Sources: 5
Subject: Education
Topic: Response paper
Paper details:
Please read the attached materials before responding to the review below by another student as her own review and response to the attached materials.
Krista Hiscock It is clear that popular culture, especially the rise of digital media, has had a significant impact on students’ acquisition and use of literacy skills for communication in their daily lives.
The introduction of emojis to digital conversation has served to highlight the flexibility of language which can “evolve according to the needs of its users” (Alshenqeeti, 2016, p. 56).
As we continue on a trend of utilizing text messages or email to communicate with others rather than face-to-face discourse, we have benefitted from emoji’s communication of “more specific emotions and sentiments” to provide additional context for the texts we send and receive and increase the nuance of concepts that we are able to send and receive using digital texting formats (Alshenqeeti, 2016, p. 63).
Despite the growing sophistication of digital communication, it is not without its consequences.
According to Wolfe (2018), as a society, our ability to maintain our attention on a topic or task, as well as our ability to reflect on information we receive has been negatively affected by the constant onslaught of information we receive from the internet each day, resulting in erratic behavior.
Students are growing up in a culture imbued with social media and the additional pressures and responsibilities this requires.
In 2013, I was finishing my last year of high school, this was also the year the Oxford Dictionary first recognized the word “selfie” (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019).
At this time, I was already beginning to feel the pressures associated with social media.
Today I have heard elementary students discuss experiences using various social media platforms.
I worry about the additional stress this causes them and the effects it could have on their self-esteem as they not only consume media reflecting unrealistic standards, but participate in creating content themselves (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2019). Turkle (2012) describes the negative effects that excessive access and use of digital media can have on our ability to socialize with others.
At schools where cellphones and other technology are permitted during recess and lunch hour, I have seen many students isolate themselves from others and engage almost solely with the screen to the detriment of important social skills they are meant to develop during their childhood (Turkle, 2012).
Today, students have the ability to “overcome their marginalized status to participate in shaping their societies” through their interaction with social media and creation of online content such as memes (Barton, 2019, p. 3).
This can be incredibly empowering for students as their participation in meme culture and social media as a whole can make real change in the world, however, this participation “has the potential to do both good and harm” (Barton, 2019, p. 12).
As educators we must understand both the positive and negative effects of engaging students in literacy education which incorporates popular culture and especially digital media.
I believe that lessons in digital citizenship as well as open discussions surrounding the benefits and challenges of digital media for communication are essential to promoting healthy, positive, student engagement in media which is pervasive in our communities.
References Alshenqeeti, H. (2016). Are emojis creating a new or old visual language for new generations?
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 7 (6), 56-69. Barton, J. (2019).
Look at us, we have anxiety: Youth, memes, and the power of online cultural politics. Journal of Childhood Studies, 44 (3), 3-17. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2019).
What would Freud think about our obsession with selfies. (2019).
. Retrieved https://www.bbc.com/ideas/videos/what-would- freud-make-of-our-obsession-with-selfie/p074jg17?playlist=thinkers-from-the-past- on-the-world-today Turkle, S. (2012).
Connected, but alone? [podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.
com/talks/sherry _tackle_ alone _together/ transcript? language= and Wolfe, M.
(2018). Reader, come home.
[podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.yo utube.com/watch? v=43xCzI4KSbo