Saying Goodbye to Traditional Newspapers?

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Let's face it, it is put up or shut up time for the newspaper industry. In a world of tablets, computers, cellphones, etc., the digital age is and has been taking over. People today aren't happy with the traditional newspaper model of getting information once per week or even once daily. People want the up-to-the-second information that they have access to literally at their fingertips. And let's face it, the digital age and technology like this in general isn't going anywhere anytime soon. If anything, technology will only continue expanding. With that said, newspapers have basically two options. Give way to the digital age and go completely 100% digital or find ways that even today's younger adults will want to pick up a newspaper to read it. The former of the two options may be the easiest, but it would also see a significant decline in the older generation of reader that prefer the traditional ink-on-paper style or maybe they just don't have access to the new technology or skills to use it. Somehow, my hometown newspaper, The Miller Press, in a town of 1300 people can still get by printing once per week. Is it because the community is majority of the older population, most likely yes, but will newspapers like this be able to sustain themselves forever, I honestly do not think so. In the end, whether you prefer a hard copy of the newspaper or the digital variety, the world is continually moving digital and one end of that spectrum will have to adjust significantly.

Screen Multitasking is Hurting our Brains

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This week's chapter focused on media literacy, but some parts of media literacy deal with understanding how much and how harmful screen multitasking can be. Screen multitasking is basically have more than one source of media providing media simultaneously. Things such as having the television on while working on a computer or just scrolling through social media while also having the television on. So it got me thinking, how bad is this screen multitasking and how is it really affecting our brains? So I turned to an article from sciencealert.com that had a neuroscientist explain this. The phenomenon of media multitasking is so common that an estimated 178 million adults in the United States alone regularly use another device while watching TV. Researchers in a test found that the ability to sustain attention was poorer for heavy multitaskers. "Complex working memory is closely linked with having better focus and being able to ignore distractions. With brain scans of the participants of the research found that the area of the brain the is involved in controlling attention is smaller in heavy multitaskers. In the end, multitasking is a part of our society in large part to our shorter attention spans and the need and ability to gain information in a short amount of time. Maybe we should consider dialing back the multitasking in order to improve brain function.

https://www.sciencealert.com/multitasking-is-not-a-good-way-to-train-your-brain-here-s-why

Video Games Harming Society?

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This week we looked at the different forms of entertainment in Chapter 9 of our textbook. Of course there is the obvious forms such as music, movie, television shows, along with some in person entertainment such as plays and sporting events (at the venue). In the past fifteen years, the video game industry has taken off as one of the leader in entertainment. There is controversy, however, on whether or not video games are causing mental issues among the public. There is a general ratings system put in place to censor some violent/shooter games from children to prevent this, but games are protected by the first amendment like any other form of expression. The controversy is so large that I have decided to do some extra research on this topic in the form of my research paper for this, Mass Media Issues, class. Honestly, I don't think video games have that huge of an impact on the way people act in the real world especially violently. With my research I hope to prove that video games are not causing violent behaviors. Other psychological issues could have easily impacted decisions of violent individuals way before they picked up a video game controller.