Korin Griffin

September 12th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Limits of Friendship 2.0

Before:

I think the newer generations are going to be different. They will have grown up on technology. As I have grown, I’ve noticed a HUGE shift in technology. I was born in the year 2000, technology has developed so much since then. Technology was certainly around in 2000, but nothing compared to today’s technology. Konnikova asks, “So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?” I think that children who are currently growing up with all this technology are going to live a very different life than any of us have. I’m not sure if it will be good or bad. There are pros and cons to both sides. Personally, I think it would be much better if they grew up with more physical interactions than virtual ones. Virtual is not real and you have so much control, which could be good but could also be bad. It gives you the option to control what you see and do, but it also allows you to just flee away from any problems. Physical interactions force you to be responsible and learn to do things on your own, which has worked out greatly in my favor. Physical interactions, I feel, allow you to gain more common sense than virtual interactions. The touch, the feel, the learning as you go, instead of controlling what you learn and what you don’t learn in virtual interactions. 

After:

I think the newer generations –the younger children that are growing up right now– are going to be so much more different than any generation we’ve ever seen. They will have grown up on technology. As I have grown, I’ve noticed a HUGE shift in technology. When I was younger technology was not as nearly advanced as it is today; the TV’S and computers were still big brown or black boxes, the newest phones were flip or slide (if you were wealthy enough it was the blackberry), the latest playstation system was a PS2, social media was just starting out, “smart” technology wasn’t even a thought, etc. Now today: our TV’s and computers are essentially flat, almost everything is touch screen, gaming systems sometimes are connected by motion sensors, social media is essential for almost every situation, “smart” technology has developed (TV’s, phones, cars), etc. 

“So what happens if you’re raised from a young age to see virtual interactions as akin to physical ones?” Konnikova asks. I’m not sure if growing up with so much technology will be good or bad. There are pros and cons to both sides. Personally, I think it would be much better if they grew up with more physical interactions than virtual ones. Virtual is not real and you have so much control (almost too much), which could be good but could also be bad. It gives you the option to control what you see and do, but it also allows you to just flee away from any problems. Running away from all of your problems, instead of facing them head on, will not help you very much in life. Virtual interactions allow you to control what you want to be responsible for and what problems you face and which ones you don’t while physical interactions force you to be responsible and learn to do things on your own. Physical interactions, I feel, allow you to gain more common sense than virtual interactions. The touch, the feel, the learning as you go, instead of controlling what you learn and what you don’t learn in virtual interactions.  Being thrown head on into learning things yourself has been so beneficial for me. It has made me a responsible and independent individual. 

Reasoning:

I went back and reflected on the revisions made on my paper before making any decisions or edits. Vague language is a weakness that I have in my writing. I tried to fix that by making my sentences and word choice a little sharper/ more specific. The phrase “Show, don’t tell.” has been drilled into my head and that seems to be all I can focus on while I revise. I never notice how much of what I’m writing is just telling while I’m doing it, I only ever notice when I go back to revise or someone has pointed it out to me. For example, in my “before” paragraph, I only told the reader about “the HUGE shift in technology.” but didn’t actually explain what those shifts were. I added a few examples for clarification. I was told on my revisions, “Don’t be afraid to dig in.” So, I dug in a little bit deeper about what kind of control that the virtual interactions would give a person. After I finished my revising, I noticed that this one paragraph was so much larger. With this in mind, I decided to split the one paragraph into two separate paragraphs, making it a little more organized and clearing up the separate topics. Even though the two topics are pretty much the same and go hand and hand, I think it seems clearer when the subject shifts a little bit into a new paragraph. If this still seems confusing and a bit long, if I were to revise again, I would try to cut some of the unnecessary details.