Digital Media Essay

Digital Media: A problem in our youth.

            Every day millions of people around the world log onto a computer as there day starts.

Some of these people are logging on to start their day at work while others are using them to log

 on to start there day of school. Many of our schools have turned to the use of digital media as a

 tool for teaching rather than text books. Some educators believe that using a computer rather

than a book helps keep the students more connected and interested in what they are learning and

they are starting to introduce students to computers at a very early age. This might sound like a

good idea as everything in today’s society is digital related, but educators should reevaluate this

and think about the problems the come along with it. Personally I think putting students in front

 of computers with access to the internet is a very poor way to keep their attention as you can’t

monitor everything each one of them are doing at the same time. Rather than doing their work

they have the tendancy to wonder off of their work and start doing other things. Studies have

shown that it also takes more brain power to do school work using a computer over using a book

and I also think it gives students the ability to take short cuts on there school work. It also

teaches them how to navigate there way around the computer which gives them the ability to see

things they shouldn’t see at that age. I think its becoming a problem of our youth.

            To me a part that I don’t like is that the teachers are not able to see what the students are

doing while tucked behind a computer screen. It is human nature to abuse things and take a mile

when given an inch, allowing students to do their work on computers does not exclude this.

Instead of doing what they are suppose to be doing they can be on face book or sending emails to

each other or even watching videos on you tube. I understand that these computers are monitored

 by someone and that they have settings which block most of these sites, however kids of today

know how to get around these blocks and restrictions without being caught and they are able to

 browse the net freely as if they were at home. It also gives them the mind set that since they are

on a computer all day at school why not be on one while at home especially when they have

homework that’s done on them. To me this takes away the teacher being in control of the class

and what the students are doing, this allows teachers to sit back and browse the internet as well

while the class is suppose to be working instead of teaching.

In addition to students doing things they are not suppose to do, computers in the

class room also requires the students to multitask while working. Studies have

shown that while searching the internet your using more brain power than while reading a

book.The studies have concluded that students who study the traditional way are getting more

from it then those using the computer and internet to study. In the film ‘Digital Nation’ they take

a group of college students who consider them selves to be excellent at multitasking and conduct

 a study of brain activity. Those students were far slower at it then they thought, they also

concluded in the study that it is affecting the students ability’s of rational thoughts.

Furthermore the digital era that we are in has enabled students to take short cuts

on work and they are getting far less from school then those a decade ago.

Students attending college are finding them selves not ready and unprepared and I

think that a lot of this comes from them using computers and other media devices

to learn. There are websites such as ‘SparkNotes’ that allow students to read a

book in a matter of pages rather than a few days if they were to read the book.

This takes away from the student in the aspect that they no longer have to

remember important things they can just look them up and by being able to read

the book in a matter or minutes they seem to put off the work until the last minute.

Although using computers in our schools allows students to do many other things

than their work. Educators still promote this by saying that schools with

computers instead of books have students that learn more. However I still think

that allowing computers in the class needs to be re assed as in my opinion it has

more negative values to the students then positive. I do agree that in todays

society everyone needs to know how to use a computer but I don’t think they

should be using them in normal K-12 schools.