My approach to reading has definitely changed throughout the course of the semester. In the beginning I think I took a more analytical approach to reading and annotating. I would stop reading a sentence and then would annotate. But as I read and read more through the semester I learned to revise my approach to the way I read, and annotated in order to better suit my individual reading style. I quickly learned that the way I annotated took me out of the reading. By stopping every few lines to mark and write down my thoughts I found I was often taken out of the moment of the writing, which for me didn’t work well for me. But I quickly changed this. I learned it was better to fully read the essay and article through to get a gist of what it was about and then go annotate. Not only did this help me read the essay quickly in a more timely manner, it helped me better understand it because I didn’t have to go back to annotate while reading. This approach also I felt improved my annotations, as I was able to annotate things with newfound information as I had read the whole article. Like writing and reading, annotating styles again depend on what works best for the individual. For me I put my annotations into reading under three categories. The first being words I don’t know or understand. When reading college level articles, I find that I often come by words I don’t fully understand. When I see this I circle them and go look up the definition to better understand the word. The second is that when I see writing that really resonates with me or is super powerful and or important I make note of that. The last part of my annotations are writing in between the margins. After reading I like to put my thoughts in my brain onto the paper. Overall I’ve learned so much this semester in English about annotating and reading! Its cool to see how much I’ve grown in each of those categories. I truly feel like I have built solid groundwork as both a reader and annotator. With that being said I have so much to improve on! It will be interesting to see how I build on these things in the future. Another thing I changed throughout the semester was the way I responded to writing journals after reading various articles.  In the beginning of the semester I approached these journals with the sense that I really should try to explain what the authors wrote. While this was good, I think I missed the mark with this approach. Later in the semester I took the approach to really incorporate my own ideas and opinions based on the writing into the journals I found to be far more useful and valuable.

5 Annotated pages shown below from Is Google Making Us Stupid?

The difference from 4 to 8 and 9 are evident. While its different material I’m writing about, in 4 I really only talk about what the writer wrote, but in 8 and 9 I talk about what the author wrote and then apply my own opinions and ideas to it.

Journal 4:

I really enjoyed this chapter. I found myself deeply entrenched in the writing, as it was compelling not just because of the material, but also in the way it was written. What do I mean by this? Well, that was a question i asked myself after finishing the reading. There was something about it that was different. Something compelling. And it didn’t have to do with the material, it had to do with the author’s writing style. He shaped his writing in a way that made each sentence feel very intentional. Each sentence had purpose. Often, they built of each other, in a way that was conventional for the reader. Considering this chapter was on a subject that I didn’t know much about, it speaks to the authors writing ability, that I picked up each point with relative ease. I also found the way he formatted each section to be very beneficial as well. By using a header, with a new title, It gave me an understating of what the upcoming material would be about. I found this to be informative, and it reminded me of just how important a few words can be. With that being said, I also learned a lot in this chapter. A lot of this material was new to me, and i’m very grateful, that I can add this new knowledge to my writing repertoire. I can confidently say, I’m excited to see what more this author has to offer in his writing.

Journal 9:

In the first passage on page one Anderson explores the various different elements that technology has control over are intellect. He does this through kind of a sarcastic way, but in a way that I believe speaks true to the sort of choke hold technology has around us from moment to moment. He describes it almost like a math problem where he has to check his work to make sure he had to do everything on his device he was supposed to. And while I just said he does it in a sarcastic way, I take that back now. Each individual example he points out is true to certain people, in fact I get the sentiment that this is all true to him, which affects his “Poverty of Attention”. With that being said I agree with Anderson’s sentiment here. I feel technology momentarily demons are attention in some way. Even if we are directly not on our phones or other gadgets, I feel we often anticipate what we’re going to do the moment we go back on them. It’s a really interesting thought, the aspect of how digital technology almost demands attention every second. Even now while I’m writing this my eyes keep flickering over to the digital time on the right of my screen. It’s scary, strange and excuse my frank language, weird.

In the third passage on page 5 Anderson explores technologys’ impact on our intellectual health. He primarily highlights a few parlees like “people who frequently check their email have tested less intelligent than people are high on marjuana”. Lukcikly for me I don’t check my email more than twice a day. I hope that doesn’t make me a frequent checker, if it does at least I know I can improve my intellect. While I don’t exactly agree with the example he brings up between checking your email and being high on marjuana, (I think checking your email would have a less profound effect on your intellect), I do agree with the point that technology has impacted our intellectual ability. I feel the consistent dependency we rely on it for and the constant attention technology deprives us from, as Anderson describes it hurts our brains. This is a common thread that is identified in each essay we have read with lots of truthful evidence. I feel its hard for this to be disputed.

As I get to my third passage, I have a confession to make. My eyes hurt, my brain is fuzzy and I want to throw my laptop into a trash can. I can barely tell if I’m writing coherent sentences at this point. This is after spending about 4 hours straight staring at this screen, which included completing 79 questions in statistics homework, and writing a 1000 word essay on United States democracy. I think this brings up a really interesting point that leads into the next passage. Technology is awful for our health. We weren’t meant to stare at screens continuously for hours, which unfortunately is what I’ve had to experience myself for the past while. On the 6th page in the 7th passage Anderson explains how our attention crisis is mainly due to digital technology. I agree with this, and i think it hurts our health in a multitude of different ways, as we cant keep our attention on things that really matter like our health and well being. As I’m finishing this up, I still haven’t thrown my laptop into a trash can, but I think I might take a hiatus from it for a few days. Hopefully it will also improve my “attention”.

Journal 8:

In the second paragraph on pages 343 and 344, Turkle makes multiple proclamations, that relate to human interaction and development. She identifies how technology for many at the forefront of our lives, cripples are ability to have face to face conversations, which is of critical importance when it comes to human development. I agree with all of this. I feel as human’s our best ability is the ability to learn and grow through human interaction. But technology greatly hinders that ability. When we are online, with a digital presence, we aren’t really interacting with people. We’re interacting with our devices. There’s little room for improvement and growth, physically, mentally and emotionally when you’re on your phone. For example you can play soccer on your phone and in real life. One way involves human interaction and benefits your physical health and the other doesn’t. To no avail, the one that includes moving and involves face to face interaction benefits your health. This highlights just one example of where human interaction bests digital technology from a growth and development standpoint, which supports Turkle’s claim.

In the third paragraph on page 346, Turkle explores the connection between digital technology and friendship. Specifically, she identifies how computers create this false gratification of friendship, in which the computer tries to create and corroborate a relationship with the human, similar to a real life friend. I share Turkle’s opinion here. Computers are designed to keep us coming back. But they do it in a very manipulative way, a way that in a healthy relationship with a friend would be inconceivable. Many people treat their devices like friends and family. But they do this for all the wrong reasons. They do it to escape, to hide, from whatever may haunt them. Often, people even put their devices above friends and family. But this goes back to the manipulative piece. Digital technology is so manipulative, and addicting it puts the people we love the most to the side. Since when did we put something so meaningless over the well being of ourselves and family and friends? This is the conflict digital technology creates, which really all stems from Turkle’s point that this false gratification the computer makes with the human is at the root of the problem. This false friendship with the computer creates a very manipulative environment in which the human becomes addicted so much to the point that it often puts the well-being of that person into question.

In the 5th paragraph on page 350, Turkle explains how there are a multitude of different audiences that the literature pertains to. Specifically, she explores how a certain group of people need to be persuaded on the particular issue at end. For the third time I agree with Turkle. I believe it is of the utmost importance that people really understand the negative effect digital technology has on species. I believe for many this is overlooked for two reasons. One being that they don’t have the intellectual capacity to see the negative effects, and two being that they have such an addiction to their devices that they choose not to believe it, not for the benefit of their health or the people around them but to benefit their addictive relationship with their device.