Cognitive Surplus

This article is about how today's society has transformed into a collective group of T.V. watching and time wasting people that could spend this surplus of time in a more productive way. Shirky's argument is that society has, since pre-Industrial Revolution era, needed something to help itself get through a change that is happening to it collectively. Shirky says that free time is the change for the 20th century. Literacy is defined in this article differently from Carr and Wolf's definition. In this article, Shirky defines literacy more as the cognitive surplus of society while Carr and Wolf define it as losing the ability to truly absorb information being read and consumed. A cognitive surplus is basically free time. Free time is extra time, henceforth the "surplus", which can be used either productively or wastingly. The latter of the two is what is happening in society today which is why this article is not only relevant but important.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

The article argues that the quick and easy access to information on the Internet has decayed our ability to think deeply. It describes the Internet as another technological advancement that has been criticized as the ones before it such as writing, the printing press, and the typewriter. All of these technologies were criticized by philosophers of  their respected times. Also, the ability to read lenghy articles or written works is slowly being lost as a result of the Internet. The writer says he has lost the ability to dive into a long work of prose because of the immediacy of other articles and blogs. His mind wanders and drifts off from what he is reading after so long. Literacy is described in this article very similarily to the definition given in "Socrates Nightmare." That is, the ability to deeply think and analyze is being lost because of how our brains are reprogramming themselves to read like the Internet- short articles and skimming long ones. The author uses the example of Google and their strive for effieciency as one piece of evidence of this loss of literacy. Another piece of evidence he uses is the study done by the University College London which gave the results that people "bounced" from page to page instead of completely reading the articles. One more piece of evidence he uses is the New York Times. He tells how their articles are shorter so the reader gets the daily information they are seeking faster. The reason all of this is relevant is because everyone will need to be literate if they are to live in today's world and the Internet is changing the meaning of the word itself through its programming. Our brains are reprogramming themselves to read how the Internet tells us to read which is slowly decaying our analyzation and deep thinking abilities.

Topic proposal

I am going to analyze Drew Brees's account and how he interacts with his fans. He has a Foundation in his name, The Brees Dream Foundation, which is advertised on his Twitter account with the mission statement, "Advancing research in the fight against cancer and providing care, education, and opportunities for children in need. This is very significant because of what city he plays football for, New Orleans. This is an area that can relate to the support the foundation gives. The star quarterback upholds this image of a generous person to those in need. He also tweets to his fans, community and sponsors. He keeps an updated and positive image in the community when he tweets things like, "Beautiful day in Nola today. Park with the boys, date night w Brit, then watched Steve Sabol: A Football Life recorded. Great day!" In summary, Drew Brees keeps his image positive in the community, with his fans, and with his foundation and tweets associated with it.

Online "Tattoo"

The representation I have given myself on Twitter, I would say, is close to accurate. I don't post anything too inappropriate but by some of my tweets you could tell that I'm a college student who parties which, on Twitter, is mainly viewed by my peers who are close to the same demographic. One example of this representation is in my tweet, "Leaving from senior trip and I feel like I'm about to die #GreatTrip." You also could tell by my account that I am a sports fan with tweets such as, "Ready to watch this #Heat game at BWW," and, "The SEC played pretty pitiful yesterday I have to say." Also, I voice my opinion a little more freely with tweets such as, "@SEC_Logo Brando has got to be the dumbest sportscaster I've ever seen," and politically, "Today 52 years ago was the worst day in history. The beginning of the end... #ObamasBirthday." I voiced my opinion on the latter tweet more openly than I probably would have on Facebook as I am friends with more Obama supporters, and future bosses, possible Obama supporters, will check primarily Facebook. I do feel like I have a great responsibility to uphold a good image in social media especially since I'll be applying for the student firefighter position next year. I feel like I do censor myself for the most part. I feel like the responsibility to censor yourself is one everyone should have, but unfortunately more and more people ignore this responsiblity.

The Gatsby Soundtrack

The producers of The Great Gatsby used this blend of contemporary hip-hop and 1920s jazz because it mixed the best of both worlds beautifully. One of the key parts to using this blend was to bring out the true persona of Gatsby. He was a wealthy man that showed it off to the world. Who else do we know like that today? Well, plenty of people, but the majority of the stock is taken up by hip-hop stars. So this blend kind of intermixed the persona of Gatsby in the hip-hop with the overall attitude of the time period in the 1920s jazz. I believe the music was a successful choice because it couldn't have worked any better. If the producers would have only used jazz it would have slowed the movie down and perhaps not made it as exciting as it was. The upbeat style of the hip-hop brought a lot of it to life without throwing off the story line of the time period. The mood of the music definitely fits the movie in many different songs. My favorite song is "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Ray because I've heard some of her albums and she doesn't change her style or music at all for this song. "Young and Beautiful" describes the story that is taking shape in The Great Gatsby. It is a slow song with a sort of melancholy tone that is accompanied by lyrics that are epitomizing the storyline between Gatsby and Daisy. The producers even said the movie couldn't be watched without hearing this song a dozen times. Another song of interest for me was the remix of Amy Winehouse's "Back in Black" by Beyonce and Andre 3000. This song originally is a deep, dark, saddening song and fits in perfectly with the mood of the movie. The movie is about sadness because Gatsby can't have Daisy but does everything in his power to get her. The tone that is produced in this remix is even deeper and darker because of the story it accompanies. The lyrics to the song parallel the story being told making an even greater impact on the viewer/listener. This soundtrack in its entirety brings out the sad love story being told and mixed in with the movie creates an incredible viewing experience.

Process and Product

This writing definitely helped me tremendously! Without the strict schedule of drafts we had, I honestly wouldn't have started this paper until tonight probably. I especially liked just getting my ideas out on paper and seeing what would work and what would not. This process let me see all of my ideas first and proceed in the paper with the most constructive one. The rough drafts we wrote showed me what errors I obviously needed to work on. I am a sporadic writer and will get into another topic in the same paragraph so this let me separate my ideas successfully and move paragraphs to the right place. Also, the peer review was an incredible help as I got feedback from 4 other writers who were telling me from a reader's, instead of teacher/writer's, perspective what they thought was strong and other points that were weak. As to the process, I think it fits with my style of writing particularly but I have never used this type of process before. Having the strict schedule and writing a lot of rough drafts has helped me produce what I think to be a well-written paper which needs a few revisions and will be ready to go Wednesday!

Writing Process in High School

To start off, I am a mediocre writer at best so there isn't any particular part of the writing process that is necessarily easy to me. However, I would always immediately brainstorm what I could possibly write about when we would get writing assignments in high school. My mind would skim through every possible situation, text, anything that would constitute a good representation of the topic. We were always told to make an outline and it would help tremendously in our writing an essay which I thought was true but rarely practiced. My outlines never helped much to me when I did make them though. I could come up with the general thought that I wanted to write about but I was never able to elaborate easily on that general thought. The introduction always seemed by far the hardest part of the whole process. I knew what needed to be said but could never seem to introduce it and leave room to elaborate on it. Repetition was a problem in a lot of papers because I would explain the same thing over again in a different manner. If I can write a well thought out introduction then the rest usually just comes to me. I'm sure that's the case with most people and I'm one of them. Then I'll get to the conclusion which is just as difficult as the introduction. I always think to myself, "How am I supposed to end the paper without repeating everything I just wrote?" I like to listen to the calmest music I have while I work, Jack Johnson, Jimmy Buffet, etc., even though it doesn't necessarily help except those few times where I just hear something and it makes something click. I always have to have some kind of background noise or else if I'm in silence my mind will start drifting to any and everything. This is usually how the process of procrastination begins for me. Eventually I do get my papers finished, though, and I always get someone else to review it for me because if I, a terrible writer, review my terrible writing it can only be bad.