We Are Passive.

Upon our class research, it seems sad to say that our generation may be taking a passive approach to staying informed. It seems that most in our class rely on other people to get their news. From parents to friends to significant others we are sitting back and hoping the right information finds us. It seems like a waste of all the resources and technology we have constantly at our fingertips. We are addicted to Facebook to a point that we rationalize it as a news source to justify that fact we can't take the time to click on to a valuable website. What are we going to do when parents are no longer with us everyday to give us their news or opinions on current events? When will we realize we have a vast amount of resources that we are choosing to ignore because stalking our friends on social networking sites is more comfortable for us?
When it comes to civic literacy, we find ourselves falling behind. We have often been called an ignorant generation. Though some in our class take the time to read a news website, it seems as most people are passing on the duty of civic literacy to others. Sadly this seems to confirm the fear of Hedges. We are not so much as illiterate as indifferent to the events taking place around us. It confirms his thoughts that political candidates could easily take advantage of us since we choose to be uninformed. In his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Carr discusses the idea we no longer retain information, simply search it out when we need to. This relates strongly to our class' passive approach to news gathering. When we need the information, for an assignment or paper, we simply type in a few keywords, skim an article, jot down a few notes, and click back over to Facebook. Sullivan’s article deals mostly with opportunities blogging and the internet are bringing the world. With millions of bloggers out there, writing their thoughts and uncensored information in an unprecedented way, it is a shame that we choose not participate. We must be forced to follow blogs and forced to spend a fraction of time skimming the New York Times.
Maybe I am being a bit harsh- I feel as though I channeled my inner Hedges in this post. I don’t feel that our class is truly ignorant and a few of us do choose to keep informed. As a whole though, we need to step up. It is right in front of us. We could do much better.