TWC 301
From LeapPad to iPad
As a 22 year old, I grew up during a time of extreme technological advancement. My family did not have much money when I was a child, so I never had the newest or nicest tech. However, as technology has become steadily more and more accessible throughout the years I have experienced technology in my classrooms, at my friend’s houses, and in public spaces as technology has been integrated with the world around us.
My first memories of using technology are reading and learning with my LeapFrog LeapPad – you insert a special “book” into the pad, and it would guide you through activities and stories. Since my parents didn’t want me exposed to too much media as a child, this was the perfect educational compromise. Once I was a little older, I played a lot of video games on our PlayStation2; Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, Lego StarWars, and Designer’s World, for example. I believe that most of these experiences were positive, as I was able to stay creative, educated, active, and genuinely entertained. My parents are relatively young and tech savvy, and were always careful to make sure my brother and I weren’t being exposed to anything too violent or extreme.
My first memories of using technology are reading and learning with my LeapFrog LeapPad – you insert a special “book” into the pad, and it would guide you through activities and stories. Since my parents didn’t want me exposed to too much media as a child, this was the perfect educational compromise. Once I was a little older, I played a lot of video games on our PlayStation2; Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, Lego StarWars, and Designer’s World, for example. I believe that most of these experiences were positive, as I was able to stay creative, educated, active, and genuinely entertained. My parents are relatively young and tech savvy, and were always careful to make sure my brother and I weren’t being exposed to anything too violent or extreme.
Although my parents are able to use and understand most forms of technology, the most technologically literate person I know is my dad’s girlfriend, Paige. She is a UX Designer and Researcher, and always makes it a point to get the newest phone, computer, smart home device, etc, so that she can best design for the features and platforms that users are expecting. I am aspiring to be a UX Designer as well, so her excitement about new tech and her enthusiasm for learning are inspiring and helpful to me as I progress in my career. On the other hand, however, using technology in all aspects of my life can get somewhat tiresome. I love being creative and making art in many forms, and am frequently exploring the intersection of digital and physical media, eg: paper books with sound or video components, and digital creations that require movement or physical interaction beyond just tapping a screen. Recently, I realized how similar these concepts are to the LeapPad I had as a child.
Growing up alongside a growth in technology made learning how to adjust to and master new devices, platforms, and software second nature to me. Now that I am surrounded by tech on a daily basis, I rely on it for most things that I do; whether I’m at work, doing homework, being creative, or relaxing, I have a wide range of devices and apps to choose from to reach my goals. Currently, I use an iPad and Dell desktop computer at work, an iPhone and MacBook for personal use, a Roku for streaming, and an Amazon Echo Dot for music. My favorite thing about technology today is how it changes the ways we communicate. Most of my family and a lot of my friends live several states away – not to mention all of my professors in Arizona – and I rely on technology to keep in touch with them and up to date on their lives. I also love how technology has enabled creativity in many different mediums. I hope to get an iPad and Apple Pencil soon, so that I can use it for drawing, and I already use my laptop to design digital media and edit photos.
As technology is integrated into our society, it will inevitably become easier and easier to become technologically literate. Even kids a few years younger than me have a great advantage in that department, and children born today will likely have access to technology that I couldn’t even imagine. This will likely cause a greater divide between my parent’s generation and those before them, as many older people often struggle to learn new technologies. As advancements are made and more research is done, however, I think it is likely that tech will become easier to use. Hopefully I will be a part of implementing those accessible designs!
The main negative outcome of technological advancement that I see online is that children are able to access so much of the internet’s content with relatively little supervision or restrictions; because kids today are so technologically savvy, things like parental controls are often easy to bypass. I worry that these children will see be desensitized to graphic or disturbing things they might see online, and that predators are able to interact with children who don’t have any guidance or caution when talking to strangers online. I make sure to monitor what my cousins do online when I babysit, and when I have children I will hopefully be able to limit their exposure to technology until they are able to think critically about what they search for.
As I read through the first two chapters of our textbook I appreciated that they discussed optimizing your writing for search engines. Along those same lines I enjoyed the tips given to make your writing as streamlined and focused as possible. This quote stuck out to me as I thought about the process of eliminating unnecessary text: “We strive to use exactly the word that our meaning requires, not one that is close or, worse, one that merely sounds like the right word” (Carroll, 2017, pg. 7). As I continue to improve my writing process, I also appreciated the tips for editing, and found this quote to be a helpful abstraction of the concept: “Much like the term ‘writing’, ‘editing’ refers to a large and diverse group of activities unified by their purpose, which is to deliver or present accurate, compelling, engaging information that serves the interactor.“ (Carroll, 2017, pg. 29). Throughout this course I hope to improve my skills with editing and pairing down my writing to the bare essentials.
References
Carroll, B. (2017). Writing and Editing for Digital Media. New York, NY: Routledge.
LeapPad (2000). (n.d.). photograph. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-biggest-toys-of-the-past-70-years/12/
Eve Tallula Gottwald 