Metacognitive Analysis We use electronics on a daily basis in our lives. However, this was my first time blogging my assignments instead of writing up papers and turning them in. I definitely liked this experience because it gave me more freedom and space for creativity. I chose to blog about technology itself. What better topic to blog about on the internet than internet and technology itself! I found this a good topic to research on because we have evolved so much that we are now doing everything via internet, including homework. I learned a lot of new information that I did not know before and I was able to add them on to my thoughts and beliefs. I was able to open my eyes to all the pros and cons rather than having a biased opinion but hopefully I was able to encourage people that too much of technology isn’t too great either. A hybrid essay is a writing piece that is a combination of different works such as pictures, poems, essays, etc. My experience with reading hybrid essays were pretty interesting. I extremely liked the basement story with the combination of an essay and pictures because it left you with a picture and wondering about what was to come next. The pictures gave you somewhat of an idea but you still had to read the essay part to get the full content. I created my own hybrid essay with an essay and pictures as well. I felt like I was able to explain what I had to say with some funny pictures that correlated with the text. These pictures were at least able to be kind of funny, instead of just reading on and on. The only thing I did not like about hybrid writing was since I didn’t have much experience doing it, I didn’t know where exactly to place the pictures with out making them look out of place. Before reading the hybrid essays or getting an idea of what they were this semester, I had never heard of a hybrid essay type of work. If I was to guess what is was, I would think it would be a type of work done both online and printed. After learning what it was, I guess it was a great type of piece to use for my blogs online. My blogging experience felt a lot more like blogging for my own interest rather than a class assignment. I think it was mostly because it was my free choice of what to blog about and this topic had been bothering me for a long time. I was able to find out more about the topic, try to either educate others or at least open their eyes to the reality they do not want to face, and even complete an assignment for class. Another thing the hybrid essays (that I knew nothing about) and researching online for a topic that I thought I knew all about came to prove to me that there is always room to learn something new every day. It is also possible to add knowledge to what you already know or even change your attitude and opinion based on new research and ideas! Overall, I had a good experience with electronic assignments and hybrid essays.

Ghayvandian, Alin Professor Pessin English 114B 23 April 2013 Hybrid Essay In a blink of an eye you can communicate with someone across the world. That is the great part about the invention of the internet. This was my first time ever having an assignment for school that was relating to creating and following up with blogs. I have always used sites such as face book, myspace, instagram, etc. It was not a new thing to blog, however it was a first time that it was class related. Before starting I didn’t think I would enjoy as much as I have been. I started off without even knowing about a topic, and then realizing what better topic to blog about on the internet than the invention of technology itself. I started off this assignment thinking I knew a lot and I was just going to blog about what I already knew. My point of this blog actually interested me because I wanted to inform people about their daily lives and how it is being taken up so much with unnecessary things. I wanted to let everyone know how much they were harming their health without even knowing about it. The reason I wanted to let people know the results I received from cutting out what I used to be doing, which was spending way too much time watching television and spending hours on the internet and on my phone. When I stopped what I had been doing for the past years, I saw a big result in my body weight, my energy level went up, and I suddenly got rid of all those headaches I used to get. Now, some people might think I will never let my use of technology get out of control. However, falling into diabetes or obesity is extremely easy but bouncing back to your normal life is the hard part. Even though you will probably take it as a joke, here is a picture of certain people and how not enough exercise or movement and always spending their time by being a couch potatoes end up: After looking up what spending so much time on a chair does to one, it honestly scared me. According to Cespedes (2011), “overweight children risk developing chronic health conditions once reserved for aging populations. Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, and cholesterol and joint problems are now appearing in young overweight populations. Overweight and obese children tend to grow into obese adults, placing an undue burden on the health care system.” After doing my research and facts for these blogs, I realized there was so much more that I didn’t know myself. One of the assignments involved finding other articles or blogs to counter argue my purpose for blogging. I was able to find a lot because they were all about how great technology is. For someone like me that actually adores the improvement of technology, I thought it would be hard argue those positive points. However, ever since my lifestyle change of spending less time on my phone or laptop to serf the web and actually getting out to either go hiking or my training for boxing and dance, I found it extremely easy to fight those points. It taught me that yes technology is a great improvement but it can also be night mare if you get too attached to it. Just like anything else, too much of it is never good. One of my post blogs was based off of a poll I created. I thought maybe our society was not as bad as I thought. However, the blog proved me wrong and I realized it really as bad as it seems. Our society has a horrible generation gap; children will never really understand what it means to be a child and the stages of growing up. Children today are given ipads and phones from the beginning instead of their toys and stuffed animals. Many children go by the media and society, which isn’t too great either. All you see on television is about sex, drugs, pregnancies. The rate of teenage pregnancies have gone up so much. Instead of telling kids how bad it is, the reality shows are in a way promoting it. My poll asked how long a day do people spend watching television. My answers varied from zero to four hours, four eight hours, eight to twelve, or twelve to twenty four hours in a day! There were some people for each but the most common was four to eight hours. There were multiple responses for twelve to twenty four as well. That is a whole day of just laying around, watching television. Another reason why technology is horrible is because we rely on it too much. We are forgetting basic things such as numbers and spelling correctly because our smart phone devices do all of that for us today. According to Quinn (2007), “An over reliance on technology is leading to a dumbing down of the nation’s brain power, according a study published today. In a society flooded with mobile phones, Blackberry devices and computers of various shapes and sizes, a quarter of all Britons do not know their own landline number while as little as a third can recall more than three birthdays of their immediate family.” Another negative fact of having an improvement and getting a message across the world in a blink of an eye is the privacy factor. No privacy is left anymore. Children post or blog about everything they do, everywhere they go, or anything bought. What people don’t understand is that they make it extremely for the rapist, thief, or what not to find them and know where they are. The internet makes it so easy for fraud to be created. Many of kidnapping, fraud, rapes, murders are going on today because of the improvement of technology. According to BJC, “Transactions for trillions of dollars can be made with the stroke of a key using technology. Just about every job requires some form of technology to function - the supermarket, the movies, ordering job related items, etc. Employees sometimes have no privacy, for example, when we provide information about ourselves on the web then it's public knowledge. The information shared can be detrimental to a person's career if it's information of a personal nature.” Following up with these blogs were quite interesting. I would find something new either in the articles or statistics. I was learning something new on a daily as well. I did enjoy doing this writing piece. It was creative and I enjoyed finding the pictures that correlated to my blog posts to make them a little more interesting and eye catching because this is an important issue for everyone to open their eyes to today. It is addressed to children, teenagers, and even adults. I hope I was able to at least get some people to think twice about how they are leading their life styles. I know for a fact my life has definitely changed and I feel great. I feel a lot more healthy and energetic to get all my school work done as well as going to work and maintaining a social life. It was nice to learn along with you guys and share my knowledge on these posts. At the end of it, again I definitely adore technology. I don’t want to make myself seem like a hypocrite, all I am saying is that too much of technology is bad, just like anything else! People need to realize to balance and maintain their social activity with their technology life. Works Cited BJC. "Pros and Cons of Technology." HubPages. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. Cespedes, Andrea. "Obesity in Children & Technology." LIVESTRONG.COM. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. Quinn, Ben. Mobile phones 'dumbing down brain power'. The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1557293/Mobile-phones-dumbing-down-brain-power.html. 13 July 2007.

Time flies! I have been posting for a couple weeks now and I have enjoyed my research and information gathering so much that I did not know where the time went. I started these blogs and posts to get everyone a little familiar with how much of our precious time technology takes up today. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of technology myself and I spend a lot of time on my phone or laptop, however I have had days and times away from these devices and it felt amazing. At first, my only point was to get my audience to just realize the difference and realize that even without these advances, they can definitely survive. However, the more research I did, the more interesting facts I was able to learn at the same time with my audience. Technology is something that has made our lives the most convenient, amusing, and easiest. It has improved our lives in many ways but it has also ruined our ways in multiple ways that most do not realize. The more time spent not knowing can become extremely harmful. For example, people are losing out on so much exercise and social contact because of the uses of technology. The new media is making our lives revolve around drugs, sex, pregnancies, etc and encouraging children as well. Children and even adults aren’t able to experience what is really is like to be a kid or to be growing up. Websites like face book, instagram, myspace decrease any privacy a person has and increases the danger as well. Well, anyways I will be back sometime again with more updates! I really hope I was at least able to inform you guys about certain things and teach you a thing or two. Technology is amazing but it would be great if people limited technology to a certain extent in their lives instead of revolving their lives on it! Enjoy!!! -Alin Ghayvandian :)

This picture I found to be pretty absurd but true. You look at this picture and see the same little girl from a very popular movie. However, you realize there really is a difference in how children are today. Media portrays a perfect look for teens and everyone in children. Today, many children want to meet the criteria of the media at an extremely young age. There are a lot more children worrying about their weight and figure at a very young age for example. These looks are very deceiving and many children and adolescents start falling for them. The image for this generation isn’t too great in my eyes because it is extremely revealing and all it really is sex, drugs, pregnancies, etc. It is horrifying that many songs and shows involved lyrics about drugs (Eg. Molly) and they are so popular in young teens. And there are many movies and reality shows about pregnant teenagers. In a way they are portraying all of this as “what is in” at the moment and younger teenagers get the wrong idea. I don’t think I am old at all but I do know I don’t like the way this generation is becoming to be and I know for a fact I wouldn’t want my children in the future to grow up in a generation like this one. All the innocence is gone and children just can’t wait to grow up when they can take that time to enjoy the little things like going to the park and just activities.

This picture is the most perfect illustration of what is happening to today’s generation. There is a huge gap between how thing used to be and how they are now. Today, children are no longer interested and involved with what used to entertain kids before. I have cousins that refuse to play with their toys and all they want to play with are their parent’s phones. I believe parents are a big part of this because I actually see parents buying their children cellular phones at younger ages. I have also seen children with a device so they can skype their parents. I honestly see no need for a child to skype their parents or to have a cellular phone at such a young age. These children do not have the experiences of playing with their toys now a days. It is crazy to me! It isn’t any better for adults either. They are now using devices to read books instead of getting an old fashioned book and reading it. Even to this day, as much I love my cell phone (I can’t be a hypocrite) I wish I can just leave it behind for a day and I have done that. It was the most relaxing day ever. You do not have anyone bugging you, your time is not spent with having your eyes glued to a screen, and you can do whatever you please with out anyone or anything getting in the way. I think myself and everyone else should have more days like that because it is very possible.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_antisocial_network.html I found an actually interesting article about face book. It was about “the antisocial network” and how it actually makes us feel worse about ourselves. I found this interesting because we were just talking about this topic in my Psychology 361 class two weeks ago. My professor (who is also a psychologist) was telling us how face book creates an delusional effect for us to believe we have so many friends and people there for us because they are listed as our “friends” on face book. And he was also telling us how it becomes a really big depressor when the individual realizes they really don’t have anyone when they are in trouble or need someone because those “friends” on face book aren’t going to be there in time of need. In this article, Stanford did a study on how logging onto face book can really change one’s mood. An example would be looking through people’s pictures, biographies, and comments usually made the individual feel depressed because they weren’t living that “perfect life” everyone portrayed online. The truth is any one can portray their life any way they want online whether it is the truth or not. Just like how this article stated, face book is like “being in a play and making up a character”. Many people today let their moods get depressed/ change based on the moods their peers come up with online instead of getting out and actually seeing how their day is going to be. I think this sounds absurd, however it is true. I have had days were I did want to spend home getting something done, however by just going on face book or instagram and seeing all your peers out at a party or something, posting up pictures has made me feel horrible because I am stuck doing something I don’t want to be instead of out having fun. However, then I realize if they are having so much fun, why are they online?

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/future-online-teaching-and-learning-higher-education-survey-says%E2%80%A6 Today, I came across an article about our future with schooling. It was an article on online teaching. Our future schooling is going to eventually become all online. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!!? I don’t know about most people, but I actually love going to school. I love sitting in class, I love meeting new people, and I love learning new things in class. I do not like the part about waking up early or doing homework at home, however, I love the part of actually meeting in class. This idea of online classes is horrible to me. I feel like people who take online classes usually don’t learn much and don’t care to either because they can easily cheat or “google” everything with today’s advances. Our number of students taking online classes are rapidly increasing. The idea of having everything being able to be done online is all because of the technological advances. As great as it is to have everything done at the comfort of your own home, it is very sad to not have your future children have that experience of going to class for the first day, being excited of who their teachers are and who they will meet, or what they will wear. It is horrible thinking that they are not going to have that excitement to go through with their school activities such as prom, sports, dances, etc. I feel like more children will be discouraged to finish their schooling. Some people might look at this as a great idea but I already see it as a horrible choice. I at least think there should be a choice of both for those who actually like the traditional way of going to school.