“memory without history.
I really admire this quote because of it's accuracy. All these memories are constantly being recorded but no one is living through them. All these posts become memories to people with no history of the experience. Solely because it was a memory shared with them.
That insight sheds light on society’s current gullibility crisis, in which people are all too quick to credit lies and half-truths spread through social media. If your phone has sapped your powers of discernment, you’ll believe anything it tells you.
I constantly find new life-hacks or shortcuts for daily activities on the internet. While most of them are helpful, it does not guarantee that it will even work. I remember that for a long time, kids were eating laundry detergent and physically getting sick from it, for attention on the internet. These are children being hospitalized because they wanted to follow in the footsteps of other kids, who got popularity from doing so.
As strange as it might seem, people’s knowledge and understanding may actually dwindle as gadgets grant them easier access to online data stores.
This reminds me of the circle and how dangerous this efficient company had become by the end of the novel. People came dependent on the circle, even the government leading to a society that does not have to think for themselves. Sounds extremely efficient but kind of scary as well. It becomes unclear what individual motives are when everyone is expected to just do as they are told.
“supernormal stimulus,” one that can “hijack” attention whenever it is part of our surroundings — and it is always part of our surroundings.
It has become such a distraction that many professors and even doctors offices have asked people to not use their phones. Even when they are on silent, the vibrations or even light coming from the phone when it receives a new notification is extremely distracting. It becomes hard enough o focus on a topic that you are not passionate about. Now with phones giving us the opportunity to escape any conversation or un-intriguing situation, people have found themselves to rarely be unoccupied and bored. I think being bored can do a lot for the creative functioning in our brains. It's important for our ind to wander and to think about things we do not want to think about.
“inhibited the development of interpersonal closeness and trust” and diminished “the extent to which individuals felt empathy and understanding from their partners.”
This is important to keep in mind because there are so many times when I have walked into a room, or even a classroom while everyone is waiting for their professors and it would be a surprise to see that people are not on their phones.
Social skills and relationships seem to suffer as well. Because smartphones serve as constant reminders of all the friends we could be chatting with electronically, they pull at our minds when we’re talking with people in person, leaving our conversations shallower and less satisfying.
I find myself immediately texting my friends after I leave them or even using text messages to communicate my feelings when I am unable to physically speak about them. It's become an easy route to saying and doing things that I am uncomfortable with doing in person. It has become almost as relieving as irritating that confrontation is not something that I am able to deal with in person. The outlet of communicating through texts has made things easier for me but definitely has socially caused me some distress.
Imagine combining a mailbox, a newspaper, a TV, a radio, a photo album, a public library and a boisterous party attended by everyone you know, and then compressing them all into a single, small, radiant object. That is what a smartphone represents to us.
Smart phones eliminate our requirement of having to read the paper, or watch an entire news update without fishing through events that are important to you. They make it uncanny to go to a public library to get information when you can probably just get the book on their phone to begin with. It eliminates a lot of forms of communications that engaged our brains and made us make our own discoveries.
Smartphones have become so entangled with our existence that, even when we’re not peering or pawing at them, they tug at our attention, diverting precious cognitive resources.
I have found myself checking my phone for notifications I do not have. thinking to myself that "surely someone will message me soon" or even that "someone will mention me in their stories soon" and it leads to me becoming distracted with a thought that is not even there. Not only do I have my past to worry about online, I also have my future making it a requirement to stay hip with events occurring on social networks.
“integration of smartphones into daily life” appears to cause a “brain drain” that can diminish such vital mental skills as “learning, logical reasoning, abstract thought, problem solving, and creativity.
The term "brain drain" is the best way to express this decline in mental capabilities. It accurately represents all the skills that can now be replaced with a smartphone as being flushed down a drain and forgotten.
he more heavily students relied on their phones in their everyday lives, the greater the cognitive penalty they suffered.
It is disappointing to thing that technological advances are going to continue to increase and become more efficient leading people's cognitive capacity to decline as well. It is force thrown into motion that makes it impossible to escape. Not only has it become a way to stay socially involved, it has even become a trend and frowned upon to not own a smart phone.
They remained oblivious even as the phones disrupted their focus and thinking.
It becomes easy to think that you can avoid the use of your phone but that does not mean your mind is not curious about what's going on within that screen. Just thinking about not thinking about your phone becomes a distraction in itself.
As the phone’s proximity increased, brainpower decreased.
There is a way to become less dependent on these devices but people typically do not want to. This experiment is making me want to toss my room min another room so I can focus more intently
Dr. Ward suspected that our attachment to our phones has grown so intense that their mere presence might diminish our intelligence.
I have to agree. As much as I like to think it is not a bad to have a device that makes life more efficient, it's important to note the things they are taking away from our mental processes. I do not even have to write down a grocery list or have to remember somebody order because I can rely on my phone to provide me with the answers or have access to someone who can.
phone ring but are unable to answer it, their blood pressure spikes, their pulse quickens, and their problem-solving skills decline.
I can relate to this feeling, especially when I am busy working or trying to do my schoolwork. When I hear the tone, I instantly find it my responsibility to check my notifications and that is such a silly trait to me. My messages never are truly detrimental but if feels like life and death when I do not know. Leading me to constantly think about the notification without even knowing how important the message is. They typically are not very important at all.
The division of attention impedes reasoning and performance.
You will very rarely see people without a cellphone on them. My mom recently mentioned to me how she feels unprepared when she does not have hers. So much so that she has even resulted in purchasing the apple watch. She cannot expose her phones vibrations even if she tried and I definitely do not think that is anything she even wants to try.
Not only do our phones shape our thoughts in deep and complicated ways, but the effects persist even when we aren’t using the devices.
I can relate to this because if I am in the presence of something that is picture-worthy or a funny experience that I want everyone to get the same pleasures from as I did, then I will instantly take out my phone and share it with the rest of the world. This takes away from the moment in my perception. These are my personal experiences that I should be embracing and not tweeting about but it is the way that my generation has grown to do things. I do not even want to begin to explain what it is like to not have on these devices available. It makes me feel socially isolated, or like I am missing gout on the rest of the world.
Their extraordinary usefulness gives them an unprecedented hold on our attention and a vast influence over our thinking and behavior
Eliminates peoples opportunity for originality. When we rely on our cellphones, that means that we become less required to think for ourselves and to truly experience life, with the speed bumps and all. But unfortunately, not using these efficient devices seems like a huge step-back for mankind. Like choosing to not use cars when they have become so efficient.
It’s hard to think of another product that has provided so many useful functions in such a handy form.
I find myself using my cellphone to look up questions that I want answers to, to look up the meaning of words, the weather of the day and even to see how my friends are spending their days, without even having to ask them. It is extremely convenient making it almost irrational to solve your own problems or even perform simple math in your head when your phone provides such an efficient solution. This results with less people having to think for themselves and relying more on the answers their phone provides. Siri has even made it possible to ask questions without having to physically type the letters out on the phone. All you have to do is speak to her.
In a 2015 Gallup survey, more than half of iPhone owners said that they couldn’t imagine life without the device
Despite all of my beliefs about how the overuse of technology is eliminating our sense of originality, I still can not bring myself to resist it's temptations. I almost feel as though I become socially isolated when I do not have my iPhone because there is no way for anyone to contact me. It's a very bitter-sweet relationship.
The smartphone has become a repository of the self, recording and dispensing the words, sounds and images that define what we think, what we experience and who we are.
This can also be addressed with personal accounts of people. I can act like a terrible person in real-life and a dream boat on the internet to all my followers, and nobody would know the difference because I have not personally had interactions with more than half the people that follow me. It is so easy to become who you are not when you are attempting to please an audience.
The smartphone has become a repository of the self, recording and dispensing the words, sounds and images that define what we think, what we experience and who we are.
This is comparable to the context in the Circle. The main character was practically forced to remain in contact will her millions of followers, leaving her little to no room for mistakes or even appealing to her personal desires because she was forced to please the people with an image of herself, that she did not want to be controversial.
The two of you will be inseparable.
This is a very important insinuation about technology. While it is designed to make an individuals life more efficient, it also makes a efficient way to communicate leaving people unable to escape from their work life or even social life. When do people get a break from reality and a chance to relax when they are constantly faced with the undeniable interactions?
seen by no one else, and seen by us only after a long period of concentration and looking.
I find it extremely important to think before you speak and Salinger took this theory to an entire different level. I could not imagine what it would be like to write something now and constantly coming back to tweak it the piece to intricately make the words flow. It makes the price writing process to be admirable.
The line between writing and talking has also been blurred, and we can imagine that the line between talking and thinking will be, too, at some point.
Unfortunately, I am one of those people who struggle with saying exactly how they feel, aloud. I could tell myself, write it down and work out my feelings but as soon as I try to tell them to someone else, my words never seem to come out right. I can see how the line between talking and thinking is starting to become blurred.
I am one of those people for whom the act of formulating sentences, and reading them, is intrinsic to thought itself.
I am growing to appreciate the act of writing more and more. It has turned into an outlet that allows me to interpret my own thoughts and feelings while escaping from the outside world that has the power to alter my original perception.
And if its appearance on Twitter equals being published, do I even have the rights to it anymore?
This exemplifies my belief about tweets turning into more of a conversational platform as opposed to it being established. It is unfortunate that we must be cautious of other people stealing our ideas but it is the ugly truth that everyone must learn to live with. I think that if you post anything online, then it does become a form of "talking it out" and you no longer have the rights to that particular tweet. There are so many times when I find multiple twitter pages sharing the sam tweet. There is no way this is a coincidence. People do this to get a reaction and to emphasize the importance of the original tweet. However, the person who originally thought of this idea loses their ability to publish it because they gave it to the public first, giving it up to grabs for anyone who feels the same way. Ignoring the fact that they did not just steal an idea, but they actually stole someone's words and almost everyone knows how frowned upon plagiarism is.
Except there is now a record of it.
I find this to be a terrifying aspect of using social media website because people do not understand it's permanence. It makes everything posted to the public to be subjected to ridicule and can even result with being used against you later on I life.
One must master the process of shepherding the private into public.
I find this to be one of the most fascinating aspects of publishing your own book or piece of literary work. Organizing your thoughts and portraying them in a way that keeps their reader engaged is something that does not come naturally to most people. Authors who intricately throw their words together and create a story that nobody wants to finish reading, is something that should be carefully established before being public to the people. This would also explain why people are unable to use twitter as a credible source. They are just unestablished thoughts that become more conversational than promotional.
Twitter is messing with this equation: I have many more voices in my head than I ever had before.
This is a terrifying but honest truth about keeping anything public to the people, especially for people who live their life on twitter. I often hear my little brother reply to some of the things I am saying with a "retweet" or a "favorite". While I understand what he is saying, I am disappointed that he has subjected himself to not even using his own words to express how he feels. I imagine that this is comparable to hearing voices in your head, similar to the things you may read on twitter.
You could say it imbues writing with a sense of performance, though writing has always involved performance in the sense of performance anxiety.
You become limited with the amount of characteristics that can be used. It makes people keep their opinions and interpretations short and sweet, while also making sure they appeal to the people reading them. I can relate when the writer compared tweeting with having performance anxiety because I always find myself extremely cautious of tweeting something that may offend one of my friends, or even the general population. Even though it is a platform that gives you the opportunity to share anything, it does not mean that you won't experience backlash from the public about the way you say something or even being discriminated for being different. I often find myself opt-ing out of unnecessary tweets to avoid all the chaos.
the root of this defense wasn’t some terrible secret he had to hide but rather an idea of writing as a private ceremony.
This is very important when differentiating the difference. He was not just trying to hide his story when keeping them private, he was trying to perfect them and he thoroughly enjoyed doing so. "private ceremony" suggests that it was ritualistic for the writer and all his accomplishments prove that this creative process is deemed as enjoyable for writers who are attempting to complete their main ideas.
This privacy, in turn, not only surrounded his work but was embedded in it.
This is really important because when trying to form your own perception on a story or even creating a story that may relate to your own life, is typically something that nobody else can help you with. This is why so many people are encourage to write privately, in a journal or diary, so that they can get their thoughts down on paper without being interrupted by the outside world. With someone who has a beautifully creative mind such as Salinger I can understand why it would be prominent for him to keep his thoughts private until they are ready to be shared.
Does articulating a thought in public freeze it in place somehow, making it not part of a thought process but rather a tiny little finished sculpture?
Speaking in public can ignite ideas from other people allowing them to attach their opinions to a thread that everyone can build off of. This gives an idea or quote, room to grow. I feel like it re-assigns an individual belief to become more diversified, appealing to more than just a couple people in the community.
Does a piece of writing that is never seen by anyone other than its author even exist? Does a thought need to be shared to exist? What happens to the stray thought that drifts into view, is pondered, and then drifts away?
I do not think that thoughts need to be shared to exist but I do think that they become irrelevant if they go unspoken. With all the differing perspectives and creative approaches to the perception of "life" itself, I find that it's important to be heard. Even if everyone does not agree, there is a high chance that there is someone out there who can relate with what you are saying. Thoughts don't have to be shared to matter, they just have to be shared to heard. An individuals voice is the only thing that can not be taken away from them
“If an action is not recorded on a smart phone, does it, did it, exist?”
I have heard this question before, even from my friends while we are at social events, even if they use a different diction, they are still saying the same thing! IT brings to attention how much technology is taking over our lives. On the contrary, this advanced form of accessibility to an individuals past memories, gives them more of a permanence. Making something that would typically be done in a blink of an eye, last forever. It's a very bitter-sweet sense of reality for most people in my generation and almost everyone in the generations that follow. I rarely find my younger brother and his friends doing thing's that do not involve smartphones, and thats a scary thought!
bitingly true.
Twitter gives people access to say how they really feel and to provide as much comic relief as they can while doing so.
Its built-in limitation corresponds to the sense of rhythm and proportion that writers apply to each line.
Limiting the amount of words per tweet makes people less inclined to provide intricate details with their point they are trying to make. In my opinion, it makes people express their perceptions in as few words as possible. I think this makes people choose their words more wisely, by making an entire thought fit into about 200 characteristics.
Would they ignore it or engage and go down the rabbit hole?
the "rabbit hole" insinuates that the writer of this piece doe not agree with the way writers are heading towards.
“We live in public.”
This emphasizes the way writing is evolving. The increased accessible to peoples thoughts and interpretations through a simple social media website such as twitter gives individuals who want their voices to be heard, a platform to do so.
these technologies, however different they made the experience of composition, produced writing that was, at first, for the eyes of the writer alone.
This fascinates me because I can imagine how much of a connection someone would have while writing on their typewriter as opposed to their cellphone or even on computers. With the typewriters letters piercing the page, it left little to no room for mistakes. This made it a requirement to think about what you are trying to say and to write it all down with permanence. This differs from using modern day technology where we can easily fix sentence structures and making them seem more disposable.
A sentence was a strafing machine gun.
It becomes easy to infer that the writer probably has nit had much experience with a type writer as well. The way he used very "strafing" words insinuates that it is also something he may not feel comfortable doing.
discarded typewriter heads for the I.B.M. Selectric typewriter
A typewriter is very rare for someone in my generation. I think I have only stumbled upon one once in my life and it just so happened to not even work after collecting dust for many years in my attic.
I can really relate to this because I have found it nearly impossible to complete any activities or even have insightful conversations through text with the notifications that are constantly distracting me. It has made it almost impossible to get away and read a book unless I have silenced my phone or turned off the notifications