Category: Uncategorized

In chapter 27, the researchers compare technology to food, we crave it and I completely agree. When our phones ding, it releases dopamine in our reward center in our brains. When I get a text, I feel very happy because my brain is releasing dopamine into my brain. But because of that, when my phone stays quiet, I feel lonely because there is no stimulation to release the dopamine and that is scary. We look at our phones to provide a connection with people to bring us happiness. Media is very distracting to me. I constantly am checking Snapchat to watch other people’s stories or to see if someone snapped me. I hate that I look to my phone to feel more connected with people, but I won’t stop because it connects me with my friends from back home that I can’t see everyday and it does make me feel closer to them. It usually can take me a long time to finish an assignment because I always take little breaks to go on my phone and its annoying, but sometimes I don’t even realize that I stopped working to check my phone.  It is like I’m unconscious to what I’m doing until 10 minutes later and I remember I had homework to finish. It’s scary to think about that and how easy it is for my phone to control me.

In chapter 23 of A Deadly Wandering, it talks a lot about different studies of the effects of using a hand held cell phone while driving. In May of 2007, Governor Christine Gregoire of Washington signs the first state law banning texting while driving. It will carry a one hundred dollar fine. Other states grapple with whether to regulate cell phone use by drivers. Year after year, lobbyists from the major cell phone companies fight against the laws, arguing, among other things, that mobile phones posed no different a distraction than other tasks. Some of those tasks are like eating, or talking to other passengers, even though the data shows that cell phone use was the number one distraction leading to car accidents in California. Finally when they passed that law that made operating a cell phone while behind the wheel illegal, the death rate must have gone down in the following years.

I feel like technology and social media does affect our social and every day life. From personal experience, my three brothers are obsessed with gaming. One of my brothers sleeps in our living room because he stays up so late playing games. Technology has brought people together from around the world and has also closed them off from the world. My dad plays one of those war games and he has made friends with people from around the world and they arrange when to go online to play together at the same time because of the time change. It is interesting to make friends with people from around the world, but it isn’t the real you. Like in the Empathy Gap, Turkle says something like how we can say things more freely not in real time conversations and I agree with that. When I was younger I could hear my dad talking to his gaming friends and he would curse and it was confusing for me because that wasn’t like my dad so I have personal experience with that.

I went to the game night on Thursday and it was a lot of fun! I went at around 4:30 and left around 5:45. We only played one game when I was there. It was a few people from my group and this other kid not in our class, and we played the card game Egyptian War. It started mellow, but got really heated and loud which made it even more fun. I think it was a good bonding experienced for everyone who played. I used to play that card game in high school so after the first game, I got a lot better and it was fun to play it again even if i didn’t win.

I remember back in my AP psych class we learned about top-down processing and bottom-up processing. Top-down processing is where we process information with higher thinking. We construct perceptions based on experience and expectations. Bottom-up processing is analysis that begins with basic senses and then works up to the brain’s interpretation. In “A Deadly Wandering”, top-down attention is what we use to direct our focus. It allows us to set our objectives and focus on them. Bottom-up attention is different. It is what allows our attention to be captured instantly, without our control. It operates unconsciously, automatically, driven by sensory stimulus and contextual cues.

Top-down and bottom-up attention are both essential for survival. Without top-down attention, we would not be able to direct our focus on anything important, like goals or our surroundings. But without bottom-up attention, we would not be alert to our new stimuli, including danger which can be life threatening.

Everyone uses bottom-up attention every time their name is called out and your attention automatically directs to that person. Every one also uses top-down attention every day as well. When your favorite TV show comes on and you don’t notice someone cough behind you, that is top-down because you are directing all your focus to the TV because it is important to the person. When I watch movies that I like, I use top-down attention, and it is like my bottom-up attention is broken. I get very invested into the movie and someone would have to yell at me or touch me for my bottom-up attention to work again. I try to balance them by checking my phone for the time to somewhat check my surroundings when I watch a movie.

Chapters 1-3

Reggie Shaw didn’t think texting and driving could hurt anyone because then, there wasn’t much evidence showing how it affection our attention. After the accident, Reggie denied it was his fault he crossed the yellow lines and seems to show no remorse for what he did when confronted by Rindlisbacher. Reggie was in shock and blocked the memory of what he did because it was so traumatic, but he still lied to an officer and he knew that was wrong so he deserves to be punished.

A few months ago, my mom drove up too a stop light behind two other cars. she saw the light had turned green and her phone had fallen down the side of her seat. She assumed the cars in front of her would go so she  accelerated while she went to get her phone and hit the truck in front of her. Apparently the first car never went because they were texting so the truck didn’t move. My mom had texted me and my dad saying she got in a car accident and we started freaking out thinking it was really bad. All that happened was the truck got a little dent on its bumper and my mom’s car got a little scratch and no one was hurt. This whole ordeal scared me because I was worried about my mom, and it made me understand what could happen if my mom was driving faster and how important it is that people don’t look at their phones while driving.

Welcome to Our Digital Planet. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!