This entire anecdote having to do with the effect of technology on children was very moving to me as a reader, and therefore was very smart to include on Rheingold's part. When people try and argue that technology is damaging to kids, they're usually citing examples such as violence in video games or lack of outdoor activity, but this example explores a whole new facet of technology's effects on children.

This idea definitely takes advantage of a reader's pathos rather effectively. Imagining a child trying to get their parent's attention, trying to tell them a story about their day at school or showing their parent their favorite movie and waiting for a positive reaction when all they'll get is a, "Uh-huh, okay," while their parent focuses on their Blackberry is pretty heartbreaking. This anecdote, including Turkle's quote, is very persuasive.

The concept of imitation behavior having to do with humans' fascination with social media is a really interesting and compelling one. Instead of solely being interested in 'stalking' each other, which many people suggest is the only purpose of social media, this concept actually suggests that social media plays an important role in a learning method that humans and other animals alike have used to discover and apply new knowledge.

The following photo shows a more cut and dry version of imitation learning-- the children in the photo learn behaviors, in this case dances, by imitating the adults. The same can be said about social media; if we see someone we follow being punished for a certain behavior online, we're much less likely to engage in that behavior on our own time. If we see someone we follow commended for a behavior online, we're more likely to engage in that behavior. This sort of interaction is also when the attitudes of people or groups that a person follows online would come into play.

While the Bobo Doll experiment suggests many things about how someone's parenting style could affect their child in the long run, it also poses a worrying notion about what social media may end up doing to children. We're already able to see some of the adverse effects of children imitating what they see on social media, such as young people engaging in increasingly sexual acts on applications like Instagram or Musical.ly [sic] because they see adults doing lewd acts on the same platforms. When I look at the Instagram pages of tweens and teens that are younger than me, I feel as if they're completely detached from childhood. Some fourteen year olds look even older than me in their photos.

Here is the Wikipedia page for the Bobo Doll Experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment

Below is a photo of Loren Beech who is a 15 year old Instagram and Musical.ly star. In my opinion, she looks as if she could be in her twenties in some of the photos she takes.

The idea of "mirror neurons" being hardwired reminds me of an experiment I once read about called the Bobo Doll Experiment. Here's a summary of this supplemental reading:

In the experiment, children would sit in a room with adults, being told that only the adults could play with certain toys in one corner while the children had to play with their own (this mimicked the sort of separation that exists between children and adults in society). One group of children would be exposed to an adult being violent, both physically and verbally, to the Bobo Doll, while the other group was not exposed to this violent behavior. The children exposed to the violent behavior were much more likely to become violent once they were frustrated as compared to the other group of children who were not exposed to the violent adult.

Here's a photo of the doll that the adults would be violent to during the experiment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment

To make a summary of one of my supplemental readings, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty, I first have to make sure a reader knows that being a liar is not something that is inherent and is instead something that is situational. In the book, the author describes putting various students in different situations and testing how their honesty or choices would be affected. For instance, a group of students would be more likely to cheat on a test if there was a reward as compared to if there was no reward at all. The students would be less likely to cheat on a test if there was a proctor watching them as opposed to an empty room. The book is an extremely interesting nearly 200 page analysis of human nature, and it's definitely a good read.

http://meshesblog.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/0/56303307/the_honest_truth_about_dishones-_dan_ariely.pdf

This sort of experiment reminds me of a book I once read called 'The Honest Truth About Dishonesty.' The fact that Rheingold made the students aware that he was recording them could have vastly skewed his results (even if some students did still surf the web or check their emails). If somebody knows they're being watched, they're much less likely to engage in a behavior that's perceived as being bad, such as surfing the web instead of paying attention in class or playing an RPG while the teacher is trying to lecture. Many more students may have engaged in these behaviors and, therefore making for different observations, if the students were not made aware that they would be filmed. I can see how filming without consent could be considered unethical and an invasion of privacy though.

Here's a PDF of the book:

http://meshesblog.weebly.com/uploads/5/6/3/0/56303307/the_honest_truth_about_dishones_-_dan_ariely.pdf

Obviously you can't read the whole thing in a short amount of time, but even looking over a few chapters is interesting.

In any piece written about the internet, I find it extremely important to note the publishing date and to consider any biases the author may have, especially based on age. First of all, it's quite promising that the publishing date of this piece is 2012, as that's very recent and there haven't been any monumental changes to the internet within the past five years. If the article was written some time in the late 90's, I would have been much more skeptical when analyzing, or would at least look at it in a different light. Next, it's important to note that Howard Rheingold was around 65 years old at the time of writing this piece, which may indicate that he isn't as knowledgeable about the web as other younger scientists. In my experience, older generations tend to have an inclination to blame the internet rather than explore the opportunities it presents. Rheingold's older age is definitely something to keep in mind when reading this piece.

It can seem much easier to think of the brain as a circuit-board, especially in instances thinking about the rapid changing of tasks. Unplug a wire from one task and plug it into another. Truthfully though, you can think of these wires as different pathways that can be changed, or upgraded, over time. You can choose to 'upgrade' certain parts by doing exercises like meditation, focusing on different things in order to make different parts of your brain stronger. If you focus too hard on one though, that wire might short circuit.

This quote does a very good job of describing a feeling that I believe nearly everyone experiences once in a while, whether it be doing work or homework. It's a really interesting way to think of attention though. Instead of just inherently being bad at paying attention to things for a long period of time, doing homework for hours without giving into the itch to watch Netflix or play a video game is instead an exercise of self-control. Thinking of an attention span that way actually makes it much easier to get work done quickly, while also making it much nicer to reward yourself afterwards.

I feel like I've tried certain variations of this technique on my own, but without the organization. I think this is definitely the best way to go about trying to get things done. Instead of forcing yourself to sit down and work on the same exact task for hours without breaks, work on separate tasks and get more work down over time. This also would most likely produce higher quality, less tired work. On top of that, it makes big blocks of tasks seem a lot less overwhelming and very manageable as compared to looking at many large tasks all piled up.

I recall many, many AP Language questions have to do with the internet changing people lives and taking away their jobs. For instance, one of the ones I could find online accused Google of taking away the jobs of librarians and effectively getting rid of public libraries altogether.

https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-english-language-frq-2017.pdf

I also recall doing another (that I can't manage to find online) that said having information readily available online makes our lives move too fast, instead of just acknowledging the fact that search engines can make our lives easier.

Since older academics tend to be in charge of AP exams, it makes sense to me that a lot of the questions, especially in the argument essays, would be centered around 'negative' effects of the internet. Still, it got fairly tiring to write about.

I really like the way that Rheingold addresses the fact that many academics (usually members of an older generation) tend to blame technology, and especially the internet and social media, for shortening attention spans or making kids 'dumber.' Rheingold goes on to say that humans made the internet and social media themselves-- if we want to blame anybody, why not blame the humans who created what many are working so hard to turn into some sort of evil force? It's very rare to see an academic actually defending the good parts of the internet, and it's extremely refreshing to see Rheingold doing just that.