Gavin Allen

The behavior I decided to commit to for the rest of the semester is practicing learning a new language via Duolingo/Youtube videos, etc. I’ve been learning Korean for the last few months because I was watching a lot of Korean television and film a few months ago and I wondered if I would be able to learn the language so that I wouldn’t have to watch the shows/movies with subtitles. Since starting learning the language (in May of this year), I believe that my ability to remember and recall information has improved. I also feel like taking a break from social media/everything around me and focusing only on the lessons I’m trying to complete helps me relax at the end of the day. I want to continue this behavior until the end of the semester (and hopefully afterwards, as well) so that I can see the documented progress of how much Korean I’ve managed to retain/if my memory continues to improve after the six/seven month mark of learning the language.

In the attached screenshot, you can see my individual information in the Duolingo app. This shows me my weekly and daily xp (experience points). Experience points allow me to see, roughly, how many lessons I’ve completed over the last week. In the statistics section, I can see my “streak” (how many days in a row I’ve completed a lesson), my total xp over-all (I have also practiced other languages like Japanese, French and Swedish so those factor into my xp but not by much), how many “crowns” I’ve obtained (I receive crowns after finishing every lesson in a section completely i.e there’s a section of lessons called “food” and in this section, there are roughly 25 lessons. After completing all of these, I earn a crown.), and which “league” I’m in. Each player is given the opportunity each week to “level up” to a new league. For now, the diamond league is the highest tier of leagues a player can reach. The last two sections of this informational panel show which languages I’m learning and the in-game/app achievements I’ve earned but I don’t feel that they’re particularly important in this exercise.

I think that taking the time to complete the lessons from the course every day and looking at the panel from the screenshot every now and again has helped me feel accomplished about something. I feel like I’m learning something helpful. Though I’m not sure when or where I’ll need to speak or understand Korean outside of watching movies and tv shows, I also just really enjoy learning a new language and because I’m learning the language, I’ve enjoyed learning more about Korean culture.

The advice I would give to anyone learning a new language is, if you really want to learn the language, immerse yourself into it. Listening to music in that language (even children’s songs and nursery rhymes), watching movies and shows and reading children’s books can be really helpful in remembering words, especially when those words aren’t in romanized spelling. Doing all of this also makes learning fun and interesting, whereas just doing lessons on Duolingo and watching videos about sentence structure and grammar can get a bit boring after a while. Consistency is also important when seriously trying to learn a new language.

“But we all know how hard it can be to get off the internet once we’re plugged in: In fact, a study in 2014 found that 6 percent of the global population suffered from full-blown internet addiction. This is because the internet has evolved to become very good at triggering dopamine release in our heads — and dopamine is a very pleasing chemical to have released in your head. For example, liking Instagram photos triggers dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens, a key node in the reward system. That study actually found that, if you’re a teenager, liking Instagram releases more and more rewarding dopamine as you go from being 14 to being 18. Which explains a lot.” (Source)

1. The quote this article is pulled from is discussing the longterm effects of using the internet and how it effects our brains.
2. This quote is suggesting that because, as children, teens and young adults, we all are interacting with each other on the internet (on apps such as Instagram) and liking each other’s posts, this (liking posts and receiving likes) causes a dopamine rush which can becomes addictive over time.
3. In connection to the things I’ve witnessed firsthand as a young adult with many friends my own age, this seems to be an accurate representation of how my generation interacts with social media. I’ve known many people who simply cannot put their phones down or who are always checking their social media notifications. I’ve noticed that most children who have smart phones tend to not have social media accounts and only use social media/the internet to watch videos or play games.
4. Because the information in this quote doesn’t come as a surprise to me, I feel like that alone helps me understand and remember just how reliant people my age are on their smartphones/social media and the internet. I tend to not think about how often I’m on social media or how satisfied or unsatisfied I am with something I’ve posted depending on how many “likes” it gets. However, after reading this article, I’m now more aware of the fact that I do pay more attention to things like “likes” than I think.

“Multitasking participants had more difficulty filtering out irrelevant information than those focusing on one task at a time. Multitaskers also took longer to switch tasks, juggle problems and wasted time searching for new information when information they had was better and more reliable. In fact, students from Columbia and Harvard universities retained facts better when they knew they couldn’t get them from a computer, according to a study published in Science magazine in 2011. If they knew they could get the facts later online, they just remembered how and where to get it.” (Source)

1. The article this quote is from is discussing the longterm, lasting effects of using technology every day and how that impacts our health.
2. The quote I chose is implying that because of how regularly we multitask nowadays, it’s difficult for most people to not only focus on one thing at a time, but to also retain important information without having to looking it up online.
3. I’ve experienced this lack of being able to retain information first hand, many times. Over the summer, I started learning how to speak and read Korean. As most people know, learning how to speak and read another language requires focus and the ability to memorize new words and sentence structures that are learned every day. However, I found myself thinking of the words I had learned, but not remembering what they meant. I’d often use Google or have to refer back to notes I had saved in my phone. I feel like this lack of being able to retain the meanings behind the words is due to not having to retain much information anymore because I always have a way (my smartphone and the internet) to find what I need, when I need it.
4. In the context of how this increases my understanding of myself and those around me, I think this information just reminds me that instead of automatically reaching for my phone, I should try my best to really remember what certain words or quotes mean. Unless I really don’t know or have yet to learn whatever it is I’m curious about, I think it would be more helpful if I took the time to try to remember what it is that I’m unsure of. I think that people who are experiencing similar issues with retaining information would benefit from doing the same thing.

Augmentation:

1. Fitness apps/trackers help a lot of my gym-frequenting friends keep track of their physical health. A lot of my friends who work out to build muscle have to keep track of not only their caloric intake, but also what kid of workouts they’re doing as well as how many reps and sets they’re doing while they’re doing those workouts. [“Fitness apps help people easily track and visualize their progress. They also allow easy access to workouts allowing for increased freedom when choosing when and where you want to work out.” Source]

2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, without being able to use the internet and our smartphones/computers, not very many people would be able to continue getting their education, nor would we have been able to maintain some sort of “face to face” (albeit virtual) contact with our friends and family.  [“Technology has transformed life in a myriad of ways, changing the ways we work, live and relax. It has benefited society in many ways such as advancing education, entertainment, communication and health, allowing us to surpass the dreams of the generations before us.” Source]

3. I feel that because I, and so many other people my age, have grown up with the rapid advancement of technology over the last twenty years, we’ve been able to make a lot of friends through the internet (PSN, Twitter, Tumblr etc.). Due to this, I’ve been able to gain more perspective on how others live their lives in other parts of the world. I have friends from not only all around the country, but also a few that I’ve communicated with who are from places like Ireland, England and Australia. I’ve learned about how those countries go about their schooling, their politics and what their economies are like from the friends I’ve met online. [“Daniel Weitzner, principal research scientist and founding director of MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative, explained, “Human beings want and need connection, and the internet is the ultimate connection machine. Whether on questions of politics, community affairs, science, education, romance or economic life, the internet does connect people with meaningful and rewarding information and relationships. … I have to feel confident that we can continue to gain fulfillment from these human connections.” Source]

4. As technology has progressed, I’ve discovered that I constantly need to have a piece of technology with me at all times. My smartphone is a tool that allows me to keep up with current events – I always have a stream of news and information in my pocket for whenever I need to look something up or for when I need to see what’s going on in the world if there’s been some sort of emergency or major event. In this way, technology has been majorly helpful because without it, I wouldn’t be able to be kept in the loop and up to date as well as I currently am. [“Humans need tools. Humans need and want augmentation. And as the saying goes ‘First we make our tools, then our tools form us’.” Source]

Amputation:

1. During the COVID-19 quarantine, I found myself using my smartphone a lot more often than I usually did. I was growing increasingly anxious as the days passed, so I was always looking for something to distract me and because of this, I started to have a hard time falling asleep. Not only was my anxiety about the uncertainty of the world’s future keeping me up at night, but so was staring at my phone screen for up to ten to twelve hours a day, afraid that I might miss something important.  [“Regularly engaging in these habits has made our sleep even worse. The late-night use of devices alters our brain’s production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, which makes it harder for us to get a good night’s sleep.” Source]

2. Technology being such an important part of our society has made it more difficult to get people off of their smartphones and laptops. Most of my family and friends are always hunched over a screen, reading, watching a video or playing a game. My parents often complain about how their necks hurt because they’re constantly looking down at their phones while they’re reading their ebooks. This became so common between the two of them that my dad ended buying my mom a device she could put around her neck that would hold her phone up for her while she was reading. [“Health experts such as Dr. Robert Bolash have suggested that the constant hunching over smartphones and screens have led to muscle pain in the neck and shoulders of teens and adolescents, terming the condition ‘text neck’.” Source]

3. Even though my friends and I have all made friends with others online at some point, there is also a sense of loneliness that comes from only having contact with those online. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was especially isolating because, though it was nice to see everyone on Zoom and FaceTime, it just wasn’t the same as getting dinner with them or having them over to play cards or watch movies. [“The attachment to our devices can also leave us feeling isolated. A significant lack of human contact can even cause depression. When the majority of our interactions with others take place online we may even feel disconnected from humanity.” Source]

4. I’ve found that because I have a constant stream of information and news in my pocket, I’ll see things that will bother me for a few hours or days, but then I tend to forget about them after another disaster or tragedy happens. I believe this comes along with always knowing information that people twenty or thirty years ago either would have never known unless it was through word of mouth or by just reading about it in a newspaper. However, the people who are part of my generation are seeing the gruesome and violent images and videos unedited online and unfortunately, I feel like a lot of us have become used to seeing such images and though they disturb us, they don’t carry as much weight with them as they would if we weren’t seeing them as often as we do. [“Loss of empathy is yet another example of how technology has changed our lives in a bad way. As we become more and more accustomed to online violence, we may get to the point where it no longer even bothers us.” Source]