Yes, as you may all have realized procrastination or distraction is highly linked to the media. When we do our homework on our computers we often procrastinate or get distracted by going on sites such as the popular facebook or other sites such as; myspace, youtube, tumblr, formspring, and other things like that. We often get distracted by our friends that post things on these websites and we completely forget about our assignment. What I'm wondering is, are we procrastinating because we don't want to do the work or because we truly are hooked to the other person's life. Also do we get distracted because we have short attention spans or do we procrastinate because we don't want to do the work? This has happened to everyone, but why is does it happen? I say it started off with TV when people used to forget about homework and watch TV all day. Then this escalated to websites such as facebook, we suddenly get interested in the lives of our friends and think, "oh that's so exciting!" and we totally disregard our original task.
I was just wondering if, anyone else has noticed that people including ourselves, procrastinate do to the media? Or are we distratced by it? Not just those websites, but also because of t.v or movies or music. Please tell me your thoughts on this.
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Gerardo, I agree with what you said about procrastination. I think that the reason why we procrastinate is because we don't want to work. I see what you're saying about doing homework on the computer. Someone could be doing an essay and think, "I better see what that person's up to" or, "I want to see their pictures that they posted." I personally don't have facebook or myspace for this exact reason. I hear that these websites are VERY addicting (from what my friends say). We have become so addicted to technological advances, we just can't get enough of it.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good point you have made. I was literally about to post something similar to this because I am trying my hardest to stay focused and finish up this assignment I was working on. Then I needed to look something up online and one thing led to another and now here I am almost 30 minutes later and off track hoping that I can muster up enough strength to stop being distracted. I mean even when I am working I need to listen to music and sometimes I have to change the song and I get distracted again. The sad part is I am fully aware that I am trying to escape from my work, but I really don't know if it is the attention span or just the fact that I don't want to work that is making me like this. Either way, its hard to turn down a nice relaxing hour filled with web browsing and chatting, but even harder to pick up a book for even ten minutes just to read.
ReplyDeleteIt caught my attention when Gerardo mentioned us having short attention spans. This is true, and in chapter four of Amusing Ourselves to Death Postman talks about this. He mentions how back in the day the society could listen and comprehend a three hour long, complex speech. Thinking about us today, we cannot even sit down for thirty minutes and fully concentrate on one assignment. Culture shifts change our societies, and this is what our most recent culture shift has brought about.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing this point up Gerardo!
ReplyDeleteIt's not that we don't want to work on our assignments, it's just that our usual source of reference, the internet, is designed to toy with our supposible short attention span. Advertisements are placed strategically around a website like a boarder so that no matter where we look we are bombared with something 'interesting'.
Our generation is not less focused than older generations, we just have more technology to learn how to use and incorporate it into our daily lives. Most of us have social networking sites connected to our phones so that we can update our status where-ever we are and we are also experts at dealing with iPods.
So the answer to your questions are yes to both; we are first distracted by the media, then once we are fully hooked we begin to procrastinate.
I too, like Joey Thompson, do not own a myspace or any other social connecting network, but find myself very much distracted while seeking information on the internet due to numerous little side links that take you to another irrelevant but rather interesting page on the site. Doing homework on the internet has become a hassle because of issues concentrating.
ReplyDeleteSocial networking sites have a big impact on people's lives. Both positive and negative. It seems that many have become addicted to social networking, in which they keep a laptop with them at at all times and even take it to their jobs and access these networks when they are supposed to working.
this link below displays how popular these social networks are globaly. Its pretty incredible.
http://royal.pingdom.com/2008/08/12/social-network-popularity-around-the-world/