Post #10 – Review the results of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in Section 4, Chapter 2 of Technology Applications for the Digital Classroom. How has the ubiquitous nature of technology and the Internet served to define or shape the zeitgeist of the current generation of students? Discuss whether this makes our job as teachers easier or more challenging.

It seems that older people, are the fastest rising group that are using the internet more often and for longer period of time. I remember hearing research a couple years ago that showed that middle aged people are the fastest-growing facebook users. I observed this by the sudden influx of my mothers' friends trying to facebook me. I feel that this is because they had initial misgivings about privacy and it's uses. However since Facebook and other social sites began growing in popularity, they decided to log on.

The chart that shows frequency of internet teen use by race should be studied more. I feel that this is a topic that isn't focused on enough in education. It shows that white teens use the internet the most throughout their day. However, Mexicans showed a huge jump in using the internet only once a day. I can't figure out why this would be. Blacks are the largest amount of teens that use the internet less often than every 3 weeks.

Also the number of teens who own a cell phone seems to be about right where I would have guessed it. I am step-mom to an 8 year old daughter. I tried to convince her father to get her a cell phone that would only allow her to call 5 people whom we previously programmed into it for emergencies and to better get a hold of her. He plans on doing it when his contract is up. According to this chart however, only 1/2 of 12 year olds have cell phones. I feel that if parents knew that there were cell phones made especially for children that only allow them to call certain family members and emergency numbers and with no data or texting plan, that this number would go up. I feel that it makes our children safer.

It makes sense that teens 12-17 have the most mp3 players. For some reason, probably because of their emotional changes, this age group seems to feel like they would die if they couldn't listen to music all the time. At least that's how I felt when I was that age. It also looks like ownership of mp3 players are starting to take a dive, according to the next graph by the pew studies. I feel that this might be because music can now be accessed elsewhere like cell phones.