Am I My Brother's Keeper?

                Am I my brother’s keeper? Am I responsible for making care of the people around me? Who do I have to look out for? Just my immediate family? Random people? People across the world? And if I am their keeper, what does that mean? These are all questions that were answered in Richard Heffner’s interview with Elie Wiesel. Throughout the interview Wiesel basically states that we should all look out for each other, and more importantly, listen and learn from what’s happened in the past, and what is still currently happening.     

One issue Elie Wiesel stresses in this passage is the role that listening plays worldwide. It is stated in the Bible that Cain does talk to Abel, but it fails to acknowledge whether or not Abel actually listens to what Cain says. There’s a clear difference between hearing and actually listening to something. When there’s lack of listening, there’s a lack of communication between people. Wiesel does state, “I believe if people talk, and they talk sincerely, with the same respect that one owes to a close friend or to God, something will come out of that, something good.” Wiesel stresses that by talking, and truly listening to others, one can offer their “presence”.

            By offering your presence, you’re basically being a “shoulder to cry on”. No one can change or take away someone’s pain, but by being there for them, when they need someone, you can truly make an impact by doing essentially nothing. Wiesel believes that true communication is to be able to “give and receive at the same time”. To communication efficiently, one must be able to clearly state their own thoughts, and be able to accept the fact that people may disagree with them. People often are in a rush to make their point, and tend to not listen to other people, and that becomes failed communication.

            Wiesel makes the point that there’s so much information flooding the Internet, television, news, etc., that it’s hard to keep our focus and keep up with everything that’s going on in the world. He agrees that sometimes it’s easier to shut things out, and keep on with our day to day routines because if we become too affected by the world around us, it can lead us to becoming “numb”. It’s also easier to focus on the positives in the world than to actually realize that there are some negatives in the world. But despite the negatives we all must accept what happens, because we need to learn from it. History can and will repeat itself, but by learning from past mistakes, we can change the future.

August 30 - In Class Response

My family's relationship with technology is very weird. My mother is eager to learn more about technology and often is searching stuff online, playing games, on Facebook, or on her phone. My dad seems to be a little bit more resistant to it. He only uses the computer if mom shows him a game that he finds interesting. He barely knows how to text, and I think that's because I taught him. He watches the same 5 channels on televisions, even though we have hundreds of channels. My brother, on the other hand, spends hours on xbox, and I feel like he often becomes attached to it, because he's brought it on family vacations several times. But it is helpful that he does keep up with technology because I know that if I ever need anything, I can send him a text, call, or message him on Facebook, and he responds back almost instantly.

SWA 2

Lauren Shumpert

ENG 102

SWA # 2

Hooked On Technology, and Paying a Price

                Matt Richtel, author of Hooked on Technology, and Paying a Price, quoted Nora Volkow’s saying that “technology is rewiring our brains”. Richtel is meaning that technology has led some people to be productive multi-taskers, while others have trouble focusing and get distracted by unnecessary information. He traces this back to technology because researchers have proven that while the Internet does let people find information more efficiently, cellphones, emails and television, often transforms people’s life, and make them more introverted.  Richtel even states that “in 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960”; which proves that with the increase in technology, the spread of information and knowledge increases worldwide. Therefore, people are learning more, but they often have trouble distinguishing what information they need from what they don’t need.

                By using the Campbell family, Richtel is able to connect with his readers and stress the importance of technology use on people’s brains and thought process. The Campbell family is easy to relate to, because we often have someone in our family, or know someone who is technology-driven. By using the Campbell family, Richtel is able to prove his point in a better way because we are able to picture everything that is going on as it is happening. Most people also have witnessed people who seem so wrapped up in their job or electronics, that just about everything else comes as a second priority to them. It is also easier to have people acknowledge the importance of an issue if you put things into a story that they can relate to, and this is exactly what Richtel does.

                “The Myth of Multitasking”, which Richtel refers to in his writing, is a test that was performed by Mr. Ophir and some of his colleagues.  During the test, people were split into two groups, heavy multitaskers and those who were not. It was proven that those who were classified as heavy multitaskers did worse at the test, because they became easily distracted when useless information was added in to what they were trying to do. It was shown that the multitaskers were less efficient at juggling and solving problems. They became too wrapped up in trying to process the new, useless, information, than to use the old information to finish a task. Through this experiment, Richtel did change my thinking on multitasking. I had always had a preconceived thought that people who were able to multitask, would be able to solve problems quicker, learn more, and ultimately be more efficient. But like Richtel proved, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes those who are able to focus on one task at a time, without distractions, are able to get things done at a faster rate.

"Get Smarter"

"Get Smarter" (by Jamais Cascio) was basically about how humans can learn to adapt to their surroundings over time, and can eventually get smarter from the way the world changes. Cascio did point out that in "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" that Carr is correct when he says that the internet is making it harder for us to think, but that is something that people can overcome and change. I did like the fact that Cascio says that if technology continues to develop that it could eventually begin to work with our brains and help us obtain information that's useful to us a lot faster. That way, by using technology, we will get smarter instead of losing intelligence. By using the resources around us, such as the internet, or different drugs, we will be able to focus our thoughts and become smarter.

August 23 - In Class Response

I thought it was ironic that the piece we read in the Carolina Reader ("Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr) was about how technology makes it so that our brains have a harder time focusing on reading hard copies of things. I found this ironic because I had just finished reading the first chapter in our Writing Arguments book, and I had to kind of force myself to focus on what I was reading because my mind kept wondering back to other things. I also think that Carr's opinion that the internet is making hard copies of things obsolete is true, because it's a lot easier to just go online and find information than to go to a library and look through books.

SWA 1

                My best writing experience occurred when I was in elementary school. During fourth grade, my teacher would allow us to write for 30 minutes about whatever we wanted to. Every day, I would write a different story, and I was always so proud of myself because my teacher always made it seem like no matter what I wrote about, it was right. We would be able to share our stories, and I always liked volunteering to read mine out loud. I always felt like I had accomplished something spectacular on a daily basis. This time in my life made such an impact, that I still have the composition notebooks that I used to write in.

                During my junior year in high school, I took an AP class, and my worst writing experiences came from having to write essays in that class. I didn’t like writing in that class because I have never been the strongest writer, and it showed through my papers. I felt as though I sounded like an idiot whenever I wrote, and most of the time I would have to write about things that weren’t interesting to me; so I tried to avoid writing all together. I would try to practice my writing on a regular basis but no matter how much time I spent on them, I would always make low test grades.

                I was affected most by my worst writing experience because it made me not want to write. It took the joy out of being creative and having fun with my writing. Instead of teaching me how to write better papers, the class ended up frustrating me. I didn’t like the fact that I had to work really hard to write papers that other people would deem acceptable or not. I also didn’t like spending so much time writing something that I felt was good quality work, and being told that it wasn’t. But I’m ready to start over fresh and do a better job with this class.