How shall I conduct my research? My research processes starts with drawing a clear understanding of what the assignment at hand is. I have found that realizing what the assignment is asking for truly makes research easier and more efficient. I usually begin with a simple google search, in which I merely type out the subject or the topic of the specific research. From there, I surf the web in order to find the most accurate and relevant sources mostly through the search engine google or through hyperlinks found in other sources. However, at times there are not many relevant sources found on the internet in which I turn to the library. The library has a database website that one can use their search engine to find relevant online articles or a corresponding book, journal, or magazine.
Credibility is the most essential aspect of my research process. Within reading the article BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing, in my english class, it opened my eyes to more than just the sources needed to generally prove one’s argument. In BEAM, author Joseph Bizup asserts that there is more to research than just citing an article to support one’s argument. BEAM itself is an acronym for background, exhibits, arguments, and methods where each are different categories of implementing research in an assignment. Background is merely facts, exhibits are simply anecdotes, arguments is what traditionally is referred to as a source in research to prove a claim, and methods are different lenses to interpret a situation or information. Within reading this article, it made me realize the different avenues of implementing research that I had no idea was a way to use in my writing. BEAM reminds me of ethos, pathos, logos, and how one can implement those techniques in their writing to make it more effective and I will for sure use it for my research in this class and other classes going forward.
Oh sure, we all have ADD, or Attention Deficit (Hyperactive) Disorder, they’re just day dreaming, we all day dream. The amount of times I have heard that being someone who has ADD myself, boy I couldn’t tell you. Many people claim that ADD is not an actual disease because everyone has trouble concentrating and paying attention at times. Well with that argument than the field of psychology is not an actual field of science, that’s a stretch. Psychology is real, ADD is real and it’s becoming a serious issue with the rise of technology use possibly being to blame.
How serious is this ADD issue really if everyone has it? Well according to The Centers for Disease Control 11% of children have been diagnosed with ADD since 2011 and there has been a 3% increase in ADD diagnoses since 1997 to 2006, making it the most prominent mental health disorder in children today. Serious enough for you?
The evidence that children’s increased use of technology may be leading to the rise in ADD comes from an article by Lesley Alderman, She cites a study published in Pediatrics and conducted by Dimitri Christakis, MD, in that stated of the 1,323 children ranging from fourth to sixth grade, those who spent more than two hours of screen time a day were 1.6 to 2.1 times more likely to have attention issues. In addition, another one of his studies found that children under the age of 5 who are exposed to more than two hours of screen time are 20% more likely to have attention problems at school. These statistics are daunting enough to see that technology is causing attention issues in children, but what about adults?
Well, in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” David Carr claims that the over abundance of media stimuli on the internet has resulted in a new reading style called skimming, that has diminished one’s attention span. Carr claims that skimming has diminished one’s attention because he used to be able to read lengthy novels without getting distracted but now he is limited to two to three pages. Skimming is basically defined that the internet has so much different stimuli that one mostly reads for key words, bouncing from source to source, rarely revisiting any one source twice. Carr believes that this skimming allows humans to retain only enough information to recall the source later in a Google search. Being able to Google the rest of the information by typing in only a few relevant words is what Carr claims to be causing his attention problems. I see this attention phenomenon resulting from the internet and technology using what psychologists like to call classical and operant conditioning, to cause humans to develop attention problems.
Now watch these two videos of popular TV shows The Office and The Big Bang Theory as to how the characters are able to condition their peers into behaving in a certain way.
So, in essence, classical conditioning shape’s one to involuntarily respond to a stimuli and become accustomed to doing it while operant conditioning shapes one’s behaviors through rewards and punishments. The video of The Big Bang Theory demonstrates operant conditioning through Sheldon rewarding Penny’s good behavior and punishing her bad behavior to make her behave in the manner Sheldon pleases. Technology and the internet operantly conditions humans to skim, in that the reward of being able to Google search only the necessary information to access the entirety, results in the behavior of skimming. Next, classical conditioning is demonstrated through Dwight in The Office as he involuntarily stuck out his hand when the computer made the reboot sound even though Jim did not offer an Altoid. Therefore, this repeated skimming behavior is classically conditioning humans involuntary response of a weaker attention span as Carr highlighted earlier. This logic of how technology is classically and operantly conditioning humans to exhibit this weaker attention span may be detrimental to adults as well. Furthermore, this logical argument of technology and the internet conditioning humans to have weaker attention spans may be conclusive as potentially one reason why there has also been a rise in ADD.
So is ADD serious enough for you yet? It better be. The statistical evidence that ADD is the most prominent mental health disorder in children while simultaneously seeing that technology may be conditioning humans to shape diminishing attentive behaviors is quite concerning. Although the correlation between the rise in ADD and the rise in technology in everyday life may not be the single cause of this increase in ADD diagnoses, it still raises significant implications of the potential detriments of technology. Also, although there are drugs to combat the symptoms of ADD, the side effects of ADD medication can be extremely harmful demonstrated through this Family Guy clip.
The potential harmful side effects of ADD medication plus the ever increasing rate of children with ADD may see more kids drugged out like in the Family Guy Episode or more kids with serious attention problems either because they refuse to take the medication or their ignorant like most of you. The evidence that technology may have a correlation to this increase in ADD and attention problems is even enough for The American Academy of Pediatrics to state that children should be exposed to no more than one or two hours of screen time a day, while children under two should not be exposed at all. So reconsider how much technology you and your kids are using, you don’t want to end up like Stewie.
I began my first blog post with a revision to my synthesis essay that I wrote in my freshman English class at Santa Clara University. As I re-read it, I realized that my main claim may be too long and broad to follow as a blog post. However, I did notice that I could change my main claim to better fit a general audience who have an interest in popular psychology, or their children. I decided to take the majority of my evidence from Carr’s essay and my argument with classical and operant conditioning to address the potentiality that technology may correlate to the rise in ADD. I stumbled upon this claim through researching if there was any scientific studies that found a correlation between technology use and attention problems. I found an interesting op-ed article citing a study with this statistical evidence showing the correlation above. Therefore, I thought that some statistical evidence would give me the credibility in order to lay out my logical argument behind classical and operant conditioning.
I began with a satirical and passive aggressive tone to demonstrate the way society tends to use mental health disorders, such as ADD, as adjectives to describe their current moods. For example, one may say “I am so ADD” in response to not being able to focus on the exam they have the next day or when one says “I feel so depressed” when in reality they are just having a rough day, as they do not truly have ADD or depression. The casual and nonchalant tone of the opening sentence initially makes one feel relaxed, as relaxed as society is to use mental health disorders as adjectives. But with the next statement that I myself have ADD and have experienced this nonchalant attitude towards it bolsters the seriousness of which I am truly coming across with. This seriousness is meant to draw one into my blog by making it known that if this topic is important to me it should be important to you.
So with this use of a tone shift, and within re-reading my initial conditioning argument of my synthesis essay, I noticed that it was a bit difficult to follow if one does not truly understand what classical and operant conditioning consists of. As a result, I used the effectiveness of visual aids in explaining complex ideas to bolster my argument. I found two videos of popular television shows The Big Bang Theory and The Office that demonstrate the overarching concepts of each respectively. In my rough draft, I had the videos hyperlinked and then attempted to use meta commentary to generally explain the ideas. This again seemed confusing to follow, so I put in the sentence, “watch these next to videos” to encourage the viewer to get a better understanding of the concepts. I additionally reworded the paragraph with more useful meta commentary to relate the video to the logical argument being presented with classical and operant conditioning.
Then in my conclusion, I wrap everything up and additionally plant a nay-sayer. The naysayer is in my concession that my logical argument behind technology conditioning humans resulting in higher diagnoses of ADD may not be the only cause of the increase but may be a correlation to it. In addition, I also concede that there are drugs to combat the symptoms of ADD but dismiss this with the potential harmful effects of the drugs through the another visual aid. The Family Guy clip visually demonstrates the negative effects of the drugs more relatable than what could be said in words which dismisses the use of prescription drugs as a rebuttal to my argument. I then bring in another statistic from The American Academy of Pediatrics to illuminate the detrimental implications that technology may have, further distancing my argument from the naysayer. The dismissal of the naysayer in the final paragraph truly allows for the logic of my argument to prove persuasive in order to highlight the seriousness of ADD and technology’s potential effects on it.
