Orality
My mood towards orality is one that is very mixed. I wouldn’t consider myself an overly active social media person by any means (although I do have a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc), nor am I very fond of texting. My favorite means of communication is talking. It seems like many people have lost the ability to talk to one another simply because they are used to typing their thoughts to everyone rather than verbally expressing them. Sure social media and texting have their perks don’t get me wrong (this is why I would say I have mixed feelings towards orality), however their cons cannot be ignored. Social media and texting should be ways we communicate; but not the only way we communicate. If I need to get a hold of somebody I call them. There are no mind games, you get out what you need to talk about short and to the point, and it is much more personal. It seems nowadays though that that is considered weird. On top of that, everything is on record and I REALLY don’t know how I feel about that. Remember, just because it’s deleted doesn’t mean it’s gone.
As I said though, texting and social media isn’t all bad. It is very useful for staying in touch with people that you don’t necessarily see every day. For example, I like Facebook because if I haven’t seen a friend for a while I can go onto their Facebook page just to get a sense of what they’ve been up to lately. Or if I need to make sure somebody gets a message I will likely text them if I have no sense of urgency in getting a reply, that way I know they will see it when they see it and will have a written record of the message so they won’t forget. But as I said, if I just need to talk to someone I’ll likely call them and I just wish more people had this mentality.
Literacy
“So I have two homework assignments and 70 pages to read for Monday. Ok I’ll read 30 pages Saturday, 30 Sunday, and 10 Monday morning and I’ll do the homework assignments during the football games on Sunday. Boom, sounds like a plan.” Oh only if it were that easy. That is always the plan, or something similar, and it seems like it never goes that way. I’m not going to go into what does and doesn’t get done but lets just say I am the ultimate procrastinator. For the most part it almost always gets done, just when pressures mounting and that due date approaches. I need the push, that sense of urgency, to get my best work done in my opinion.
But as I said, as that deadline approaches I typically do my best work. That’s because I put myself into that mind state where I say to myself “Ok Kyle, it’s time to focus, get serious and do this.” I almost have to get myself into that same mind state that I do when I workout. Although I personally find working out fun, working out and school are very similar. It is work. If you want the best results you have to be willing to work and work hard. You can’t quit, you must persevere, and you must succeed.
“So if you’re not going all in, you’re not going to get what people who go all in get”
Electracy
For someone like me who doesn’t use the internet all too much, the idea of electracy was kind of a new concept to me. I’d never really thought before about what gifs, memes, emojis, etc, really represented. I just kind of saw them as things that only internet savvy people had at their disposal to use to troll on others. Now though I realize, all of this stuff has it’s place in self expression.
I would say that since the start of this class my mood towards electracy has definitely changed. I went from a state of ignorance to understanding. That being said my Facebook friends aren’t going to see me posting a whole bunch of memes all over Facebook, I just have a greater understanding of their role in our society of ever changing means of communication.
Kyle Benson 