Evaluating Digital Culture

A number of the selections in the chapter “How We Connect” examine the ways digital culture has reshaped our personal, social, and/or political lives. This essay invites you to explore that idea by first, choosing an example of digital technology that you feel has shaped our personal, social, and/or political lives. (Examples include social media apps, video games, cell phones, cryptocurrencies, etc…) Then write a 4- to 5-page essay in which you describe and evaluate the particular change/s you think this technology has caused in society. Some questions to guide your paper include: What behavior or attitude has this technology altered? What new norm has it given rise to? And, do you regard this change as positive or negative? Why?

The introductory paragraph of your paper should open with a sentence or two to “hook” your audience, a few sentences of background information on the issue, and a thesis statement (claim) that presents an arguable point. The body paragraphs should focus on the reasons you are taking the position and be supported by logical reasons and relevant and reliable evidence. In the final paragraph, you should bring the essay to a logical end by reminding your readers of your position, summarizing the main points, and making one final statement that will leave a lasting impression.
4-5 pages long and formatted according to MLA guidelines (no cover page, 12 point Times New Roman font, double spaced, etc…). NOTE: You must include a Works Cited page.
This essay must include a minimum of three sources, including at least one citation from the course textbook to support your position. You may use sources from the Internet as long as you have determined that they are credible. Be sure to review (1) the rules for incorporating researched information into your paper and (2) the information on plagiarism.
Include an original title that reflects the topic of the paper.
Include an introductory paragraph, multiple body paragraphs, and a concluding paragraph.
Include a thesis statement in the introduction paragraph that presents the position you are taking on that topic.
Include some or all of the following types of evidence to support your claim: facts, statistics, examples, observations, and expert opinion. Choose your evidence wisely. Don’t use just any examples to support your thesis; use examples that provide the best support for your thesis.
Only quote when essential and always introduce and elaborate upon quotations; do not just “drop” them into your writing.
Organize your paper logically— from least important point/reason to most important point/reason— with clear topic sentences and transitions to move the reader along and show relationships between ideas within your paper.
Use third person point of view and present tense verbs.
Pay careful attention to grammar, usage, and mechanics.

sources from the book:
“MAE WISKIN Can’t Quit the Clicks: The Rise of Social Media Rehab In our increasingly wired world, it’s become a cliché to speak about being “addicted” to our smartphones, laptops, and the like. But the time may have come, argues Mae Wiskin, to begin taking these off-handed remarks a bit more seriously. Taking a closer look at the growing prevalence of digital dependency, Wiskin asks whether we have reached a point where such dependency may now warrant more concerted, even medical, attention. Mae Wiskin received her master’s degree from the Parsons School of Design Studies at the New School. She is a contributor to VICE, an online media magazine dedicated to exploring arts, culture, and current events. This piece appeared in VICE in 2016. Before You Read Have you ever found yourself utilizing a particular digital technology (e.g., an app, site, game, etc.) compulsively? If so, what particular aspects or features made it so addictive? YOU WAKE UP, YOUR EYES STILL CLOSED, AND PAT AROUND THE mattress until you find your phone. It rests beside your head, beaming with notifications. You remain lying down for a few more minutes and begin scrolling, shaking your phone a few times with mild annoyance to force the screen to align with the way you’re positioned. Before your feet have even touched the ground, you’ve already scanned the news, marked priority emails, and checked the weather. You slowly get out of bed and look over at your partner. Too busy playing Candy Crush, he barely acknowledges you. Social media and smartphones have irreversibly changed the landscape of human connection and fundamentally redefined how people interact with one another. Eighty percent of users check their phones within fifteen minutes of waking up, according to a 2013 study sponsored by Facebook. The same study also found that the average user checks their mobile device every six minutes. Although striking, these statistics are far from extraordinary. We often joke that we are “addicted” to our phones, but imagine becoming so devoted that you find yourself checking into rehab. Dr. Hilarie Cash is the Co-Founder and Chief Clinical Officer of the reSTART Center for Digital Technology Sustainability, a center offering rehab and recovery services for those with tech, gaming, and internet addictions. Cash says people can get “high” from technology use, and they may also experience withdrawal and other symptoms of addiction. But to her, the way to identify an addiction is through asking: “Are there negative consequences to your use? And if so, do you continue in spite of those negative consequences?” According to Cash, sometimes her clients are very much in denial, but people on the outside will see the problem. We often joke that we are “addicted” to our phones, but imagine becoming so devoted that you find yourself checking into rehab. Over the past few years, mental health professionals and social psychologists have debated over whether “digital” addiction ought to be classified in the same way as substance-related disorders and addictions. The word “addiction” can be applied in many ways, making its boundaries difficult to define. Generally, in order to be considered an addiction, the processes involved must interfere with daily functioning, resulting in social, academic, or occupational impairment. “So, you know, you have an 18-year-old who is [addicted to] gaming and socially isolated,” Cash explains. “He avoids people, has no other interests, or if he has any interests, he’s given them up. Well, from the perspective of what constitutes a healthy and balanced life, you need sleep, exercise, and face-to-face social interactions. So not getting any of those things — those are the negative consequences.” Although various technological addictions are still under consideration in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, some argue that tech overuse ought to be classified as a subset of behavioral addictions, similar to other nonchemical addictions such as pathological gaming and compulsive shopping. “There needs to be a general category for addiction,” says Dr. Cash. “There are so many behavioral addictions out there, like: social media, sex, porn, and gambling. I think it’s silly to exclude digital addictions. They are just like any other addiction in that they produce both a sense of euphoria and profound withdrawal. The addiction literature needs to be more inclusive.” Technology addiction rehab centers like the one Dr. Cash directs are popping up all over the country. The reSTART Center markets itself as “a place of rest and renewal for technology users seeking a private, peaceful, and spacious place to confront their digital lives.” Her eight to 12-week digital detox program costs upwards of $14,000 and has been running since 2009. When asked about the people currently seeking her help, Dr. Cash says her clients tend to be men between the ages of 18 and 28 — there are some women, but very few. “They all tend to be bright, likable people, but again, it all varies. Some people have had full lives before they fell off the rails, while others have only lived an online existence. As you can imagine, treating these people is a lot harder.” This is LMC: If we are cutting text here, then we need to update pull quote below. clients are cut off from using any form of technology and the center’s coaches and therapists work with them to learn how to “reconnect with real life” and deal with any co-occurring mental health conditions. In order to “break the cycle of dependency,” reSTART enforces a 45-day abstinence-based structure in which her clients — all of whom also have sponsors — are taught the life skills that may go underdeveloped as a result of excessive technology use. Clients also live in “tech limited, video game free, democratically self-supporting, and drug free housing,” modeled after the Oxford House, a concept for housing spaces for recovery from substance abuse and addiction. For those who can’t afford the hefty price tag at tech rehab spaces like reSTART, outpatient networks are also available. At the end of 2015, Talkspace, a messaging-based online therapy service, developed a “Social Media Dependency Therapy Program,” which the company claims is the first program of its kind designed to help people manage their use of and response to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social platforms. The 12-week program works similarly to other text-based therapy plans in that you can message your remote therapist at any time or place from your phone. Once in the program, clients are cut off from using any form of technology and the center’s coaches and therapists work with them to learn how to “reconnect with real life” and deal with any co-occurring mental health conditions. It may seem counterintuitive to use technology in order to limit technological overuse; however, Talkspace addiction specialist, Katherine Glick, defends the program’s design. “It’s a funny thing using social media to address social media addiction, but everyone uses social media,” she says. “It is a staple of our cognitive landscape, and so to use it to our advantage — to use it purposefully and meaningfully — I think just readapts your relationship with it.” For example, one of Glick’s specialty areas is food addiction, the recovery process for which she compares to social media addiction. “You abstain from alcohol or drugs and that’s great, but you can’t abstain from food. So in terms of working with my current addiction clients, it’s all about renegotiating their relationship with food and figuring out what functions food has served for you up until this point, whether its comfort or escapism or whatever, and then readapting a healthier, more balanced relationship with food,” she says. “I think that we can use technology and social media to our advantage and help people with their compulsive technology use. It’s just moving someone from a mindless place to one where they are more mindful about their relationship to technology.” Both tech rehab and social media dependency programs are new and imperfect; nevertheless, ubiquitous computing and smart technologies are likely here to stay. While Dr. Cash and Glick’s approaches to technological and social media dependency are dissimilar, they agree that these sorts of disorders are not only on the rise, but will soon need to be legitimized by the American Psychiatric Association. “I predict that digital and internet addiction will be incorporated into the DSM very much like gambling disorder was in 2013,” she explains. “More and more treatment facilities are going to be incorporating modalities centered towards technology addiction. I do think that all healthcare systems are moving toward an online model. We are in a technology growth overload and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon; I think it’s just going to ramp up and continue to increase.” FOR A SECOND READING “Social media and smartphones,” Wiskin states, “have irreversibly changed the landscape of human connection and fundamentally redefined how people interact with one another” (p. 417). To what extent do you share the view Wiskin expresses here? Do you agree that the rise of digital technology has “irreversibly changed” how we connect and interact with each other? If so, how specifically? According to one of the digital “rehab” experts Wiskin quotes in this essay, “people can get ‘high’ from technology use, and they may also experience withdrawal and other symptoms of addiction” (pp. 417–18). What image of addiction does this statement evoke? What types of high, what forms of withdrawal do you picture as you read it? One of the key questions Wiskin explores has to do with whether it is valid to classify “digital addiction” in the same way as other substance-related disorders. Where do you stand on this question? In your own view, what are the similarities or parallels that justify treating “digital addiction” in the same way as other disorders? What, conversely, would you identify as important distinctions or differences? PUTTING IT INTO WRITING Wiskin writes: “Over the past few years, mental health professionals and social psychologists have debated over whether ‘digital’ addiction ought to be classified in the same way as substance-related disorders and addictions. The word ‘addiction’ can be applied in many ways, making its boundaries difficult to define” (p. 418). Put yourself in the position of a health care professional tasked with the responsibility of defining the phenomenon of “digital addiction.” What specific behaviors would you classify as symptoms of this disorder? What particular challenges or problems would you treat as evidence of true addiction? And finally, what treatment would you proscribe for addressing this addiction? To support the idea that digital addiction may constitute an urgent public health problem, Wiskin cites statistics like the following: “Eighty percent of users check their phones within fifteen minutes of waking up, according to a 2013 study sponsored by Facebook. The same study also found that the average user checks their mobile device every six minutes” (p. 417). Write a 500-word essay in which you analyze and evaluate the data Wiskin presents here. What point about social media use do these kinds of statistics illustrate? What particular problem do they highlight? And in your view, do these statistics offer effective support for the argument that “digital addiction” is real? Why or why not? COMPARING ARGUMENTS Wiskin’s discussion of “digital addiction” shares with Navneet Alang’s portrait of digital connection (p. 000) a healthy skepticism regarding the benefits and limitations of online technology. How do you think Alang would respond to the addiction treatment programs Wiskin outlines in her piece? Do you think he would view the kinds of online communication and confession her essay describes as “disorders” in need of treatment? Why or why not? Rewriting the Script: Political Gridlock “Gridlock — you hear a lot about gridlock. Gridlock is not some mysterious fog that just kind of drops down on Washington. Gridlock is not the Democrats and Republicans just both being equally unreasonable. Gridlock is happening, has happened, will happen when politicians … decide they will oppose anything that’s good for the country just because [another politician] proposes it. — FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 4, 2016 No single term more aptly encapsulates the problems in our current political culture than gridlock. As countless commentators and pundits have lamented, our model of governance seems to have devolved from one that values the art of compromise into one that practices the scorched-earth tactics of destroying the opponent at all costs. Surveying this dysfunctional scene, many have begun to wonder whether it’s possible any longer for policymakers to set aside their differences and forge genuine political connections. The remarks by former President Obama, delivered on the brink of the 2016 presidential election, represent one attempt to challenge this current and lamentable status quo. He calls out the fact that political gridlock, rather than some natural or immutable phenomenon, is actually the result of deliberate choices made by individual politicians. And by doing so, the former president offers his audience a bracing reminder that gridlock is a social script — one that can be rewritten if there exists sufficient public will. Taking up such an invitation, however, requires that we understand exactly where gridlock comes from, and why it remains such a potent tactic for politicians on both sides of the aisle. The questions below provide a starting point for doing just this. IDENTIFY THE SCRIPT: Choose a current political issue that is the subject of polarizing, even paralyzing, political debate (examples include health care or financial reform, environmental legislation, or immigration reform). Write about how this issue gets debated. What groups does this debate pit against each other? What position does each group stake out? CHALLENGE THE SCRIPT: Next, analyze why you think this particular issue is so polarizing. What specific social or cultural norms does this debate pit against each other? And what factors account for why there exists so little common ground between the opposing sides? WRITE YOUR OWN SCRIPT: Imagine that you are a political strategist tasked with creating a new model for conducting this particular debate. First, write a description of the specific strategies this effort would entail. What specific aspects of or elements within the current debate would you change in order to bridge the ideological differences this debate currently involves? What specific groups or constituencies would you target? What groups or constituencies would you not target? When you’re done, write an assessment of why you made these particular choices. How do you think these strategies would help lead to greater political collaboration and connection?”