Effects of Technology on Students Tomorrow

Technology whether we like it or not, is becoming easier and easier for everyone to access. Schools are starting to use computers to teach young kids their education. They might say they are doing it for the better of the enviroment because it's saving paper, but is it helping the kids in the future? Tomorrow's future is in the hands of student's today, and if we're teaching them to learn from computers, what's going to happen in ten, twenty years? Soon, teachers won't be needed because clearly they are showing, that computers can do all the work for them. This is making teachers able to be lazy and not have to interact with their students. So what are they getting paid for? Not only is it making teachers lazy, it's making students lazy. Computers are becoming the product that everyone relies on. College and unversity students admit that they bring their laptops to class, but aren't using it for school work purposes. Are they the ones to blame? Or do we blame the media?

Super Bowl Commercials

I have one word for Super Bowl commercials costing 3 million dollars, R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S! There are so many things that 3 million dollars could be used for in our world today. For example, there is a GIANT disaster in Haiti, people. They need everything and anything right now and when I think of hundreds of commercials being purchased for three million dollars a piece, it makes me sick. Is it even worth all the money? Are they getting what they pay for? I personally don't think so. Alright, you make your commercials funny and people laugh, but don't you think that they are more interested in getting up and going to the washroom on commercials because they are glued to their seats during the game? Or even reliving and talking about what happened before the commercials. The Super Bowl is a big thing, and most people watch it, for the Super Bowl, and not the commercials. That's only my opinion though, and if people out there wanna waste their money on a commercial, then I guess it's their money to spend right? I think that Super Bowl commercials are so expensive and continue to grow in price, because people WILL pay. For the people who purchase the commercials, they obviously spend a lot of money on the commercials because it is the MOST WATCHED event of the year. They think that promoting their commercial on that day, will up their sales and yes, it may happen but it may not. Who wants to take that risk? Well I guess people who have money growing on trees!

Negotiating Meaning in The Media

Animated Shorts I Watched:

"HA'Aki" http://www.nfb.ca/film/haaki
"I Want a Dog" http://www.nfb.ca/film/i_want_a_dog
* "Nightmare at School" http://www.nfb.ca/film/nightmare_at_school
"Falling in Love Again" http://www.nfb.ca/film/falling-love-again-3d
"Orange" http://www.nfb.ca/film/hothouse_5_orange
"Pearl" http://www.nfb.ca/film/hothouse_5_pearl


Above are six animated short films that I have watched. Some of them I really liked, some of them were okay and some of them I completely didn't understand or bored me to death. First off, my favorite short was "Nightmare at School". This film was about a first day at high school for a young boy. It went through a lot of parts where it made it seem like high school is a big place and going into it as the youngest person there, was scary. In the end, he was dreaming and woke up to find his friends waiting for him to get going. In my opinion the message was, it's not as bad as you think and your always gonna have friends going into it, or make some at school because it's a friendly place. On a second note, two films that I didn't like or understand were "HA'Aki" and "I Want a Dog". The only reason I didn't like "I Want a Dog" was because it was an eleven minute film and I think I am one of those people that likes a short and sweet film that I understand and can get something out of it. In the end, all films were very well done but some didn't appeal to me. If something doesn't grab my attention within the first minute, I lose interest. This is also why I am a very picky person, for example, I can't read books because I just can't find any that bring me in and make me NOT wanna put it down.

How Media Constructs Reality

There are a lot of children that can't tell the difference between reality and fiction and that's understandable, but today's media is causing adults to also have this problem. Adults today are forgetting the line between the real world and reality shows/fiction shows. Reality shows like Big Brother, Real World and The Bachelor make things look so much easier than they really are. For example. in The Bachelor, they have one handsome rich bachelor, and about 10-12 beautiful women. I believe this shows the women that are watching that men need time to think and don't know what they want until they have a bunch of good looking women infront of them. Are we just objects? Also, shows like Survivor and Big Brother only show you what they KNOW you want to see. It's suppose to be a "reality" television show, but really your just getting all the drama and fighting that will draw your attention. In Survivor they want you to think that it's easy to be living on some island, they make it look like they are all alone but really they have camera crews and medical care there all the time. My conclusion is, if you are going to be hooked to the television day and night, you should realize that tv is tv, life is life. Just because it is a reality television show, doesn't mean that's how we should live our lives, that's not how we should act or look.

Photo Retouching

What do I think of photo retouching? I personally think it's terrible and a bad influence on the people who pay attention to the media. For example, on magazine covers, they take people who are already beautiful, put on pounds of makeup and then still retouch their pictures. This can cause serious damage to teenage girls like eating disorders and not being able to feel comfortable with themselves because they are constantly trying to look better, even though the people on the covers on magazines, don't even look like that themselves. Therefore, young girls have unreachable goals but try to push themselves to look different(thinner, prettier, etc). I think young girls and all women should feel happy with themselves. We are all made to be different, if everyone looked the same, what would be the point of leaving your house? You could just stay at your house and stare in the mirror.

The Mass Media: Has It Got A Hold On You?

We live in a society where we are surrounded by media. It is therefore hard for people to go without it. For example, I am very dependant on television, music and my cell phone. I dont neccessarily think this is a bad thing. Cell phones are always there for emergencies and music can help you cope with your emotions. Television on the other hand is not needed but when I am bored and feel I have "nothing" to do, it's always there for me. It's winter, cold and no one wants to be outside, so I pretty much hybernate and watch television instead of going outside, but can you blame me? The bad thing about being so dependant on television is that it is a great way for the media to use people. For example, commercials. They use commercials to intrigue you into buying certain products like toys, food, electronics, etc. I personally hate commercials and can't stand them and I think that leaves me to say, the media has not gotten a hold on me, but I do use it to my advantage.