The Digital Self

TOPIC: Self

SOURCE: my participation and observation of living in the digital world. Also watching my peers and there use of the digital world. 

RELATION: I will discuss how the digital world is shaping a new generation and changing the “self”.

DESCRIPTION:        

I was trying to think about the effects of the digital age on my generation.   What happens to our sense of self, I wondered, now that we have access to new media and the infinite possibilities of the Internet?  So, I started to notice the amount of time my peers and I spend on social networks.  Many of my friends access the Internet through their cell phones and therefore never have to be “offline”.  They are constantly updated, liking, reblogging, following, and tweeting.  There is almost a certain amount of responsibility people feel toward keeping their “web-self” updated. The image that people create for themselves becomes just as important as their real life self.

Many people today feel lost or amiss when they cannot get online.   Usually it happens when visiting parents, grandparents, or rural friends. On one occasion I asked someone what their Wifi password was and they stared at me blankly for a few seconds, before uttering, “Wifi?”. I just stared back in horror. 

COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS:

Our modern day world is becoming digitized. Analogue is becoming a thing of the past, and it will likely die with my parents generation, or my own. It will be seen as something collectible, cool, retro, and unique, but nevertheless, dead. Yes, people still flip through books, buy records, and learn instruments, but for how much longer? Pushing tactile buttons, pulling of levers, and turning of knobs, is about to disappear. Soon the distinction between being online and offline will fade. There will be no offline, and thus, no online. Everything and everyone will be forever connected. If we want to disconnect, we’ll have to painstakingly go out of our way to do so.

For people of my generation there is a certain anxiety that comes over us when we can’t connect. Technology critics usually claim that this anxiety is innately bad, and stems from my generation’s need for instant gratification. But what’s so bad about instant gratification? Should I have to work to find the information I want, or need, when it is conveniently at my fingertips? Shouldn’t information be easy to access?

These are all questions that future generations will face, and the answers will dictate how our world advances in years to come. 

inequality in class registration system.

TOPIC: Inequality

SOURCE: Personal experience with inequality due to my age. Also recent experience with registering for classes for spring semester at HSU. 

RELATION: In the lecture power point we learned that there are many ways which social classes can be classified. "…(social classes) are also classified by gender and age, as well as by standards such as education.” (lecture power point). Also, Robbins speaks of inequality in this week's readings. 

DESCRIPTION: Social inequality exists in many forms. Recently I experienced inequality on a smaller level than most of the social inequalities we are studying in class, however i think it demonstrates how inequality is seen as natural and not questioned by those being oppressed by the inequality. 

I experienced having to be one of the last groups of people to register for spring semester classes. This is not an easy process, and when people have been filling up classes for weeks before you. Making a schedule that works for you with the units and classes you need then becomes stressful.  The way that the university grants access to register for class has to do with putting people into categories and judging them based on certain standards, for example: age and standing in education, as well as participation in sports. Due to the fact that I am a freshman student not playing a sport in college I had to wait to select my classes until all upperclassmen had registered. Before the upperclassmen, football players get first choice at classes. Why is it that we are all college students attending the same university but a student that choices to play football gets free range at the classes before everyone else?

COMMENTARY:

 I feel that this system of granting access to classes is unequal to students. Also, the categories that have been created show that  they are judging based on standards like age and grades, as well as participation in sports . Why is that older more experienced students are getting more time to register? Shouldn't each student have equal access to the classes they are paying to attend? Also, if students must register in a certain order, shouldn't that order be determined not by categories like age? 

Becoming an Adult as a Rite of Passage

TOPIC: Rites of Passage


SOURCE: The personal experience of visiting my family in Reno Nevada and going through the rights of passage to be an adult in my family. 


RELATION: This topic is an example of rites of passage in my family. This relates to our lecture during this week and the readings in Robbins. 



DESCRIPTION:

My great grandparents immigrated to America from the small coastal town of Catolica Italy. My great-great grandfather’s father was a butcher in Italy and to this day in Reno Nevada; my grandfather holds the position of head butcher at a casino. My family holds tight to its Italian roots and traditions. When I was in Reno visiting my family for thanksgiving break, it was the first time I’d been back since I turned eighteen.  Upon arriving as the newest adult in the family, I realized that there were certain rights of passage that I had to go through. First of all I was allowed to help in the kitchen for thanksgiving dinner, while my sister who is sixteen was banned. “Only the adults in the kitchen during turkey time” my grandfather would say.    Getting to help prepare Thanksgiving dinner felt like a right of passage into adult hold for me.  By getting to cook with my grandmother, aunts, and older female cousins, I was being initialized into adulthood in my family.   Like me, my cousin had gone through the same tradition as a right of passage.  Also, my grandmother and aunts would include me in making decisions for the family, small things like what to make for dinner and what car to drive.  I felt that because I got to help with these decisions, I was being shown that I had more respect as well as more responsibility in our family.  I also felt pressure from my family to effectively pass the rights of passage “ceremonies” I was going through. I was expected to step up to responsibility as an adult in the family.  If I pass these tests I get rewarded with the title “adult” and other family perks such as learning family secrets and getting a glass of champagne at Thanksgiving dinner. 

COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS:

 Going through this right of passage into adulthood has been part of my family for generations. The meaning we put to these activities turn them into ceremonies and these ceremonies are what make up the rite of passage. This tradition marks a transition time in my life that is important to my family to celebrate.