Technology has allowed us the ability to search for different forms of media at any given time. We can get any form media at any time now because of technology and it is shaping the way we think and act. We know that we can find the funniest video on youtube of a dog flipping in circles just by doing a youtube search. It is making us more distracted and is causing our brain to reshape the way we think. We know that we no longer have to go to a comedy show to see a comedian, we can just watch his/her show on youtube. Media practices is changing us more into a stay at home and use the internet society rather than an actual go out and experience society.

The technology that we have today has a wide array of uses. We can use technology for many things, and in many ways it has made the world we live in today a much better place. We can discover information from all around the world and use it to better our lives. We can find people from all over the world or fall in love with someone that lives 1,000 miles away. Technology has allowed us easy access to many things, and has cut the burden on us having to travel long distances to get things done. Like in the article redlining article by Gilliard, technology has allowed colleges and university to collectively stop bad internet usage by students. One college found a solution to the problem, and was able to give the solution to other colleges that were many miles away through technology. We are now able to share solutions to problems and information easily with one another, and to make easy fixes accessible to anyone via technology.

In today's society, not just children use the internet and social media to gain information. Adults also use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It has now become socially acceptable for adults to have social media pages and use them constantly. Because parents are now using social media like children, they can become distracted and not pay attention to their own children. Adults can be so caught up looking at adult things on social media that they don't notice that their kids are watching them. If the adults are constantly using social media, then it gives children the thought that it's ok to always use social media and that it's ok to be distracted by it. Parents using social media all the time can also make children addicted to social media and internet usage. Children follow what their parents do most of the time, and them watching their parents always on their phone, tablet, or computer makes them want to do it too.

When you are searching the internet, only you know your primary focus and what information you are aiming to take in. Only you know what information is useless to your goal of attaining information, and only you can filter out the useless information that you may access. You have to work on your focus on the primary task and complete it before moving on to another piece of information. Multitasking and searching for multiple modes of information only leads to the information seeker becoming more distracted or not getting anything done. In order to completely capture the information you are seeking you must pay attention and focus. You have to control your focus and not be distracted by random searches or second party information.

It is almost impossible for people to not be distracted at all when accessing the internet or using technology. There is too much information that can be accessed, and too many things for the brain to take in for us to not be distracted at all. What we can do though, is focus more on how we pay attention and how often do we get distracted while accessing the internet and using technology. We can work on how we focus and use executive control over ourselves to make ourselves focus more. Once we are able to control our focus and not get distracted, we will be able to complete more tasks in a timely matter and get more things accomplished.

As technology grows rapidly, there will always be people who are stuck in the past and don't want to grow with technology. If we didn't have the technology we have today, we wouldn't be able to do half of the things we do, or wouldn't have the ease of access that we have. Doctor's communicate with each other across the world via internet, businesses make long distance transactions via internet, and family members communicate with each other over long distances through technology. These are a few examples of how technology has changed the way we do things and communicate with each other. In the Digital Readings article, it is shown how technology has changed since the 90's. In the 90's if a student in the library searched "inappropriate" material, a buzzer would ring loudly alerting the teacher. Now, the website is blocked through the computer server, and no buzzer is needed. Some people would've been opposed to the changing of this technology because it made a change in the classroom and how the student and teacher interacted. The ability for the teacher to not get distracted by a student searching something inappropriate but to just redline the sites in general is so much better for both the teacher and the student. The student doesn't have to be shamed by the buzzer, and the teacher doesn't have to stop what he/she is doing to check the student's content.

Because students have easy access to multiple modes of information online, they think that when they multitask and access all these forms of information at once it is better for them. This is actually the opposite of the truth. When students multitask their coursework with other information modes such as Facebook or random google searches, they are distracting themselves from the primary task at hand. It is nearly impossible for anyone to multitask with secondary and third information without being distracted from the primary information they were searching. When someone multitasks, when they do end up going back to their primary information source they are too distracted to learn or have already missed most of the information. A recent study by linkedin, a website that hosts as a medium between employees and employers, showed that 98% of people can multitask effectively, multitasking lowers productivity by up to 40%, and multitasking lowers IQ by 10 points. Link to Article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-things-know-brain-akash-bagrecha

By using this exercise, Rheingold showed how easy it is for students to get distracted in the classroom because of the easy access to information. In class, the students with the laptop open are able to search on any site or social media app and not fully pay attention in class. This gives them the ability to pay attention while not actively paying attention which means they are actually distracted. Even the students who didn't have their laptop open were distracted by the ease of information access by other students. Students had to wait to use their laptop which makes them distracted while trying to pay attention to the professor. The use of technology in the classroom allows students the ability to not actively pay attention to the lecture but to also search for other things. This is bad for the students attention to the class and is a good example of distracted technology usage.

In this section, Rheingold focuses on the distracted tendencies of children and adults when they have the multiple modes of information tracking. How people use digital media to gain information also determines how distracted they are when trying to focus on one source of information. Since technology has allowed us the ability to have "always on" information, the more likely we are to not use that information correctly. Because we know that we will always have access to that information, the more likely we are to use that ability incorrectly for things like Facebook, Twitter, or random youtube searches. In the Digital Redlining article by Gilliard, he talks about how schools had to Redline certain websites and information because students would search inappropriate topics or websites. This is an example of how the easy access to information can lead to distraction from what we are actually supposed to be doing. Students will often get sidetracked from their coursework because they have access to other sites and they know that the information will always be there. This lead to school administrators having to Redline sites and block students from doing random searches instead of classwork.

In today's society, the use of digital media to gain information is the most prominent way of learning. Children and adults alike no longer have to go to the local library or travel long distances to gain information. Information today is easily accessible, and with just the click of a button an individual can find out almost anything. In today's world, any person with internet connection or a device that can connect to the internet can gain information from all around the world in just a few seconds. With the production of more technology that allows easier information tracking, there is also a decline in physical learning via books and texts. Children and adults alike mainly use digital media to find what they need, and no longer have to rely on texts to learn. The rapid growth of technology will make future generations have to choose between learning via digital media or not learning at all because most forms of information tracking are becoming obsolete. The world we live in today is rapidly growing, as well as information. Even though people need to be able to easily access this information, the easy accessiblity to this information is also distracting us. We can now find hundreds of different information all in a day's time. Even though it is good that we can access information, is it making us too quick to access to information at once?

The woven basket was a historical placement of sorts for the Mohegan people to remember who they are/were. For the vast majority of native Americans, were they came from and who they were were the most important things for the tribe to hold on to. The baskets allowed the Mohegans to capture a moment in the history of their culture, and embody it with the spirits of its people, just like the sioux on the Dakota Access Pipeline. These placement markers meant more to the people than just a body of water or a woven basket. They were the entire embodiment of the culture.

The woven basket was a feminine form of expression for the mohegan people, it showed exactly the role that women played in the daily lives of the Mohegan people and Native Americans in general. Women were more that just women to their culture. They represented divinity, fertility, and the building of the people. The woman being a strong willed and lasting person was critical to the Native American people, and the Mohegans modeled their baskets after the woman because of the same concept. The baskets were meant to be lasting and to represent everything that the culture entailed.

The message wrote here was a non-native bias wrote by McMullen. McMullen states that once the Mohegan people leave their tribal land that they would lose their identity because of integration with other cultures. Even though this may not be completely true, a vast majority of Mohegan culture would be lost because of them leaving their land. Just like the Sioux people being pushed out because of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Mohegan people face the extreme changes to culture that relocation come with. For a majority of cultures around the world, upheaval from their land can lead to a lot of culture being lost and given up on. Here is a picture of Native American culture after relocation after The Trail of Tears (https://www.google.com/search?q=trail+of+tears&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU5M7M2PfYAhVJ0FMKHWwgCa8Q_AUICigB&biw=1200&bih=859#imgrc=eoab0WdbsEs3RM:)

Daily mohegan life was based around ceremonial and spiritual practices. They used different elements in nature to weave the painted wood splint baskets, even though it was a object in use by them regularly. The land was represented by using strawberries and stylized leaves weaved inside the baskets. The spiritual connection the Mohegans had with the land led to the baskets meaning more than just the physical aspect of the land, but also the food and medicine the land provided. The four domed medallion also had a specific design on the baskets because it showed the energy that the baskets brought to mohegan culture. The mohegans believed that the baskets were more like channeled energy that flowed through its people. The medallion was made of four semicircular domes, four sacred trees, thirteen dots around the center circle, and the sacred center circle.

Art and history are intertwined. This is an example of how art can be used to document historical events. When native land was seized by the settlers it began a long journey of them preserving, their culture. These baskets are just one of many types of native art, but they explain so much. One thing that can be determined is that they were in tune with their surroundings. The nature depicted on the baskets represented a nod to the world around them, showing mindfulness and appreciation. These weren’t savages. Many of the baskets depicted cosmic mappings, symbols, and history. This is a clear sign of not only worldly intelligence but spiritual maturity.

Even I am guilty of eruocentricity. To understand the cultural significance of an artifact you have to get to know the culture. Nature is very sacred and important to the Mohegan. It was praised, and expressed through their artwork. They embraced the world around them and rightfully held it on a pedestal. The importance of historical artifacts from other places such as Spain and Italy verses the discredit of native artifacts shows the obvious dismissal of native history. If these achievements aren’t highlighted it’s easier to continue the narrative that the natives were savages. Crediting art work like these intricate baskets shows that the natives were advanced and multifaceted people.

Companies such as Energy Transfer Partners main goal is to do nothing but make money; which is the point of all businesses. However, like most western developers, they lack the empathy. Not only is it imperialistic to force natives to give up their land but these companies have no concern for the long term effects something like an oil pipeline can have. Native ideologies consider nature sacred and worthy of the upmost respect. It is not far-fetched to say that if we don’t take care of the planet we depend on for survival that it won’t take care of us. When a river is polluted it cannot produce what we need to live such as: drinkable water, food, and trees. These companies ignore long term effects, but you can’t count money with no oxygen.

Native Americans have a long history of being dismissed, bullied, and having their culture exterminated. It didn’t stop in the 1800’s. In fact, just last year 2017 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had a year-long stand-off protesting The Dakota Access Pipeline. The Pipeline runs 1,100 miles across the Great Plains through Native American reservation territory. It not only posed an environmental threat to the land, and the tribes living on it, it broke a treaty. Native Americans have established many treaties with the U.S government in order to insure reparations and to grant land to the tribes. Activists from all over joined the protest for many reasons. Some environmental activists were protesting the dangers a possible oil spill would pose to the land, rivers along the pipeline, and the water supply near the reservation. Civil rights activists also gathered in protest because native land was invaded by big business, for a one-sided benefit. Stephanie Fitzgerald was correct in stating Native Americans have been dismissed. This word choice, specifically, is a great representation of the history of how they have—and continue to be—treated. Initially they were forced off of their homeland, and now centuries later that pattern is repeating. On Jun 14th 2017, the court ruled in favor of the Standing Rock tribe. James Boasberg, who sits on D.C. district court, said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to perform an adequate study of the pipeline’s environmental consequences when it first approved its construction. Here, there’s another example of the carelessness, and brutality these natives face. The way Energy Transfer Partners being an astronomical construction project without conducting thorough environmental impact report is the very definition of dismissive. The victory was a huge milestone for native rights however, the win was bitter sweet. Although the court has ruled in favor of the Sioux tribe, the pipeline is still allowed to operate until another environmental report is conducted.

Western civilization has an entitled mindset. It was built on imperialism and today those ideals still infiltrate our world through many ways. Native cultures didn’t indulge in the concept of ownership. The idea that something could belong to one person was foreign to them. To natives this land and everything that comes from it is for everyone to use, and when we pass we give it all back. Essentially, nothing belongs to anyone; we are only borrowers.

The Mohegan people are very spiritual people, and hold their tradition and culture to a very high standard. They not only hold the past of their ancestors who brought them to the newfound land through "The Great Fresh Water" but also the cultural work that comes from the people. The cultural works mean more than the actual work, but represent the deeper meaning behind the civilization as a whole. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe challenged the United States government heavily trying to preserve their culture and traditions that the Dakota Access Pipeline threatened. Fishing and hunting was not only the way they maintained their livelihood, but also a part of their traditions and culture.The Mohegans, just like the Sioux are being threatened not just to the extent of current artifacts that are perishable, like the fish and game along the pipeline, but the complete history of the people and what their ancestors fought for and believed in.