resources Reflections

1. How did you find your resources?- naturally, i googled them first. For my interview, i chose my mom because she was the first thing that came to mind when i thought about my thesis, and where i wanted to move with my essay. She was always getting on me about not using my brain enough, and how I'm lazy by googling or calculating everything. For my magazine and news paper articles, i went to the library and asked the librarians for help. She helped me by showing me the data base and directing me to where i could find the most sources to back up my thesis. I was not really sure what kind of book to use. I just asked myself, what kind of book would i look for, to look for information. So i looked on my shelf and found the perfect book. The stupidest book yet it taught me a lot.

2. How has research altered your original idea? My original idea was to still focus on college students but how much they cared about their privacy. I started to research and then thought to myself, who really cares about college student's privacy? They don't have a lot of money for identity theft, or novels to publish for a mass amount of money. So why would anyone have research or articles about college student's and how much they care about their privacy? I then thought, college students, including my generation and the generations to come, are too dependent on the things we've had since we were about the age of 14 or 15. I never really had fast internet until i was 16. I always used the library or looked at newspapers and magazines by hand, not by the internet.

newspaper article

http://0-infoweb.newsbank.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated5&p_action=doc&p_docid=0EB7153FD80D4A37&p_docnum=28&p_queryname=1

this article from the san jose mercury news was a great example of how dependent individuals are from their gadgets. For example, the article is to show why a computer may be slow, or how to get rid of certain programs to make your computer running faster, ultimately to save an individual time on a project or just surfing in general. In silicon valley, the dependency is hire than many other cities in the U.S. Most likely because the entire valley itself is famous for its software engineers and latest gadgets. People pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to fix a computer. Why? Because they are dependent on doing things that are so easily accessible. Without a computer, it seems some cannot even function. The question is, what comes next after a computer isn't handy?

Magazine Source

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20270407,00.html

How many of us are obsessed with celebrity news? It is literally for some people quite an obsession. Knowing everything about a favorite celebrity. Knowing where they are, what they've been doing, who've they been dating. Some people have to absolutely know thats been going on with their favorites. Therefore, god invented Magazines to comment, write articles, photograph celebrities that most people are obsessed with.

The hit celebrity story right now has to be the Chris Brown and Rihanna scandal. After Chris Brown was arrested after allegedly beating up Rihanna, people have become obsessed with the story. And now since Rihanna has dropped the charges and gotten back together with Chris, there have been millions of blog posts, emails and letters to Rihanna stating why? and how stupid she could be? Why do these people give such a damn about someone else? Technology has allowed people to access other people's lives 24-7. This article is a good source of showing how becoming obsessed with other people's lives has become its own source of a technological advancement dependency.

personal interview

i decided to interview my mom because she inspired my thesis and she's always getting on me when i use technology to do my homework. Interviewed her on Sunday 4/19/09 5:30pm

Me: Do you believe the youth of this generation has become too dependent on technology?

Mom: Yes because some kids can't even do anything without a computer and its sad.

Me: Why is it sad?

Mom: Because when i was in school, we didn't even have computers. We had to do everything in our head.

Me: Does that still benefit you to this day?

Mom: yes it does, i can still do chemistry calculations in my head, i still memorize formulas from my geometry years, and i am able to attain information quicker and faster than most of 

my coworkers that have grown up in the U.S.

Me: Wow, do you think children should be taught the way you were taught?

Mom: Of course its great that kids are lucky enough to have a calculator do their calculations for them, but its sad when i see kids use their calculators for easy arithmetic problems.

Me: What do you  mean?

Mom: For example, i asked a patient of mine, how old he who was 10 and his brother who was 18 put together was, and he answered he didn't have his calculator.

Thats why when i was teaching you times tables i never let you use a calculator which is why you can zip through problems like that with a breeze.

Me: True. What do you think would be the best solution?

Mom: I think that to a certain age, maybe high school, children should not be allowed to use calculators. It benefits their minds as well as their academics. What harm would it due to teach a child to use their brain then their fingers? I also had to hand write all of my essays, i didn't have Microsoft Word to tell me which words were spelled incorrectly and how my fragments should be put together. I also believe that the more a child uses their brain and hands to do the work, the less dependent they are if anything is to ever happen to their technological advances they have been lucky enough to access.

journal article

The Journal of Mental Health Counseling found that young college students ages 18-22 have become too dependent on the internet and has started to take a tole on their health. For example, since the internet can access just about anything, there have been cases where children as well as young adults have had symptoms of enraged anger, and have taken it out on things in their home or family members as well. The reason not because of the video games causing violence but because children and the youth have become so addicted to these technological advances that their anger is eminent. This source is helpful because it shows they cannot wait to beat the next game or the next guy that it frustrates them so much to take their anger out on their own family members. These doctors of these journals have suggested therapy is the best way to get over these addictions.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-27176666_ITM

blog source

A recent post from digital trends by Doug Mc Lean was rather interesting and interpreted his view on why he and so many others are dependent and addicted to technology.

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talk-back/27/dependency-on-technology

It was a great source because he explained that he realized how much people are dependent on technology. For example, on August 14th 2008, there was a blackout on most of the east coast of the U.S. It was questioned, how many people actually panicked because they didn't have access to their cellphones, computers, or tvs? The world has come to depend on something that rarely existed in previous years. The term face book or myspace didn't even exist. This blog was a great example to see how the youth (college students) of the U.S. have come to be so dependent on technology.

book source

The book that caught my eye had to be "Why do men have nipples?" by Doctor Mark Leyner and Doctor Billy Goldberg.

The book is simply a series of answers to a number of myths or questions people have been asking for years. The reason i chose this source was because i could see that it could relate to students as well as older generations. In the old days, there were always myths about what could happen to a human being depending on the situation. In the old days, you were given one opinion and one opinion only. There were no subjects of question. For example, during the salem witch trials there was no question whether you were a witch or not because if u were thought of being a witch, you'd be put to death.

In the old days there was no media, there was no technology, there were no ways of second to second communication. So in no way could these people ever be able to see or believe in a world that would allow such a new way of living.

There were a couple of humorous yet interesting questions in the book that these doctors were able to answer. For example there was a question that came from an old wives tale. The question was "Is it dangerous to hold a sneeze?". Naturally now, it is obvious that one's head will not exploded if he or she holds their sneeze. Yet because of technology with change in time, it was able to discover this finding and solve this old tale. This book is a great source because its an example of such a world we've come to live in. Because of technology, our doctors are able to answer questions that would most likely be looked at as witchcraft of blasphemy in past years yet we have come dependent on technology to answer these sort of questions that no one would actually depend on to survive.

research questions

I'd like to focus on privacy relating to students from social networking. Yes students from all over use social networking to get help, ideas, or just converse, is this why internet hacking goes up? because everyone is digitally connected as days go by? I'd also like to see the inside of why students sign up for myspace or facebook. There are people out there that just sign up for one day and never use it again. What is the real reason to sign up for these kind of networks?

when signed up to these systems, how far is privacy given away? Anyone can hack into your profile if they know how. Your name can be someone else's in an instant. People know this, see it every day, so why do they still do things online?
Does signing your name somewhere on the internet make you lose your privacy indefinitely?

thesis statement for essay 3

Thesis statement: As the world advances so does technology, yet as technology advances, citizens of the world are connected even further but their privacy becomes less and less existent. 

sources that would help prove this point would be recent events in general. For example, hacking, and identity theft increases by the day. Millions and millions of people join some kind of networking system every day. Watching the local news, even searching privacy and technology on google gives you a number of articles and news articles that tell you recent events. Indeed technology is a great advancement, but what price does it come to? The price that your privacy, your information is out there for anyone to see. 

wiki aim assessment

The beginning of this wiki site for aim already says "this site needs additional citations for verification", being said, this information from this website cannot be reliable enough to quote or gain information without further investigation from a different, maybe more reliable source. From already being a frequent user of AIM,  the terminology given seemed accurate enough to be true.

Most of the discussions consisted of which details in the wiki were accurate and which were useful. For example, aim seems to be updated every year. Having downloaded aim since the 7th grade, it seemed like my computer has gone through 7-8 versions of aim. Just like the latest gadget, as technology advances so do all of its many systems and features that come with it. One main argument was since there are so many different versions of aim, why were so many things of different versions of aim left out of the article.

The information that could be used from this article was accurate if the reader knew what they were looking for. If they were simply looking for an explanation of aim, it was there but they probably wouldn't understand what they were looking at because without basic use or knowledge of the product, it would be impossible to understand the discussion topics.

Aim Assesment

Aim stands for aol instant messenger. It was released by AOL in 1997 to aol subscribers but initially was only for its employees. It was originally released for Microsoft only but now is available for Mac as well as Microsoft. It was and to this day still is used mostly by teenagers. It is used to communicate by text over the internet in real time. Basically a "chat" one of the firsts of it kind. It was rivaled with yahoo, and messenger messenger as well. Aim was most likely chosen over the other two for a number of reasons. 1) Aim doesn't require to have or make an email address to have the messenger. It is only required to make a screen name without having to put all the information and time consuming as making an email would.  2) Aim allows more than 100 contacts to be added. 3) It takes away privacy information of the user that otherwise emails would allow. 4) It is easy to attain and has many features that msn and yahoo didn't have at the time.

Aim is efficient because it allows people to network with each other in real time, rather than face-book or myspace that is real time yet is leaving posts from time to time rather than on the spot communication. It is used by everyone from kids, teens to adults. Yet nowadays, it is mostly used by teens. From my experience, these types of communications have been labeled by age groups. For example, yahoo and msn is for adults, aim for youth, and skype for teens-adults. Just like myspace is for high school kids and facebook is for so called "college students and above".

Aim represents an easy way to communicate and stay touch with friends, do work, or just see what people are up to. It is very useful for almost any kind of office work. It is also great for working with someone else or another group of people. A feature called "direct connecting", allows 2 or more people to share documents with each other in the blink of an eye. I can send a class mate an entire power point presentation based on their internet connect in less than a minute. It now features such as group video chatting, status updates, and different sound alerts for different contacts.

When talking about privacy compared to the other chat systems, aim is probably the most private. For example, msn, yahoo, skype, all requires the user's information that is easily accessible to whoever is chatting with the user. For aim, you don't have to say anything that has to do with you unless you want to put it in your info. Also, unless you direct connect with someone that is strictly under your jurisdiction, no one can access the files in your computer.

If you want privacy and easy chatting ability, aim is probably your safest bet.

Assessing Technology Articles

Ad Nation by Wayne Grytting

The downfalls of public advertisement and how it has overall corrupt minds into believing the only way to get a message out is through advertisement is down right sad. A CEO of a major city believes that a city cannot be a city unless it has signs and advertisements. Monuments are no longer symbolic and he described some of the most raw and majestic cities of the world as bland. It seems that ads are only brainwashing people further and further as the days go by. If a person can make money of receive money from an ad, they will go great lengths to do so. Paying around $60,000 a month for an add, is ridiculous. Buildings that could be built for more important meanings are just being built to advertise.