HW 15 - abcdef 3

Chris :
I liked how you broke down every aspect of what kind of art feed can be considered. You described what every category meant to you and how you can consider feed to be that type of art. It really shows the way you think and analyze before making a decision.

When talking about the text you mentioned that you never thought about video games in relation to stories but how the text uses the evidence of the read ons and the plot in video games that make them the same as stories. I have never seen video games in this way but when i read the text it sort of clicked to me how they can be related. I don't know if i fully agree it is the best solution for reading books but i can see how you can make an argument that it is.

I feel like you should further expand your reaction and ideas about feed because you read the whole book. I personally feel that your blogs lacked deepen thoughts about the book due to the fact that you actually were one of the few people who finished the book.

It would be nice to talk to you more about the allegory of feed and try to answer one of my personal question which is, "what is the solution to this technologic disruption?"


Anias:

I like how you pointed out a difference between modern day teenagers (us) and the teenagers in the book feed. We have been focusing how they are alike but not have based a discussion on how they are different. You said that even though we are addicted, the teens in the book aren't aware of the addiction but we are. To me that's a huge difference especially when it comes to the question of whether or not we can break the addiction. Its like when someone is a drug addict, the first step into solving the problem is realizing that they have one.

Your mentioned in your blog post Feed A that another difference between feed and modern day teens is that the feed is one device that they are hooked to and we are hooked to many different devices. Well i think that the feed represents all the devices it is just all in one and connected to your brain. It is all the same thing. We use aim to chat online, facebook to network and twitter to find new gossip, the teenagers in feed do all of that through the feed. If anything the feed makes it 10x easier to stay connected to the media. Which now leads me to think that if we were presented with a feed we would probably use it. I say this because there is this new application available for itouch and iphone that basically connects facebook, myspace and twiiter all in one app. it collects all the new updates into one stream so you can be up to date with everything. Now tell me whats the difference?

i also like hat you bring up how feed opens our eyes to patterns we never noticed before. I personally in reading feed was able to connect it to habits in my everyday life that i never saw as bad habits because i was so use to doing them. once again i find myself trapped in a circle because i want to know how do we break these habit and restore our lives if media basically controls everything. I think if this is a big problem we really see then we need to start taking step forwards to solving the problem. Like you said we are continuing to be "zombies"

Hw14 - Second text

Video games are the same as books? I have never consider them in this way. I must admit though, the author of Everything Bad is Good for You has a point. Video games are stories with introductions, plot, solutions, and conclusions. If anything video games are almost like re-in-acting the story in your own way.

STILL HAVE TO FINISH

Hw13 - Feed B

Tobin is really smart with his use of allegory when writing the book feed. He paints the present day obsession of technology as a futuristic advancement of technology. He is smart in doing this because he changes up a few details so that the reader is distracted and doesn't realize that he is talking about them. Other then those minor details, everything can be seen as a direct connection.

My question to Tobin is how we can stop this obsession with technology. He does a great job of making us feel stupid by exaggerating the point that we are all hooked on technology but he does not offer a solution. If anything, he almost makes it seems as if there isn’t a solution at all. The character Violet was the only one who saw what technology was doing and yet she was the charter that died. Is this a symbol that there is no way out?

This book was written with the focus of aiming for young adults that could relate to the use of technology and also still have time to snap into reality. For adults, they were introduced to this late in their childhood so they remember what it is to be without all the fancy devices. Although a lot of adults are as obsessed with technology they have once experienced a time without them. With teens, DRD’s are all we know. They have been advancing as we grow up. They have been introduced to us as soon as we learn how to use them and our obsession grows deeper as they advance. Our timelines are intertwined.

I admire that Tobin can write a book like such but I wonder if he has any solutions in mind. It’s almost like we are running around in circles. We have come to understand that technology is affecting us in a negative way no matter how many goods come from it but we have yet to discover a solution to this tragedy. I feel like apart of the reason why we cannot come up with is a solution is because our minds are not use to doing our own thinking. We can blame it on society, cooperate media, and even technology (as you can see, they all connect together to form the biggest suffering of our generation and present world) but at the end of the day, we are destroyed and until we can find ways to restore ourselves (and of course actually go through with it) I don’t think there is any hope.

Hw 12 - Feed A

Feed is a direct comparison of teens in this century. In the book, everyone is connected to the "feed" which is a chip in there heads that receives transitions that updates them on the latest fashion, place to be, things to buy etc. It doesn't matter how bizarre it sounds (to me), they still listen to the feed. They are able to do everything through the feed. When they first came out they were advertised as something good for teens that would make them smarter because they would have access to all the answer to questions they didn't know . This is like the Google engine. Instead of doing old fashion researching through books, we go on Google, type in our questions and bam , answers that will go on for pages.

In the book, they also mention how the feed creates a profile for each individual person. the corporations buy these profiles so they can create products that will sell. Even though we don't each have individual profiles, we unconsciously following trends made by corporate culture that makes it easy for them to sell products to us. for example, goth people might think that they are different then everyone else but the truth is that they are the same as everyone in their group. Now a store opens and sells skateboards, baggy black jeans with chains on them, shirts with holes and etc (basically a store like hot topic); they selling to this particular group of people. Now what's the difference?

When they are in the club "of tranquility", they get hacked. they wake up the next morning at the hospital, completely disconnected from the feed. They can't chat with their friends, can't watch what's like their t.v, can't listen to any broadcast etc. they started to complain about how bored they are. this is like when we get punished by our parents and can't go on the computer, watch t.v or use our phones. we become extremely bored and can't function as if it is the end of the world.

Although we do not have an actual chip inside , our dependency to the "feed" is the same.

HW 11 : Self Experiment 1

Since i read in an article that cellphone use at night causes disturbance in sleep , depression and lack of attention in teenagers, oh yeah and it disturbs the deepest stage of sleep which is the stage when your body recovers from the stresses of the day. so i decided, for my experiment, to turn off my cellphone at 7 p.m , do my homework and then go to bed (with my phone placed on the other end of the room). For a good few months now, ive been having bad sleeping patterns. I go to sleep in the middle of texting without noticing and then wake up in the middle of the night , check my phone , and then fall asleep again. Also for the past few weeks ive been having a background headache. When i did My experiment last night i realized that i didnt wake up in the middle of the night , i had slept the whole night through. Although i still woke up tired , as the day went by i also noticed that i didnt have a headache anymore. Its crazy to think of the difference it made to go striaght to sleep instead of texting all night. Then i wondered, if they have all these studies that prove how bad the radiations from cellphone devices are dangerous then why ha vent they band them or found ways to improve cellphones from using up so much watts. Instead all you see is cellphones becoming fancier and shit with all of these apps that take up more energy and have your cellphone dying in the middle of the damn day. I think im going to fit in my daily routine to stop using my cellphone at 8 so i can go to bed and have a good nights rest.

Hw 10 : Informal research Internet

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,324140,00.html

This article is a report from fox5 based on a study that was printed in the British newspaper, The Independent. They did a study on 35 men and 35 women. They found that late night cell phone use disturbs the deep stage of sleep , which is when your body repairs from the days stress. In teenagers , cellphone radiation disturbs sleep which then causes depression , mood swings , and impair concentration and academic performance.

When i read the part about the teenagers, i started to realize that a lot of people i know that are my age are often depressed , have mood swings , are always tired and aren't getting good grades. I don't know if this is a direct connection or just a coincidence. I myself fall into this category and i do admit im always on the phone late at night. Often im half asleep texting and then wake up in the middle of the night with my cellphone or ipod headphone tangled around me. Ive recently noticed a bad pattern in my sleep. I can never just stay sleeping , i always wake up like 3 times or so. I really am starting to think that its because of my cellphone. Like i mentioned in class, ive been getting these hard as headaches. Its disturbing to think that my cellphone , ipod and computer could be causing me all these health problems because i use them for enjoyment. Right not , i just compared it to a cigarette. People say it relieves their stress and they enjoy smoking but their are addictive and can cause lung cancer.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007/aug2007_report_cellphone_radiation_01.htm

This article talks about how cellphones are not safe and there Danish are studies that prove it. It also states that questions on the safety of cellphones first started rising in 1990 due to a lawsuit against the manufacturing company from this guy who claimed that the cellphone gave his wife cancer causing her death. It also says in this article that cellphone cause physiological problems, and attention disruptions.


http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/how-much-radiation-does-your-phone-emit/

This is an interesting article. It talks about the highest level of radiation that a cellphone can have in order to pass the safety test so it can be sold. the maximum is 1.6 W/kg . Its almost like them make them sound safe now that there is a limit but did they ever think about how often the person was going to be exposed to these radiations? Its gives a list of the top ten highest and lowest radiation cellphone devices.

HW 9 : Responds to viedo comments

Thank you for the comment Chris. Yeah i don't know why the noise was messing up , i tried to fix it but i think there is a problem with my web cam.

Ive heard the same thing about exercising outdoor is actually more efficient then indoors. Can you imagine how low the percentage of efficiency is going to be for the wii; that is if people actually depend on it to work out. Now that's just plain laziness. The people who create these games really know how to attract people to be hooked on and continue to pay them for these devices. I did a little research on the WIi fit ; which is the excercing game for the wii. Not only does the wii cost $250 but the game is another @20 and the wii board to play the game is another $150. if you want to play other additional games there are other peices that youll need to buy as well. Wouldnt it just be eaier to save your money and go out jogging every morning or eving? yes ill be more work but it will also give you better and healthier results. Not to mention keep your pockets full.

HW # 8 - Comment on triangle partners's video projects

Anias' Video :

Yes your video was short but it got the message out.
You did look real focused on the computer screen. I found it interesting how you were listening to music and still being able to sing along with the song even tho it seems as if you were completely focused on what you were typing on the computer. That reminds me of what Andy said in class about how theres a theory that all of this multitasking has developed our brain to always has at least 1/3 of it focused on something else.
I also noticed how you had the t.v on in the background but wasn't paying attention to it at all. Since the video is short , im pretty sure that while a page was loading up on your screen you peeked over to see what was happening on the t.v.
Well im out. Comment my video since your my new member lol.

Chris' Video :

your video is identical to my computer screen every time i turn it on. i like your video because its like a mini tour of what almost every teenager does when they first get on a computer. altho its not what the assignment asks for ; it shows that you understand the message we bring up in class.
You said how you would like for your little sister to use the computer so you can get in contact with her but would you like her to be spending hours and hours on meaningless internet activities?

comment me back on that one buddy !