Kyle's Paper

From Mizzou Wiki

Students today have a hard time managing there time between class, work, friends, and many other things that involve time. In college it is about using the right amount of time on certain things that students do while in there studenthood at college. Wesch’s video is very accurate about how students spend most of there time during college. Students today are always on Facebook or Myspace or they are playing video games or watching TV when they should be focusing on doing there homework. In the video it showed students holding up signs of how much time they spend on certain things like talking on the phone or watching TV. One thing that stood out to me most was the amount of time the average student watched TV which was 2 hours. Another thing was one girl who held a sign saying she would read 42 pages of a book but 3000 e-mails and 1281 facebook profiles. It is astonishing at how much technology has changed the way students spend there time in and out of class. The advancement of technology is supposed to be used to help better oneself and make it easier to do things like maybe search information for a class assignment. This technology we have today was not anywhere close as to the outdated technology of our elders and it is a gift to have such technology to benefit us. Other problems that surround students is the issue of money and becoming in debt after college because of student loans. In order to make enough money to support themselves in an apartment with utilities and food they must work a lot which become’s stressful over time and causes some people to fall behind in school. Students need to use there time wisely in and out of class with the technology they have and other time consuming activities.

Facebook has become one of the largest websites for social networking and almost every student in college has a Facebook profile. I know I have one and I am always checking it for new messages or new applications to add to my profile. Facebook has become one of the most addictive websites on the internet and that is why people bring their laptops to class or use the computers given to them in class to view there friends or other people’s profiles and to send there messages to there friends. Students waste most of there time on the internet searching meaningless things unless its information for a class project which is unlikely since most students hardly pay attention in class and don’t know what the assignment is because they were on facebook checking there mail. Every day when i go to my math class there are several people multi-tasking between IMing on facebook and doing the homework assignment that is do the next day as well as writing down notes that the teacher writes up on the chalkboard. I can't help but look around and see the number of people multi-tasking during class which becomes a distraction sometimes and i lose my focus on what i should be doing. In today's culture students must be able to multi-task because that is what they do. In the video a girl held up a sign saying that she was a multi-tasker and that she had to be in order to get through college. Students are so used to being on the internet that they communicate through e-mail or instant messaging instead of writing a letter. In Wesch’s video one girl had a sign that said she only pays attention in class 40% of the time and that the other 60% is spent on her laptop on facebook or other unrelated websites. I know that when I am in class I have a tendancy to check my facebook or instant message during class when I should be paying attention to what the assignment is or what I am being taught. Having access to a computer in class only creates a distraction for students because it gives them the opportunity to get on facebook or other websites and lose focus in class. This is one of the reasons some students do so poorly in class because they are not focused on the assignment being given because they are lost searching video’s on youtube or chatting with there best friends on facebook. This is why today homework is being done and turned in on computers because students are so used to being on their computer that it makes it easier for them to do the homework. Way different from high school when students wrote on paper with a pencil or pen, and when you turned in hundreds of pages of homework on paper. Tests are also being taken on computers as well in college as to the 5 page tests that students were used to taking in high school.

In today's culture many students during college work a lot in order to make money to pay rent and other expenses for college just to stay in school. Some students don’t have to worry about working because they are either rich or there parents have saved up money so they can go to college without having money being an issue. For those other students it means working almost 30 hours a week to make the money to live on your own and pay tuition. In Wesch’s video a man held up a sign showing the average number of hours a students works. Two hours a day was the average which for some students is a lot of time that is taken up each day and it makes it hard to find time to study or do homework. I work 5 hours every time I work during the week and usually 4 days out of the week so roughly 20 hours a week and it is time consuming. I usually work night shifts until 9 and it causes me to stay up late and work on assignments that are due for class at the last minute because either it was something I put off or was assigned that day and due in class the next day. It is especially difficult when you have a huge final to find time to study when you have to work late at night or work at all for that matter it takes that much time from you and then it causes people to stay up until 3 in the morning studying because of the time lost at work. It is hard for the average student to manage there time because they don't make their own work schedule and it is difficult to work around it. Except in today's culture money is important with the constant rise in gas prices and other items due to inflation. It is important for students to work, but at the same time students need to be able to find the time to study for school.

Watching television has become one of many things that college students do to waste time. The average student watches at least 2 hours of TV a day as seen by one of the students in Wesch’s video. Television has become a problem for students in the past because so many new shows are on all the time and the shows that people like in the past. TV shows like Scrubs, Family Guy, Grey’s Anatomy, and Lost which have been on for quite a few years attract the attention of college students for the comedy in them or the action packed drama. When these shows are on almost every night like Family Guy is, students just like to watch them and laugh. Each show is from half an hour to an hour and when student's favorite shows come on at different times during the day they choose to watch them. Television is just about as addicting as facebook. I know I watch at least 3 hours of television a day mostly watching my sports teams or shows like family guy or scrubs. TV becomes a distraction to students while they're doing homework because they know you need to do the homework but their favorite show is on so they put it off until sometime later on. Many of my friends watch television for hours every day and if they get bored with that they resort to video games when they know there homework is due by the end of the night or early the next day. Often students lose track of time when they watch TV and forget about there homework and end up putting it off until the next day. I have been one of those students that puts things off until the last minute and watches TV instead of doing homework. It is a bad habit and it has often lead to me doing poorly on some assignments or not even getting graded on an assignment. In today's culture watching TV has become more popular in today's society because there are many different types of shows that appeal to many students. For example i have a brother that just graduated from college in may and when he wasn't working or doing something with his wife he would watch episodes of friends or king of queens because he had bought the first couple of seasons to those shows. When he sits down and watches them he loses track of time and watches episode after episode. For him it wasn't a problem because he made sure his homework was done but for the average student it could cause him/her to forget about their homework until it is to late to do it.

The advancement of technology is a great thing when it is actually used to help better oneself in today’s culture. Students have the ability to search anything on the internet without having to crack open a book to get the information. Technology has made researching a whole lot simpler and more accessible to students to do well and get information fast on there research. Except students today don’t take advantage of that all the time, instead they are browsing the internet or on facebook. Today’s students have so much more than what there parents did when they were in college. The ability to have a laptop with wi-fi internet or a fast computer to search for information during class or at home to make doing homework that much easier. Computers with internet access become a distraction for many students and the just lose themselves in class and don’t pay attention to what is being taught. Wesch’s video tries to explain that if you write things on the chalkboard students have to pay attention to what he is saying or they won’t know what is being taught and that they should do away with computers in class. If students want to get the education that they are paying for then they should use the technology given to them more wisely and spend the right amount of time using that technology to help pass there classes. Even though Wesch thinks that the writing things down on a chalkboard than posting the assignment or lesson on the computer is better it is not. Using the Internet is faster and you have unlimited resources to look at to find information for an assignment for class. Except when your on the internet other web sites could become distracting and cause a student to focus on that instead of the assignment. Today's culture depends on using the technology we have to make things easier to do and to accomplish without frustration or having to work to hard. It not only makes it easier for students but for teachers as well when the computer checks the homework and tests for them and records the grades. Technology is the only way that our culture can be successful and students have to know how to use that technology in order to succeed not only in college but as well as life after college.

their needs to be some form of writing here for me to peer edit- ricardo