ART 343-Digital Nation Analysis

I found this documentary to be very insightful and brought many pressing issues in our "digital nation" to light. Many of the issues and subjects they cover throughout this documentary are relevant not only to myself, but to others around the world. The first point in the documentary that really got me thinking was the notion that people are being introduced to media and digital technology at younger and younger ages, well before their brains are done fully developing. How might this effect the future generations? What kind of advantages and/or disadvantages might this have on future generations? I recall the kinds of digital technology I had available to me as a child, and am amazed at the progression it's made in the short period of time since then. How will this rapidly changing world effect generations young and old, and will it, or has it already come to pass that technology is progressing too quickly for some to keep up with?
The documentary also pointed out that when print was introduced it inhibited the use of our memory because we no longer were required to memorize things, we had a way to document them. It seems with the introduction of digital media, at this point, to be inhibiting our attention span. As pointed out by the students at Stanford and MIT, we are constantly pulled into hundreds of directions by different forms of technology. Our generation like to believe that we are master multi-taskers, but as the studies showed, and as I can relate from experiences, we are not. We are masters of being distracted by the most insignificant and meager things. How, as technology continues to progress and new and more interesting ones emerge, will it effect us?
Since new technologies are constantly pulling is in so many directions, it appears the way we ave responded is by alienating ourselves from other people and the world around us. I've had numerous situations where people will nearly walk right into me because they are too busy looking down at their cell phones or engulfed in their music that's coursing through their ear-buds. So how do we reconnect with people, with society? Virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft seem to be the way we are heading. Unlike the real world, these virtual worlds actually encourage people to interact, to team up and accomplish something. Will it come to a point where the only way we socialize or interact is through virtual worlds like these?
A final question that was raised by correspondent Douglas Rushkoff that I found intriguing was:
"We're all together out on the Internet, alone; or alone out on the Internet together. Does this virtual world really bring us together with others? Or does it just make being utterly alone a little more bearable?"
It's a sobering thought to really consider, and one that I'm sure will be answered here in the near future.