Crime in the Youth

The article, Our Kids as Criminals, made me realize what changes have come about the youth of this country. The article refers to a book titled Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig. The book discusses how now it is becoming easier and more consistent to plagiarize. Today more and more children are being able to do this because it is such a simple thing. The fact that this is happening also makes me think about how new technologies are effecting this as well. It is becoming easier for children to do this, because new technologies are being invented where one CAN do this in just a few minutes. The "Copy and Paste" was invent to move text around between documents, placing it in a different spot in the writing piece, etc. Now it can be used to take text off of a web page and put it into the writing piece. In past times the writer would have to re-type it so the font would match. However, now there is a "copy, paste, and paste and match style!" So now a student can copy the text and paste it into their document without having to change the fonts or re-type it. This made me understand that people are just blaming the youth for abusing the technology that is allowing them to get to these documents, but they are abusing the technology provided for them. If people don't want them to be able to copy something, they should limit the "copy, paste" to only Word, Textedit, Pages, etc. documents. If they can invent a "copy and paste" system, then they can sure enough invent a way to lock it to certain pages.

Children are being wired for life

The article, The Revenge of the Digital Immigrants, really caught my attention. This, like my last education blog, is about the progression of technology. This one, however, has a somewhat different angle. This article stated the facts about why children are losing their communication skills and why children have changed so much. This was a very persuasive article and I'm leaning towards their point of view. Children are becoming more tech-savvy and children are having a greater want for technology. Younger children are asking for iPhone's, computers, and game boys; when they should be asking for actual toys. I think that it is a bad thing because it is controlling their lives. These kids are piratically addicted to video games and TV shows. It is a good thing that technology is progressing, but we should use that technology to expand our knowledge and what not instead of using it for pure entertainment. Those games should be for dreary days when the weather isn't good enough to play outside. They are fun once in a while, but once it becomes a constant influence, it's a hard habit to shake. When young children constantly are playing intense video games, then they are wired for life to be frantic. This article had facts about how TV images change faster than our minds are used to, therefore adjusting our brains to be used to that. But when the TV is gone and things are moving at average speed, our brains can't focus because things are moving to slow. This goes to show that sometimes technology can be good, but sometimes technology has a bad influence