engl202bridget

August 9, 2007

2558 Oneida Mine Road
Dilltown, PA
15929

Dr. Kenneth Sherwood
110 Leonard Hall
421 South Walk
Indiana, PA 15705

Dr. Sherwood,

At the beginning of the semester we talked about the impact that digital life is having on our culutre. We read articles and discussed them in class. Listening to what my classmates had to say was very fascinating. They enlightened me with many of their ideas and it taught me a lot about things i had not known about new technologies. We then moved on to summarizing and paraphrasing information. The summarizing exercise we did about the flood in China was very helpful. We also talked briefly about the book by Marshall Mcluhan, The Medium is the Massage. I really enjoyed reading this book and it really made me think about some of the issues he talks about in his book. The next step in the class was deciding on a research topic. After changing my topic a few times I came up with my research question. The exercise we did in class by putting everyone’s thoughts on the screen and categorizing them was extremely beneficial and game me some really great ideas. There were many steps that went into the research process for my final paper. I conducted fieldwork and interviewed parents and children and asked them questions regarding my research topic. By doing this paper, it also taught me how to use tools such as Zotero to help with citing my sources which i found to be very useful. I found the Bedford Reseacher to be a very valuable book and it helped me through the process of writing my paper. While trying to find sources that i thought would be good for my paper, i came across many obstacles. I had to pick and choose sources that i deemed as credible or not. I used library databases, google searches, magazine articles, books, etc. until I felt that i had enough resources to write my paper. I enjoyed writing this paper and I found a lot of facts and interesting information. I thought that you were a really helpful professor and i appreciate your time and dedication.

Sincerely yours,

Bridget Bufagna

1. I need some more resources for my paper
2. I need more evidence to support my idea
3. Using more quotes from reliable sources will help me support some of my ideas better and make my paper more persuasive.
4. I have a lot of word choices that i need to change to make my paper better and more understandable.
5. Have to go more in depth on my interviews to prove that what they are saying supports my idea.
6. Change some of my grammar errors
7. Read my paper several times to make sure it is clear to my readers
8. Make sure my organization is clear and i do not have useless information in it that should not be there.
9. Work on my conclusion
10. Make sure that my thesis statement is clear. I want to make it so that i am trying to say that internet use and text messaging can be an influence on the way that children and parents are not as close today, but not make it so that my readers think that i am saying that it is the one and only thing that causes parents and children to not be cohesive.

Kraut, Robert, et al. “Internet Paradox A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?” American Psychologist Association, Inc.. 53.9 (1998): 1017-1031. 25 July 2007 .

1. Relevance:5
I think that this is a very good source that is closely related to my topic. It talks about how computers and new technology causes a decline in family communication. It also talks about how Internet use is a social technology used for communication with individuals and groups, but it is also associated with declines in social involvement and the psychological
well-being that goes with social involvement.

2. Evidence:5
The ideas in this article are presented persuasively and there are many relevant facts incorporated into it. The sources are credited appropriately.

3. Source:5
Robert Kraut, Michael Patterson, Vicki Lundmark, Sara Kiesler, Tridas Mukopadhyay, and William Scherlis are the authors for this piece. They are all doctors at Carnegie Mellon University. The style of this source does indicate reliability. It is from a magazine called American Psychologist. The publisher is the American Psychological Association Inc. Considering it is from a psychology magazine, it proves to me that this is a credible source and is trustworthy.

Outline:

It is no question that computers have changed the way in which the American family interacts and communicates. The question is, to what extent has it alienated children from their parents or has it at all? Parents are feeling a sense of separation from their children and kids are closer than ever with their peers. The way that children manage their time is different due to the digital life. Myspace, Facebook, text messaging, instant messaging, blogs, etc. are some of the ways in which kids are spending their free time.

I.

Interview:

For my research topic I think that interviewing parents with children ranging from 9-17 would be helpful in finding out how they feel about their relationships with their children.

Some possible questions:

1. How much time do your kids spend on Myspace, IM, Facebook, thier cell phones, blogging, emailing, etc. per night?

2. Do you feel that you would be closer to your child if they did not have access to these things?

3. Do you think that growing up you were closer with your family because you did not have access to these things?

4. Do you think that your children turn to their friends for support more so than to you?

5. Do you feel isolated from your children because you do not use myspace, facebook, im, etc?

6. Does your child talk about digital life a lot?

7. Have you ever thought about how your communication with your child would be different without computers or cell phones?

8. Do you notice that when your child is in a bind or has an issue he/she gets their cell phone out and begins texting or rushes to the computer to get on Myspace or instant messenger?

9. Does your child get upset or depressed if they cannot use the computer or their cell phone for whatever reason?

10. Do you remember an instance when you know for certain that your child turned to their friends for something that you believe that they should have turned to you for?

11. How many friends does your son/daughter have on their myspace page?

I hope to get useful information from parents, and i plan on tape recording them so that i can play it back and pick out the information that i find to be the most important for my paper. I will incorporate the most useful things that they tell me into my final draft so that i can prove my research topic successfully.

Marshall McLuhan’s book Medium is the MASSAGE is really amazing when you consider the fact that it was written in 1967. Some would think of this man as somewhat of a prophet. He understood how the media and technology would drastically change the way in which we live as a society long before it ever did. One of the things that he said that i found to be very interesting was that, “The circuited city of the future will not be the huge hunk of concentrated real estate created by the railway. It will take on a totally new meaning under conditions of very rapid movement. It will be an information megalopolis.” It is just very fascinating to me the things that he said about the future and how our world was going to change into such an information-rich place, where we can have access to anything we want to know at anytime we want to know it.

1. Theme: Digital Life and its effect on family life

2. Topic: How have email, text messaging, myspace, facebook, blogs, IM, etc. changed the way in which people manage their time, communicate, and interact with their family?

3. Concept Streams:
-facebook
-text messaging
-email
-myspace
-time management
-blogs
-IM

4. Conversations/Sources
-Google
-Wikipedia
-parents
-sociologists
-family psychologists
-teachers
-Library Articles
-Family Organizations

5. Working Research Question
Are families as close knit as they were in previous generations?
Because children have so much access to talk to their friends and classmates at any time, has this caused them to drift away from their family?
Do children turn to their friends for support more so than their family today? Is this due to the fact that before digital technology they really did not have a choice but to go to their family?

6. Focused Research Question: Does the fact that children have so much access to technology such as email, IM, Blogs, Myspace, Facebook, text messaging, etc. change the way in which they communicate with their family and does it cause children to be closer to friends than their own family?

7. Working Introduction
It is no question that computers have changed the way in which the American family interacts and communicates. The question is, to what extent has it alienated children from their parents or has it at all? Many people are wondering this same question. Parents are feeling a sense of separation from their children. Adolescents today are closer that ever with their peers. The access that children have to talk to thier friends is so abundant that some parents feel it is pushing their kids closer to their friends than their own family. With the new technological advances such as Myspace, Facebook, Instant Messaging, Text Messaging, etc. children can talk to their friends anytime they want to. In previous generations this was not the case. Families were more closely knit decades ago than they are today, but is this due to digital life or not?
As computers become increasingly persuavise in children’s lives, their relationship with them become almost as important as a relationship with a family member. They spend more time on the computer than they do communicating with their family. How is this going to affect their social interaction with other people? There has been a substantial amount of reseach conducted on this topic with many different results.

8. Outline

9. Bibliography

Hughes, Robert, and Jason D. Hans. “Computers, the Internet, and Families: A Review of the Role New Technology Plays in Family Life — HUGHES and HANS 22 (6): 776 — Journal of Family Issues.” Sage Journals Online. (2001). 25 July 2007 .

Kraut, Robert, et al. “Internet Paradox A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?” American Psychologist Association, Inc.. 53.9 (1998): 1017-1031. 25 July 2007 .

Lowe, Judy. “Computers: The new electronic babysitter?” Ebsco Host. 88.136 (1996): 13. 25 July 2007 .

Subrahmanyam, Kaveri, Robert E. Kraut, Patricia M. Greenfield, and Elisheva F. Gross. “The Impact of Home Computer Use on Children’s Activities and Development.” The Future of Children. 10.2 (2000): 123-144. 26 July 2007 .

I thought that the discussion in class yesterday was very interesting and i learned a lot about things that i am not very familiar with. The article by Turkle sparked my interest and it made me think about how video games and other new digital media has really changed the way in which people work and live their everyday lives. I think a good research topic may be how much has it really changed our lives and do some people get so rapped up in virtual reality that they lose touch with their actual life. How has this changed the workforce and will it eventually become a big problem? Has this changed the way in which families live their lives and are families not as close to one another as they were in previous generations? Have some people got so caught up in virtual life that they have a hard time deciphering fact from fiction? I think these are some ideas that i would like to do further research on if i decide to choose this as my topic.

I definitely agree with the fact that there should be copyright laws, but i also think that its a little ridiculous for someone’s family to be receiving money for something their great grandfather made, recorded, etc. I believe that someone should always get credit for whatever they accomplish but i think that after they have been dead for sometime it should be free from copyright. This would allow it to be updated or improved in some way maybe even better than the original. I think this would be good for future generations. Although, i understand how someone would be upset if another person took their invention or idea and passed it off as their own. This is the reason we have copyrights and i do believe that they are a necessity and a good thing.