Digital Detoxification: January 2012

Sunday, 29 January 2012

Can 35 students at TCU defend their generation and argue they are not the "dumbest generation" due to their complete immersion within media technology and the digital age? Mark Bauerlein's book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, argues that those under the age of 30 are being negatively impacted by the Internet, Facebook, Youtube, and other media technology. Learn more at http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/home.html. We hope you will follow the students' postings and determine for yourself whether our future is in jeopardy.

Digital Detoxification

The Digital Detoxification blog is a classroom project within Dr. Keith Whitworth's course titled, Technology, Social Media, and Society at Texas Christian University. The goal of the project is to critically think about our media technology usage and the positive and negative ramifications for individuals and society. One aspect of the course is for students to maintain a digital diary over a 24-hour period in order to record their media technology usage. Later in the semester, students will attempt to abstain from any media technology for a 24-hour period and will record their thoughts and emotions. Students will post to this blog and share facts about media technology usage, contribute critical analyses of their reading and research, and debate whether their cohort is the "dumbest generation" (reference to the book, "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.")