Childhood Taken Over By Technology...Or Is There Some Hope?

For our final unit in Journalism, Text, we learned about written journalism and how it has been used to connect us to here and now. We studied essential skills, values, and concepts of written journalism in our century, and we learned about spot stories, in which all of the information is gathered “on the spot”. For our Action Project, we were assigned to cover our own spot stories at an event that we each chose to attend. This was a unit I enjoyed because I’m someone who loves to write, and I liked being able to improve upon my writing skills.

Childhood Taken Over By Technology...Or Is There Some Hope?

AG Technology Taking Over 2015

“Give that back! Why would you take that away from him?” a father yelled at his 9 year old daughter for taking away an iPhone from her 3 year old brother. Meanwhile, the small boy is screaming and crying off to the the side. This familial moment, which nowadays seems to happen all too often, is a prime example of what I worry about most when I think about today’s youth (by which I mean younger than me).

To clarify, I’m referring specifically about young children in this generation, children whose lives will be changed forever because they will never have the opportunity for a childhood that isn’t taken over technology. People my age are already technology obsessed - I’m not any different - but at least when we were younger we had childhoods where we actually played, childhoods where we still played outdoors, and with each other, with actual toys, not all-tech all of the time. Today’s youth have childhoods that don’t involve these things, but instead are corrupted by technology, disconnection, less socialization, and what I consider to be a much duller experience of being a kid.

On October 18th, I had an opportunity to witness both phenomena in action at this year’s annual Fall Harvest Festival at Wagner Farm in Glenview, Illinois. I was there volunteering for community service hours and had been assigned to supervise the Arts and Crafts section of the festival. The event was comprised of many different sections and opportunities for creativity and okay: the farm contained a large field with a farmhouse, a historic center, many different educational exhibits, and there were other fun, hands on activities such as wagon rides, apple cider making, animal petting, pumpkin picking, tours, and a lot more. Being in the crafts section, I got the opportunity to witness a variety of “interesting” artistic talents in my young “students” that day, but my mind also kept returning to our glaring difference in childhood experiences - tech or no/less tech.

This isn’t a concern to me alone. Fellow twitter users will recognize the trending hashtag “#TodaysKidsWillNeverKnow” where people nostalgically share the different games, books, or experiences in general that this and future generations of children don’t and won’t ever know because of how overcome they gave been by technology. Everything is just at their fingertips, and it’s there without any waiting. It’s amazing that technology has gotten so advanced, but what ever happened to jump rope, freeze tag, passing notes in class, mash, mood rings, Twister, the Barbie Cash Register or Hot Wheels? Do kids even still want treehouses? The most my generation had, technology-wise, when we were growing up were Gameboys, slow internet that would take 15 minutes (if you were lucky) to start up, flip phones that you had to record your ringtones on, cableless TV, and CDs. Movies weren’t “instantly streamed”-- you went to Blockbuster to rent them with your family and then you would spend some time rewinding the tapes to the beginning before returning them to the store. You couldn’t look up the definition of everything on Google in a couple of seconds -- you had to flip through the dictionary. You didn’t just take a million pictures on your phone -- you had a disposable camera, where every picture was taken with precision and care because there was no redo or delete button. And then went and developed the film -- it didn’t just upload quickly to your computer. But “Today’s Kids Will Never Know” and that’s just downright sad.

What I witnessed at the Fall Harvest Festival, however, was a relief to anyone who worries that technology is taking over today’s children. Kids were actually playing with toys, each other, animals, and the outdoors. They weren’t all sitting with tablets and cell phones and Gameboys. In fact, aside from the one incident I overheard with the child crying over the iPhone being taken away, I didn’t see any kids playing with any tech, which made me feel extremely relieved. One of my fellow volunteers said “I’m surprised we had this many kids coming in; I thought most kids nowadays just play on their phones.” The children and parents in my section were genuinely excited about the crafts we had set out to make. We created apples out of yarn and leaves out of paper, which might not sound like the most exciting things to do, but the kids actually enjoyed it, their little smiles along with exclamations of oohs and aahs, were proof that this was certainly a highlight of their day. We helped children of all ages - some of them so young that they even struggled to loop yarn around cardboard - who stuck with the crafting and did their best. An excited parent exclaimed, “It’s really nice to get to see the kids play with things hands-on for a change.” Whether her comment and this whole experience confirms my worries or proves them wrong, it was nice to get to spend a day with children, playing and creating, just like I once did.

REY of Light

For our second unit of Journalism, Sound, we studied radio and how it is used to connect people. We listened to many podcasts and studied many different voices. For our Action Project we were assigned to choose who we considered to be the “voice of the century” and make a podcast about them, including an interview and soundbites. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed the project because we got to do it on someone meaningful to us, and I really enjoyed getting to discuss Lana Del Rey and her art.

WHEN	WHO/HOW	WHAT
0:00 0:02 0:26 0:46 2:49 2:53 2:56 3:04 3:08 3:14 3:17 3:19 3:20 3:25 3:28 3:35 4:01 4:31	[soundbite] [AG] [music fades in] [old music fades out, new music fades in] [soundbite] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [AG] [IJP] [snippet of Lana Del Rey’s song “Brooklyn Baby” fades in] [AG with music fading in in the background] [soundbite] THE END	Elizabeth Grant, more well known as Lana Del Rey, was born June 21, 1985 in New York state. She began songwriting when she was 18 and released her first album in 2005 under the name May Jailer. Later she signed her first record deal and released her debut studio album- Lana Del Ray AKA. Lizzy Grant, ray spelled with an a not an e like currently, under the name Lizzy Grant, but it got very little attention. She then changed her stage name to Lana Del Rey, rey with an e, and released Born to Die, which became a major hit, 5th best-selling album worldwide in 2012. Later she released two more albums, Ultraviolence, and more recently Honeymoon. In between all those albums she also released many hit singles. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding Lana Del Rey about how people consider her to be “not authentic”, and she is often criticised for many reasons. However, people need to realize, that all celebrities have a persona, that doesn’t make them fake or “not authentic”, it just makes them a celebrity. There is a lot of mystery surrounding Lana Del Rey and what kind of person she is, but the rumors about her are just that- rumors. For instance, people think that her father paid money to get her where she is today just because of how wealthy he is, but that’s completely false. 5 Points Records label boss David Nichtern said “Her father never had anything to do financially with supporting her creativity.” Her music is good, and people realized that which is why she’s gotten where she is, it has nothing to do with money. People also think that she slept with many people in the industry to get her higher up, but again this is completely fake. Lana Del Rey is brutally honest and even said herself, “You know, I have slept with a lot of guys in the industry, but none of them helped me get my record deals.” She owns her actions and does it with no shame, which just goes to show how not fake she is, and it also confronts another issue of people calling her anti-feminist. But how can someone who completely owns something like that be anti-feminist? Her music strives to show women's’ points of views on many things, and explains what goes in their minds, not to make an excuse or encourage it, but just to make the world understand, and to show women going through these situations that others feel the same way and that they aren’t alone, but I don’t think that’s anti-feminist at all, I think it’s just honest. The things Lana Del Rey sings about are critical for this century because she brings to light issues that most people don’t really address, like domestic violence. She also confronts death and what comes after. Her music is so hypnotic it captivates people and her lyrics force you to listen and pay attention. I interviewed the person who first introduced me to Lana Del Rey to discuss her music and why she thinks it’s important. Why do you like Lana Del Rey's music? I think she inspires a lot of people, um, especially young women; she serves as a role model for me, and my other young women as well. Why do you think she's important for out generation? Um, I believe that she inspires a lot of people to be their true selves. Which of her songs has the deepest meaning to you? Um, "DarkParadise". Why? It reminds me of the dark times and being able to get through them. What made you play me her music for the first time? I thought you would enjoy her music as much as I did, and I thought her music would help you go through hard times like I did. Lana Del Rey’s music is so important in our generation, because it is so honest. Her music tells the truth about our time period and it helps others know that they aren’t alone. Time Magazine described her song Brooklyn Baby as “by far the most millennial song ever written”. I think her music is something that everyone could relate to if they just listened to her words, and I think it is something important for everyone to listen to, so they can know what they’re feeling is normal and okay. Because that’s what her music does for me.

Works Cited:

• 50 Geeky Facts About Lana Del Rey | NME.COM. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• Harris, P. (2012, January 21). Lana Del Rey: The strange story of the star who rewrote her past. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• Lana Del Rey. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved October 14, 2015.
• REVIEW: Lana Del Rey's Ultraviolence Is the Album We Need Right Now. (2014, June 17). Retrieved October 14, 2015.

Circle of Life

Our first humanities class for our senior year is Journalism. Journalism is about observing, analyzing, and reporting current events through different media. Our first unit is about journalism through images, also known as photojournalism. In this unit we learned about photography skills and how photographs are an essential part of journalism. For our first action project, we were given the task of interviewing someone who we believe has an interesting view of the world, and what they believe the meaning of life is.

For my action project, I chose to interview a friend who is very close to me. I’ve known him for only a year but he’s already become a very influential person in my life, and I believe I already have pretty good sense of what kind of a person he is. JM is almost 18 years old, going to the top ranked school in Illinois, and one of the brightest people I know. He enjoys bike riding and being out with friends; he also mentors underprivileged kids three days a week. I chose him for my interview due to how much he has already experienced in his life. Growing up in Colombia, I know he’s witnessed many deaths and has dealt with many hardships, and has to have a different perspective of the world than most people our age, even those who’ve lived in Chicago.

In our interview, conducted on September 15th at my house, JM told me he believed that the meaning of life is “to leave something behind that others will experience and learn from, while at the same time, having experiences that will you with pleasure,” part of what shaped his view on life, surprisingly had little to do with his childhood and Colombia, but instead came from a book his father gave him during a rough patch in his life. The book, Amador, is a Spanish book written by Fernando Savater as a sort of guide for his son. It is about the ethics of life and the questions his son should ask to lead a good life. This book, which my interviewee read last year, inspired him to change his views on what was worth shaping his life toward, and it enlightened him with topics and perspectives he had not previously considered.

JM personally, has yet to demonstrate the first part of what he believes the meaning of life is- leaving something behind for others to experience and learn from; however, he explained to me, how his parents have done this for him. He stated “My parents were the first ones to get an education in our family and to strive for a stabilized financial situation. The trials and tribulations that I experienced in life are not something I want my children to have to experience as well.” He has, however, demonstrated the second part of his meaning in life- filling your life with experiences that fill you with pleasure, and this is something I’ve personally witnessed many times. For the past two summers I would constantly see him doing things that I know he finds fun. Even before I knew him, when I would just see him around, he always had a smile on his face whether he was somewhere lively like a music festival, or just somewhere more ordinary like a park, showing how he strives to find something positive in everything he does, in order to fill his life with pleasure like he stated.

When I asked JM to describe what image he thinks would represent his meaning of life- he said a circle, a fun, adventurous, colorful circle, not a regular one. The circle represents his belief that life goes on, but it’s not just ordinary because so much happens - good or bad - in life. That’s how I came up with my idea for the subject of photograph.

AG Circle of Life (2015)

The photo I chose to include with this piece is of a circle made of flowers because I thought it was a good representation of how JM described his image of the meaning of life. I chose flowers of all things because plants are actually life - they’re organisms and they help sustain life- and they are all different and unique, just life each individual and his/her experiences; but at the same time they are all in the same circle of life together. I chose to center the circle instead of using the rule of thirds because it’s just one shape and I thought it was more aesthetically pleasing that way. I used a pretty low aperture (f/2.2) to allow more light in so that the image would be brighter because I wanted to show life in a more bright and positive light. My shutter speed was pre-set, but it must have been short since I took a picture of something that was still and it wasn’t blurry. Furthermore, I set the focus directly the circle since it’s the subject and most important part of the image, and there wasn’t much else I wanted the viewer to see.

This action project was one I especially enjoyed, because not only did it allow me to become closer to someone in my life, and see their view of things even more, but it also allowed me to improve in a field that I find very enjoyable- photography. I’ve always had in interest in photography, but never felt as though I knew enough about camera’s and the science behind picture taking, so I never really pursued my interest in it. Now, however, I have almost a second opportunity too, and maybe it’s something that can bring more pleasure to my life.