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.