Week Nine Reading Reaction #3

I was thinking more about the issue of YouTube and how as a forum for receiving information, it is changing the way people receive and process information. After reading the article I tried to see how many times my friends and myself would be going on YouTube or referring to something that we saw on YouTube and the fact remains that we were using and accessing YouTube in numerous ways. Mostly there was an entertainment value associated with the use of the service, but even during moments when we were being entertained, I could see that the way we processed information was different. I was more visually stimulated by the images rather than the talk and I noticed that my friends and I were annoyed with the commentary that people would put up on the video they posted of something that was entertaining. No one was interested in hearing each other, just being entertained. I then began to think about how the want to be entertained could be limiting our ability to actually take in information that is more important for learning sake rather than entertainment. If entertainment is central to being stimulated, there could be some serious issues in the future because most information is not entertainment, but it is still important. There needs to be a balance and each individual should strive to meet that balance by exposing themselves to information that is informative and entertaining, but not necessarily together at all times.  

Week Nine Reading Reaction #2

There has been no shortage of discussion about technology and attention span. The article that we read this week touches on this issue of cognitive perspective, not just by considering the issue of how we regard information distributed by the media, but how the information is presented in various formats that forces our perspective abilities to change in order to understand the information that is being presented. When I think of the amount of information that is presented on a typical news program, it is almost unbelievable how much information is presented in the series of several minuets. When watching CNN, for instance, there is a report being given by a reported, a ticker at the bottom of the screen and information being posted in the corner. The amount of information that we are bombarded with in such a short period of times makes it nearly impossible for us to filter and makes sense of all that information. Our brains are not able to process all of the information in a  reasonable form so that we are able to make sense of the information presented. I feel at times that I am forced to blend ideas together because one story moves so quickly into the other, that I have not even had enough time to truly understand what it is I just was presented. I do not feel this allows any of us to be critically reflective of the information presented. If we are unable to be reflective than what exactly is the point of the information if at cannot make any reasonable impact.  

Week Nine Reading Reaction #1

This week's readings discussed a service that many of us use on a daily basis: YouTube. This form of new media has become the world's leading from of visual communication. Every individual has familiarity with the services provided by YouTube, but few of us really begin to think about the consequences of such a mode of communication. As the reading pointed out, this form of communication has spawned new forms of communication is a radically new manner. People are not simply posting videos or thoughts onto the internet; they are posting positions, theories and perspectives that inevitably travel to every individual with access, thus reaching and affecting people in numerous ways. However, what I find interesting is the idea that people are developing whole new forms of communication as responses to what is being posted on YouTube. People are offering commentary that influences further discussion and new ideas about how to view an incident. Everything that is becoming public is now offering new forms of media communication which create various reactions. Clearly the impact of such postings can have a positive or detrimental effect, but it nonetheless forces a reaction on the part of the viewer.