I loved the line in this week's reading by Rema Shore that in the current digital age we are the Jetsons. She was quoting Shalom Fisch and she expanded by stated that "children are growing up in a world where their toys obey them and their parents converse with the family car." (page 13). This image and the real connections to our world just made me chuckle at the things that are possible in 2010. Especially when reading the other reading this week from 1975. The changes and developments are so unpredictable, yet fascinating to look back on. I think that sometimes it is easy to forget how much technology has changed and affected so many aspects of everyday life until a line like "we are the Jetsons," especially considering that we "meet" online for class each week. these readings really brought me back to the long view and caused some further reflection on the people in my life and their media use.
My parents are my first example. Both of them have high speed internet at their place of employment, but in their home they still had a dial-up connection until last week. It is not that they have little computer knowledge. My mom knows more about connecting hardware and Excel formulas than I can ever hope to understand, but the use of the internet at home held no appeal for either of them. Now when they talk about having high speed at home they mainly refer to the use of it by their children. Particularly this child who also takes classes online! (Homework while visiting them was quite inconvenient.)
My next example is my grandparents. I am very lucky to have four grandparents and none of them have ever used the internet. They obviously grew up in a different time and place and still get the physical newspaper every day and read paper copies of books, magazines, and letters. Not a single one has an email address. I did get them to play Wii over Thanksgiving, but that is the extent of their electronic gaming experience. My grandma still plays cards each week with her friends.
This has really got me thinking about media literacy in a different context. I know that this class is about youth and preparing them for a life that is already filled with communication, entertainment, and work centered around different elements of media, but I also think that knowing how things worked before all these media outlets and ways of expression cannot be left out of the equation. As we work with students, I think it is important to keep in mind the varying degrees in their experience, interest, and support system of media activities and to respect their interest or disinterest in media. These support systems of the youth have varying degrees of interest in media activities as well and varying degrees of interaction with their youth and the media. While for many people in the workplace digital communication is highly valued, there are places where this is not true.
When looking at the issue of the digital divide, I think it is also important to recognize the vast disparities that exist in the use of media resources across different demographics. From the Kaiser Family Foundation report on children and the digital divide it is clear that income of the parents play a huge role in the experience and accessibility of different media. And while some of us are the Jetsons, this is not true for many young people. While the government during the early 2000s has taken action toward making the internet accessible in public schools and libraries, there is still the question of quality and quantity. Is this access enough to bridge the technology gap for lower income young people, or is there more that can be done to advance their media literacy skills?
As Amanda's example of her library and their computer situation has shown from our discussion in class, there are still places where the equipment and access does not meet the demand of the young adults who use media for homework as well as entertainment. And with the current economic situation, further monetary assistance from the government seems unlikely. I am anxious to learn of different grants, etc for funding that will allow more young people more access. As a person who wants to enter the library field, I want to be part of an organization that actively works to bridge the digital divide and give students access to resources that will help them succeed.
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One of my grandmas has a computer with internet access. (The other has Alzheimer's disease and is in a nursing home, but I don't know if she would have ever gone that way anyway...too much of an in-person kind of person, you know?) However, my grandmother (who has significantly poor spelling skills and even worse typing skills) is afraid that, when she is writing an email, she will erase her entire laboriously created missive if she tries to go back and correct anything (probably due to some unfortunate click-select-and-delete issue at some point in time). This makes her emails short, nearly unreadable, but very sweet and to-the-point. Email is all that she does online, despite the fact that my sister signed her up for a Facebook page so she could see more frequent pictures of her great-grandbabies. (We send her email attachment photos of them, and she is actually able to view them!) Her husband used to use email to forward unsubstantiated stories that supported his opinions, but gentle corrections by his step-children and grandchildren have made him alter his ways so that everyone in his address book doesn't receive daily urban legend emails. :) They're not very media literate, but they are willing to try new things to continue to reach out to their friends and family in the way that is most likely to make a connection. It helps that they have supportive children and grandchildren who try to ease their fears and make their effort worthwhile...although we all still send real mail every once in a while to keep the effort of using a "foreign" communication style going both ways!
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