Tag: Blog Posts

Sydney Lang

10-30-17

English 110

Class C

Questions For Bill Wasik’ “My Crowd Experiment: The Mob Project”

1. Marginal Notes:

Brainstorming beyond the ideas on this page: From the first page that I selected from my annotated text, this section is touching upon one of Bill’s personal favorite mobs. This one is when people are crossing the street and ‘play-dancing,’ ‘fighting,’ hugging, and asking for the time. This brought to my attention the question, What makes this one mob so special to Bill? To go beyond this idea, and delve a little deeper I wonder if his interest is based on its uniqueness and how bizarre it is? Maybe he enjoyed its precision, with the attention to the detail of time. Or even Bill could be lured by a deeper meaning that I have yet to draw from this public display. Later in the section he introduced the ‘bandwagon effect’ mentioning Stanley Milgram and his famously unethical research studies done on his participants. By relating Milgram’s “stimulus crowd’ to a flash mob, stood out to me as I initially thought of flash mobs being innocent and never really having any negative connotations with it, now I am aware that flash mobs can be dangerous as they can put people in a standstill physically or financially, like in mob #6 that took place at the toys R us store, people were not able to move, making the location a clear risk for fire hazard.

      2.  Reading With Purpose:

How does the internet extend Bill Wasik and what does this say about the internet:

From this reading it is evident that Bill Wasik utilizes the internet as a tool. He does this in a number of manners. One of which being how he communicates to people via blogs. This method of communication is a quick and direct form of communication to essentially tell all who are listening, what you think: what your plans are, your opinions, your thoughts, your reviews. By using this form of communication he can reach out to as many people that are interested in what he is working with. The internet removes many barriers that would be present without using it as a tool. This includes how people can be connected and communicate without allowing any physical or spatial barrier to prevent them from communicating.

       3. Reading With Purpose:

Throughout this essay I found it difficult to see what exactly Bill Wasik was trying to pursue to the reader and to the general audience as a whole. Bill Wasik gave thorough details throughout his essay, and when being used correctly details can provide for a thorough understanding of what the author is reaching at, or properly conveying their purpose. In Wasik’s case however, his profuse incorporation of details drew the reader away from seeing what he is trying to pursue. Moments where Wasik’s saturation of details diluted the focus includes when he was talking about the different types of mobs and is on the topic of the bandwagon effect, and he introduces Milgram and his experiments. Through doing this he also introduces a sense of curiosity as to who Milgram was and why he is significant to this topic, thus distracting the reader. Personally I was prompted to pause my reading of his essay to look up some more information on Milgram and tie him back into Wasik’s work, which I feel should be Wasik’s job, and not the reader’s.  If Wasik’s mission and objective when writing this paper was to create a very informative and in depth  piece of work he definitely accomplished this task.

By putting the naysayer within your text it strengthens the essay as a whole by using your potential weaknesses as your strengths. This makes your argument stronger as a whole as you introduce an opposing point of view. In my work I use both perspectives to my benefit the essay as a whole. As the two sides work against each other they are also working together to reach the common goal to convey to the reader how the constant connection to information can both benefit and hurt a young mind.

In this paragraph from my essay, I used the perspectives of how ADHD and ADD both benefit and hurt a young mind:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADD and ADHD for short, can both benefit a young individual’s mind and be detrimental to it. With the presence of the conditions of ADD and ADHD, these both contribute to strengthening young minds as these mental conditions promote frequent distraction and the inability to remain concentrated for long periods of time. For example, Anderson mentioned how the individual benefits within the working environment as culture has “forced us into a kind of elective ADHD”(Anderson 5). This ‘elective form’ of ADHD strengthens the growing individual’s mind as they are learning to perform in a manner that benefits them the most, especially within a working environment. Ultimately every individual is working towards success and that often correlates to being successful within whatever job they currently obtain or are striving to achieve. The ability to thrive in working environments with this ‘elective form’ could put them ahead of other candidates, and could benefit them by getting them the job over another individual that does not share these ADHD qualities within the working environment. On the contrary, this ADD and ADHD also weakens the individual’s mindset as ADD/ADHD creates individuals that do not have the mental patience for the time to complete their thoughts, or listen to others convey theirs to them. As Restak mentioned in his essay Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era, “You must learn to rapidly process information, function amidst surroundings your parents would have described as “chaotic,” always remain prepared to rapidly shift from one activity to another, and redirect your attention among competing tasks without becoming bogged down or losing time,” all of these urgent tasks were once defined as being ‘chaotic’ but are now simply expected of individuals in the workspace. This chaotic nature could result in raised stress for those that are not as equipped as naturally for ADD and ADHD-like behavior. This behavior could be severely detrimental to those that have strengths in focusing on one task or on the task at hand, causing these individuals to fall behind. Both of these ideas working together come to show how ADD and ADHD is present in today’s environments and how they can both benefit and be detrimental to those whose minds are learning and growing.

Sydney Lang

10-18-17

Paragraph Revision:

Cleaning up a ‘Wordy’ Document

Before:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADD and ADHD for short, can both benefit a young individual’s mind and be detrimental to it. With the presence of the conditions of ADD and ADHD, these both contribute to strengthening young minds as these mental conditions promote frequent distraction and the inability to remain concentrated for long periods of time. For example, Anderson mentioned how the individual benefits within the working environment as culture has “forced us into a kind of elective ADHD”(Anderson 5). This ‘elective form’ of ADHD strengthens the growing individual’s mind as they are learning to perform in a manner that benefits them the most, especially within a working environment. Ultimately every individual is working towards success and that often correlates to being successful within whatever job they currently obtain or are striving to achieve. The ability to thrive in working environments with this ‘elective form’ could put them ahead of other candidates, and could benefit them by getting them the job over another individual that does not share these ADHD qualities within the working environment. On the contrary, this ADD and ADHD also weakens the individual’s mindset as ADD/ADHD creates individuals that do not have the mental patience for the time to complete their thoughts, or listen to others convey theirs to them. As Restak mentioned in his essay Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era, “You must learn to rapidly process information, function amidst surroundings your parents would have described as “chaotic,” always remain prepared to rapidly shift from one activity to another, and redirect your attention among competing tasks without becoming bogged down or losing time,” all of these urgent tasks were once defined as being ‘chaotic’ but are now simply expected of individuals in the workspace. This chaotic nature could result in raised stress for those that are not as equipped as naturally for ADD and ADHD-like behavior. This behavior could be severely detrimental to those that have strengths in focusing on one task or on the task at hand, causing these individuals to fall behind. Both of these ideas working together come to show how ADD and ADHD is present in today’s environments and how they can both benefit and be detrimental to those whose minds are learning and growing.

After:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADD and ADHD for short, can both benefit a young individual’s mind and be detrimental to it. With the presence of ADD and ADHD, they contribute to strengthening young minds. As these mental conditions promote frequent distraction and the inability to remain concentrated for long periods of time, they teeter between being beneficial or detrimental to the young mind. For example, Sam Anderson, a writer for New York Times Magazine,  mentioned how the individual benefits within the working environment as culture has “forced us into a kind of elective ADHD”(Anderson 5). This ‘elective form’ of ADHD strengthens the growing individual’s mind as they are learning to properly perform. This prepares them for working environments. The ability to thrive in working environments with this ‘elective form’ could put them ahead of other candidates by getting them the job over another individual that does not share these ADHD qualities. On the contrary, ADD and ADHD weakens the young mind’s mindset as ADD/ADHD creates individuals that do not have the mental patience to complete their thoughts, or listen to others convey theirs. As Richard Restak, a neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, author and professor, mentioned in his essay Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era, “You must learn to rapidly process information, function amidst surroundings your parents would have described as “chaotic,” always remain prepared to rapidly shift from one activity to another, and redirect your attention among competing tasks without becoming bogged down or losing time.” These urgent tasks were once defined as ‘chaotic’ but are now expected of individuals in the workspace. This chaotic nature could result in increased stress for those that are not equipped naturally with ADD or ADHD-like behavior. This behavior could be severely detrimental to those that have strengths in focusing causing these individuals to be at an unnatural disadvantage. Both of these ideas working together come to show how ADD and ADHD is present in today’s environments and how they can both benefit and be detrimental to those whose minds are learning and growing.

My first impression of Eportfolio, was that it was going to be an equivalent of an online folder, where we would just drop our drafts. I personally am a fan of paper copies of work, because I like to see the work progressing in a tangible copy. I also would not identify as an individual that is ‘technologically inclined,’ so I find this transition a little bit more frustrating rather beneficial.

Even though this is a difficult transition, a possible benefit that I could see from using Eportfolio, would be that it is an easy platform for teachers to view my work and its progression. Also, my peers can view my work to compare it to their own, and possibly give me constructive comments. So, in conclusion, Eportfolio has the potential to benefit me, but as of now, I am still figuring out how it works.