20 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2018
    1. Without the capacity for distraction, you wouldn't hear the taxicab horn when you step off the curb

      Its within these situations, where multi-tasking would be moreover accepted. If you are following one task, whether it be checking your phone, and walking then you would not be able to scan your surroundings. If you were able to split your attention in between both, however, you would not be blind to your surroundings. Your senses would be more alert than to they would have been if you only focused on your phone. That being said, its not safe to be distracted on non-important tasks. When you're outside being a pedestrian, the only task you should have is being aware of your surroundings. Crossing busy streets or walking out onto the rode with no awareness of your surroundings can be fatal, especially if you were distracted by something else.

    2. "If we want to survive, we must under-stand the actions of others.

      According to Aristotle, "humans by nature are very social animals." So by that alone, humans would need to have high interactions with other humans in order to thrive. Which is why it is important to be able to understand the actions of other humans. If we don't have this sort of behavior, it leads us to being anti-social, and eventually segregating yourself from the public. Being alone with no social interaction can have many health problems, both physically and mentally. That is why most prisoners who are put into solitary confinement most of the time come out with psychological problems, which can lead up to being a danger to the rest of society, because they forget how to interact with one another.

    3. Then I'll consider the dangers of distraction posed by social media, examine arguments that the Web is making us stu-pid,

      With the new trends of social media in our society, there poses a lot of threats to our well-beings or physical safety. A mass majority of our society, you can say, is addicted to social media. The dangers in that is the distractions that are caused by it. Nowadays, you see a majority of young people in our society using social media whenever they can. The dangers in the is that they would be blind to everything around them. For example, if you are driving while browsing twitter or instagram you cause a risk to you and everyone in your environment, because you are blind to the important tasks due to multi-tasking. When they say the web is making us, as a society, stupid, they aren't wrong. Primarily in today's society, we rely on social media for our news. So when we see some viral post about something, we just assume its true. In Reality, most of the content on social media are false and biased. We as a society will just accept it instead of knowing the truth. So instead of researching the truth, we just follow along with everyone like sheep in a herd.

    4. Humans pay a lot of attention to other humans

      This statement alone is very similar to the supplemental reading, How Terrorists recruit online. Within the Article, it talks about how ISIS would reach out to potential candidates for their cause through the internet. The same goes both ways as well, the candidates can reach out to ISIS too through out the web. On both sides they're can be intense research on each other. What happens next is that ISIS would flock their subject with heavy amounts of social inputs. If they subject stays they would have to cut off all ties to mainstream media, family, friends, etc. ISIS would encourage for their candidate to fly out to them or stay at their homeland and carry out attacks from there. All of these wouldn't even be a process if it hadn't gone back to the beginning, where one person on either side had some sort of liking to the other side.

    5. The executive control we all exercise when we maintain focus on one task becomes useful when we move from understanding attention to con-trolling it

      Understanding attention is similar to those of having focused attention. For example, it is like pointing a flashlight in a certain direction. You're paying attention to the most important details while still looking out for distractions. It's almost like multi-tasking, because while you're still focusing on the main important details, you are still being aware of everything around you, which can sometimes make you miss the important details. Controlling your attention would almost be like sustained attention, where you focus on a single-thought for a long period of time and how well you can hold this thought. Most teens and adults can hold their thoughts on a single thing for more than 20 minutes, it would be their choice afterwards whether or not they want to keep focusing on it again. This kind of scenario happens when you're watching a film or lecture.

      Link to Article: https://www.edubloxtutor.com/understanding-attention-concentration/

    6. Only you can know your goals, and only you can determine which stimuli are relevant at any moment.

      This statement I feel is very true, because when you are online, whether for entertainment or research, you are in full control of what your goals are. You can decide whether any form of information is relevant to you or not. Because you are able to determine what stimuli is important, it is also very easy for you to multitask. By multi-tasking, however, the information seeker is more prone to getting distracted by the various information that is being present for him or her. Once the information seeker gets distracted, the outcome is that there is little to no work being done. The only way to get past this is to focusing on one goal at a time, in an order of importance. Rheingold makes a good point of this throughout the reading about multi-tasking can be the downfall of productivity.

    7. "awareness test"

      (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4) This was a video made to raise awareness for drivers to watch out for cyclists. In the video you are to keep track of how many passes the players in the white shirts make. While you are so focused on counting the passes, you don't notice someone in a bear suit walk into frame and dance out of it. This awareness test shows that we, as a society, will easily miss something we are not looking for. The reason why we might not see the bear is because we are blind to the bear because of the task that was given to us in the beginning of the video, that's why we would ignore it or miss it completely. This kind of scenario is very similar to how people, teens more specifically, are blind to their surroundings. For example, with social media being a big thing in today's society, teens are more focused on their phone than they are with their surroundings. Because of this, they are not considering what's going on around them which creates a higher risk for everyone around them.

    8. Gaining control of your attention while you are online requires, first of all, intention. When you formulate a goal, you need to intend to achieve it.

      This statement can also work very well with those of the real world, not necessarily while being online. Even before the internet, there would always be some sort of multi-tasking, except this time with hands on real world scenarios. When you were in school, teachers would often make you do one thing at a time. There was a reason behind doing this, it was so you don't get distracted or spend more time doing something. Switching around tasks is considered "expensive" not through money, but through time. Just like the saying goes, "time is money" we have to be able to do one task at a time and finishing it, before going on to the next.

    9. People multitask because they believe they can get more done, but Nass has solid evidence that the opposite is usually the case

      A new study by researchers at the university of Connecticut shows that multi-tasking can be more harm than students think. In a survey of 350 students, Researchers found that students who multi-tasked while doing homework, such as texting or checking Facebook, would have to study longer than students who don't. They would also have lower grades in class compared to their other peers. The reason they would have low grades is because while they are diverting their attention to send a text or check social media, they could be missing critical information from a lecture. By the time they bring their attention back to the lecture, their opportunity to grasp the information is gone.

      Link to the Article: https://clas.uconn.edu/2015/07/23/multitasking-increases-study-time-lowers-grades/

    10. By 2005, the year Facebook spread to most universities, the sight of stu-dents staring at their laptops rather than looking at their professor had become commonplace in classrooms.

      Students being on Facebook at the time was just like any new invention of any generation. When the Newspaper came out, everyone was using it. When cellphones came out, everyone was using it. Everyone wants to be included in a trend, its a part of human nature. Now, we have apps such as: Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, which will always be present in any situation, especially in a classroom. The only difference is that these apps have expanded past laptops, but on to cellphones as well.

  2. Jan 2018
  3. spring2018.robinwharton.net spring2018.robinwharton.net
    1. The designs are not only aesthetically pleasing but also deeply culturally significant.

      Baskets were a big part of daily life for Native Americans. Many families had their own family design that they used when weaving baskets. Most of the time though, it was women trying to outdo each other with different designs and colors. Since baskets were made in the winder months, the women of the tribe would spend all summer preparing themselves for the winter. they would gather material to make such baskets. For example, grass was a big part of the basket making process. It was used like a thread, and the women of the tribe would collect a certain type of grass, because of the color and strength of it. They would hike into the mountains, which was a very dangerous thing to do, just to get the right grass for basket weaving. Once the baskets were made they would be used for storage for food and supplies for their shops, as well as using it for trade. Basket making is considered an art to these people, and secret techniques would be passed down from mother to daughter throughout various generations.

    2. t was performed by women to the accompani· ment of stories and songs, which in tum become part of the basket, joining together two traditions, oral and textual.

      According to the Mohegan tribe website, there was a tradition about a giant named Moshup. He represented the large and great beings. in order to keep balance, Moshup marries Granny Squannit, leader of the woodlands little people. There are many stories about Moshup in Mohegan tradition, but there is one story that talks about the landscape of Connecticut. Moshup was trying to build a bridge to the mainland when a crab bit his foot. Angered by this, he used his fiery temper and began throwing stones all over Connecticut, which explains why the landscape there today is very rocky.

    3. Both the variety of design patterns and symbols on Mohegan baskets of the early nineteenth cenrury and Mohegan cultural memory support the theory that basket patterns were used as communicative or narrative devices.

      these traditions of basket making have dated back to the 18th century, but by then the tradition had been well developed. These basket designs were used as a forum for the political opinions of the basket makers. Many basket makers expressed the opinion that one would not lose their Mohegan identity just by leaving Mohegan boundaries, since the medallions were made both inside and outside Mohegan territories. Many basket makers use the medallions to represent those who lived inside the boundaries, and other motifs, such as strawberries, to represent those outside of the Mohegan boundaries.

    4. >lative

      In the article,"Standing Rock Sioux Claim 'Victory and Vindiction' in Court", the Sioux tribe came into legal conflict with the U.S. army corps of engineering when they planned to construct a pipeline within the area of where the Siuox tribe inhabits. What the court did not consider was the economic consequence that would happen if there was to be an oil spill of some sort. The outcome could ruin the everyday life of the Sioux tribe, because it would kill off the fish that live in the river, also where the tribe fish; The water would also be contaminated so the game that drinks from the water would also become very sick, preventing the Sioux to be able to hunt these animals. After a year long legal battle with the court, the Sioux tribe would get their first victory against the pipeline, and the construction would be put on hold for now. The Sioux tribe would be able to protect the land that they have so much history on for now.

    5. In sum, by touching every aspect of daily Native life, both past and present, basketry is imbued with cultural and spiritual power. 63

      According to the Mohegan tribe website, there was this tradition that the Mohegan people had about Makiawisug, otherwise known as "little people". These were considered as good spirits, but they were also to be treated with respect. What the Mohegan people did during nightfall was to carry baskets out to the woods where they would leave various types of food out for these spirits. After a certain time the Makiawisug would collect the baskets. The thing about these spirits were that they had their own form of etiquette. You weren't suppose to look them in the eyes for it was considered rude; with a single point they would root you to the ground and take all of your belongings. You weren't allowed to talk about them in the summertime either, because that's when they were most active. In return, the spirits taught the Mohegan people man skills such as growing corn, and utilizing healing plants. The spirits keep the Earth healthy as well as others who honor them.

    6. One of the primary symbols of the basket, perhaps the most important symbol found in Mohe-gan culrure, is the four-domed medallion. It

      According to the Mohegan tribe website, the Medallion of the Mohegan culture had four different parts to it: Four SemiCircular Domes, Four Sacred Trees, 13 dots around the center circle, and the Sacred Center Circle, as shown below

      Each part listed on the medallion all have a different meaning, but they all correlate to the Earth and the past generations of the tribe, for example how the four semi-circular domes represent the back grandfather turtle where the Earth was grown upon; or the thirteen circles that represent the past generations since the Uncas.

    7. I read the design pat-tern of this basket as a possible retelling of the Mohegan original migration story

      according to scientific evidence, the Mohegans, also known as the Wolf Clan, had shown presence in the area for 10,000 years. They were mostly settled in what is now know as upstate New-York, but had migrated to Connecticut because of European migration. It wouldn't be until they came to Connecticut that they would be known as the Mohegan Tribe.

    8. Indians made baskets and other woven objects long before European and other settlers reached American shores, and they continue these cultural prac• rices to this day

      When they say Indians continue their practices to this day, they are not wrong. Even today, many tribes are continuing their lifestyle that they had back then. for example, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The Sioux Tribe had been in a legal battle with the U.S. army corps of engineers about a Dakota Access Pipeline. The only problem with it is that it could endanger the everyday life of the Sioux tribe if there were to be some accident in the river. The members of the tribe still hunt game and fish near the river to this day. Along with many other tribes to this day, their practices are being endangered with government advances.

    9. It ia 12 inches wide, 17 inches long, and 11 inches high. It is rectangular in shape, with sides that curve slightly inward.

      In the beginning, Woodsplint baskets were made freehand, meaning without using knives or other tools. It wouldn't be until later on where tribes such as the Mohegans would use a draw knife, which is a a blade with a handle on each end to use for both hands. when they designed their medallions onto the baskets, each tribe would have a unique way in how they would created their medallions. these medallions represented their tribe in someway, whether it be the people in their group, or their strength in unity.

    10. The baskets and other objects are often covered with symbolic designs containing insightful readings into the particular culture from which they originate,

      The baskets often had designs that in someway told a story about how the earth came to be or something about the past. There were often symbols that represented the past generations of the tribes, but was there ever a design that in someway talked about future generations, and what they are now? Would there have been some sort of design that would predict the struggles Native Americans would have with the Europeans that would eventually drive them out of their homeland?