Lesson 2 Reaction: Mobile Technology and the Cyber Culture it Creates

Mobile technologies have almost completely immersed themselves into everyone’s twenty first century lifestyle.  From smartphones, and watches, to laptops light enough to barely record a reading on a scale society is essentially “plugged in” at all times to the web and everywhere they go. For students this has created their own cyber culture from the way they communicate with others and retrieve information from the environment surrounding them. It is equally important that both parents and educators are aware of this culture in order to better relate to our youth.

Parents may be at the biggest disadvantage as they often struggle to connect or understand what their children are doing online and with their devices. In Yardi and Bruckman’s (2012) article  in which they explore how families of different race, income, and class  view mobile technologies different, they found similarities for all parents in how little most of them know about what their kids are doing online. Most parents would agree that their children spend too much time online and they attempted to limit usage. As one parent mentioned in an interview transcript, ” It got to the point where they would email each other in the same house at the same time ” (3044). Parents are often worried not only at the amount of time their kids are spending online, but what they are doing online as well.

A major component of the cyber culture includes the fact that teens spend a lot of time interacting with their devices, and for some is their primary form of communication. Since most teens communicate most frequently through their devices, another part of the culture that is constantly discussed is the new generation texting language that has resulted. In Pachler’s (2010) article, he writes in a section labeled “Txt speak and new literacies” the debate over using texting language and formal writing and speaking is always brought up. Regardless of what side of the debate you may be on, its clear that students immersed in this cyber culture and utilize this text language in order to communicate with each other. As Pachler tell us, ” young people use new forms of communication which appear to include layers of meaning not accessible by ‘traditional’ language skills alone” (89). Despite its simplicity to formal speaking and writing, the text language still has complexity to it He adds on that the multiple forms of communication lead to, “ways that engage several communication pathways at the same” (89). Many fear this new form of language because it leads to change and a breaking away from the traditional ways of communication. However in this cyber culture that many of our students are now a part of, as educators we need to decide how much we are willing to embrace this language as we rely more and more on mobile devices as learning tools in the classroom. I am curious to hear anyone’s thought or opinions of this matter.

References:

Pachler, N., et al. (2010). Mobile devices as resources for learning. (pages 73 through 93).

Yardi, S., & Bruckman, A. (2012). Income, race, and class: exploring socioeconomic differences in family technology use. In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3041-3050). ACM.

 

 

2 thoughts on “Lesson 2 Reaction: Mobile Technology and the Cyber Culture it Creates

  1. Andrew Robert Gray

    Jeff,

    I must admit that at first when emojis and the like came out I thought they were quite childish & unprofessional. However, even now I find myself using them in my interactions with people. People who labeled emojis and textspeak as “new literacies” were people that didn’t quite convince me to be quite honest. Sure, Pachler (2010) doesn’t necessarily endorse texting as a new literacy but does bring it up for debate. After the readings this week and some reflection I am more open to their use but with quandaries that I’ll bring up later in this post. Essentially by accepting mobile devices into education and championing their use, we have to accept the new changes (and at times challenges) they bring along with them. When mobile devices came out we didn’t intend for them to create a new way of speaking like they have with “txt speak”, but they did, it’s becoming hugely popular, and now we need to figure out how/when to accept it. Plus, this isn’t the first time something was invented for one purpose but used for another. You may know the general story of why Coca-Cola was first invented, as an alternative to morphine addiction, and to treat headaches and relieve anxiety. Coke’s inventor John Pemberton was a Confederate veteran of the Civil War who suffered from a morphine addiction. Coke was a sweet, alcoholic drink infused with coca leaves. As devices bring interesting new changes along with them we need to consider accepting these changes.
    When emojis & textspeak get the same message across but do so in a quicker & more enjoyable fashion, who’s to say that we shouldn’t accept them in the educational world, at least in some areas/ways? However, I would not want to be an English teacher right now with the increasingly textspeak-reliant teenage populace. ☺

    – Andrew

    Sources:

    6 Hugely Successful Products Originally Invented for Something Else. (n.d.). Retrieved May 31, 2016, from http://mentalfloss.com/article/29840/6-hugely-successful-products-originally-invented-something-else

    Pachler, N., et al. (2010). Mobile devices as resources for learning. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. (pp. 73-93).

  2. Pam Dobson

    Hey Jeff-

    So many thoughts about your reflection! We pulled some of the same content out of this week’s readings. Then after I wrote and posted my reflection I got the chance to go back and read McKay’s “Wired Whizzes…” which gave me a lot more to think about.

    First- as adults- can I quickly defend parents from being classified as “unaware” or “struggling” to understand kid cyber culture? I know there is probably a large portion of adults (perhaps from an older age group) that is disenfranchised from the technology that their kids have. However, I think that pool is shrinking as Gen X and Millennial’s kids are growing up. These two generations of parents use and own this technology themselves (especially Millennials!) It’s not school aged kids who spend hours on Facebook, it’s adults (Duggan, 2015)! I believe there are foundational elements or experiences of childhood that don’t change but can look different based on the culture. Getting dumped is getting dumped; getting dumped online may have a new aged sting to it (depending on the details of how it goes down) but a broken heart is still something parents can empathize and relate with. I think where parents miss the boat is modeling good technology behavior, setting limits and boundaries for devices, and remembering to build face-to-face relationship skills with and in their kids (i.e.: dinner together). Side note- I text my husband from upstairs to bring me glasses of water or to tell him to turn the TV down. I’d email him, if emailing wasn’t sooo 2002.

    Mckay highlights a perception that parents believe their kids to be, “imbued with a ‘natural’ media literacy” (2005, p. 196). This isn’t the first time people have, in my opinion, misclassified kids as “digital natives”. I credit Steve Jobs and the engineers at Apple for coming up with intuitive devices that make mobile technology easy to learn. Because these devices are easy enough for a toddler to use doesn’t mean that the toddler or the 12 year old understands the consequences of his or her use. We can’t assume kids understand a.) how devices really work and b.) the cause and effect relationship of their presences on the internet.

    I thought how you summed up Pachler (2009) on text language was great:

    “Despite its simplicity to formal speaking and writing, the text language still has complexity to it [Pachler] adds on that the multiple forms of communication lead to, “ways that engage several communication pathways at the same” (89). Many fear this new form of language because it leads to change and a breaking away from the traditional ways of communication.

    I’ve been thinking about this A LOT lately, wondering if I’m part of the problem or part of the solution for adolescent expression. Here’s where I stand, right now… I find that the “new form” of language is sort of lazy. I’d call it concise if it was shorten with intention or skill. However, I find that students misuse, overuse, or use hyperbole that has become accepted in instant messaging culture. It’s the same problem I had with Sex & City’s use of the word “fabulous” or Louie C.K.’s masterful attention to the word “hilarious” and “amazing”. Now we see three exclamation points to convey excitement or multiple questions marks to illustrate utter confusion. But I find that students don’t really poses the language skills behind these shorten forms to say what they really mean. They actually lack the language skills. The end result being lazy language where the only adjectives we have for things we experience are AWESOME, AMAZING, HILARIOUS or FABULOUS. That being said, getting kids to communicate is important and allowing them to start communicating in a way they are comfortable with is a win for any teacher— as long as it evolves into something that challenges what they know and makes them grow as communicators.

    Sources:

    Duggan, Maeve. “Mobile Messaging and Social Media – 2015” Pew Research Center. August 2015.

    Mckay, S., et al. Wired whizzes or techno-slaves?: Young People and their Emergent Communication Technologies. Talking Adolescence: Perspectives on communication in the teenage years. Williams, A. and C. Thurlow. ed. New York. Peter Lang Publishing. 2005. 082047097X. pp. 185-203.

    Pachler, N., et al. (2010). Mobile devices as resources for learning. (pages 73 through 93).

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