September 19 2017

Kathaleen McDonald

Dr. Wielgos

Senior Seminar

19 September 2017

Response Six: Science | Fiction:  New codes and old conventions

            I found that the passages/articles that stood out to me the most were Lisa Gitelman’s epilogue from Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture and Thurlow and Bell’s article “Against Technologization: Young People’s New Media Discourse as Creative Cultural Practice.” I think that Gitelman, Thurlow, and Bell make interesting arguments, but after reading these pieces, I am more convinced that teenagers need technology and social media now more than ever.

            Gitelman says in the epilogue of Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture that “Speech gains immortality, that is, partly according to all of the constructed instruments and institutions of its potential preservation” (152). I think something teenagers (and many adults alike) struggle with is leaving a lasting mark on the world. Everyone wants to leave their mark on the world in some way, and social media has proved to be one of the ways to make your presence known long after you’re gone. Like my mother always said, “never post something that you don’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper.” Although social media is a great way to voice your opinions and beliefs, as far as we understand the internet, what we post is permanent. One of the reasons my cousin doesn’t have Snapchat is because she read in their terms and conditions once that even though Snapchats “disappear,” they never truly disappear. Although social media is a great way to have students voices be heard, it definitely needs to be used with caution.

            I also think that Thurlow and Bell take some interesting stands in their article “Against Technologization: Young People’s New Media Discourse as Creative Cultural Practice.” Thurlow and Bell say early on in their piece that “It seems that, when ‘grownups’ take up new communication technologies, this is something to be celebrated. When young people do the same thing, however, their practices are reduced to ‘hieroglyphics,’ ‘gobbledegook,’ ‘technobabble,’ [etc.]” (1040). Although I think the example they provide on the previous page of a young teenager’s essay written completely in text lingo is a bit extreme, I think that technology should be something celebrated in the classroom, but to a certain extent (obviously). But my favorite statement that Thurlow and Bell make is this:

It is our responsibility as scholars to offer alternative, more well-rounded perspectives on the nature and purpose of communication; to insist, for example, that mediatized hype about young people’s ‘attack on English’ and their apparent speechlessness…be framed properly by the breadth, diversity, and inherent sociability of all human communication. (1043).

Just as we make accommodations in the classroom to meet all students needs, we should consider making technology a more pertinent role in learning. And just as we want to prepare students for the real world, I think it would be ignorant to ignore technology in the classroom, since technology is very much a part of the “adult” world.

            I think overall, these sections and articles have helped me better understand the importance of technology in the classroom. Although there are controversies surrounding technology and how much or in what way it should be used, it is definitely something that should not be excluded from the classroom.