“College students, even in the Ivy Leagues, may spend from 2 to 5 hours a night on the internet….Today’s college students were born in the 1980’s, when newspapers, a major melting-pot medium for a century since the start of immigration era, had already lost ground to television"
I personally do not know how I should take that statement. On the one hand, yes, it is true. I know I speak for most of us when I say that we spend a great deal of time online. Most of us depend on the Internet for our information; anything from news to emails to file transfers to this blog. So although we’ve been cited for spending so much time online, my question is, is it so wrong?
I know that on a day to day basis, I use my computer for just about all of my written communication. I check my email, I write to friends, I go on my favorite gossip blogs; I even go as far as bringing my computer to class to type out my notes such that I have all my information in neat, typed form. However, Pagila seems to hold it against us that we no longer (typically) turn to newspapers for our first source of information. I understand that newspapers may seem tradition; however, why should we hold ourselves back when it comes to receiving information? I like reading my newspaper every now and then, but I turn to the easiest source of information; electronic.
Like you said Lauren, we do spend a lot of time online and getting our fair share of information from this medium. But I think what Pagila meant is not to condemn the use of the internet as we do. I think she was trying to just make a point that it is something we must realize and pay attention to. If we ignore the fact that we spend so much time on the computer and getting or information from this source, we may lose touch with what is really going on. The internet can be a place of deceit and manipulation and if we just keep in mind other forms of media, that will keep us in check.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you Tim. I understand that Pagila is not trying to condemn us or even tell us that we're in the wrong for using electronic forms of squiring information. I think her main point, as you mentioned, is awareness, and how much we depend on sources that may not be so dependable. However, I feel like it is our generation that is being blamed for this "electronic" revolution. Maybe it's because we're young and it's easier for us to adapt new technologies, but I just constantly feel like we're taking the blame for the electronic revolution. Am I the only one to feel that way?
ReplyDeleteBut in the post you say that you don't know how to take Paglia's statement. I think that if you read her essay, it's quite clear that she's saying that internet use is the reality, and if we want to communicate in this new medium, we have to adjust what we're doing to its biases, rather than trying to create newspaper and magazine articles in the same ways that we did with print media. It seems to me that you are reacting to something that she didn't say, that you projected onto her straightforward statement.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is a great source for information but I personally prefer to sit down with a book or a newspaper. I'm not really sure why but I can retain information better from reading off paper. I sometimes find it difficult to concentrate on a perticular website for too long because as I read I may suddenly spark a new interest and induldge my new interest via a different website. But that's just me, to each there own.
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