Every morning when I wake up, I automatically check AIM. As I'm walking to the train I look at the twitter updates I missed. As soon as I get on the train, my Ipod is on full blast. All of this is done before I get to school at 8 o clock in the morning. I wouldn't be suprised if other teens in New York (or even in the rest of the country) had similar morning routines. Digitalization has already begun it's course of taking over the minds of teenagers. Whether it texting, instant messaging, social networking websites, or the addicting Ipod, teenagers seem to be under digitalization's 'spell'. How many teenagers do you see reading the newspaper in the morning instead of the Ipod? How many teenagers know Barack Obama's views/ideas and why he may be a good president for America (instead of saying "I like him because he's black.")? How many teenagers know or even care about the issues that are currently happening in our world todau, and that may effect us in the future? The digitalization (with the digital representational devices) is becoming apart of teenagers daily routine. This is causing teenagers to not know what's going on around them, in our society and the rest of the world.
Social networking sites such as facebook and twitter are full of updates, pictures, and comments about your life.Teens update the smallest parts of there lives on these websites to make their lives sound interesting. Facebook is one of the leading social networking sites on the internet. In a study done by Nielsen (Wire), it was shown that "From April 2008 to April 2009, total minutes spent on Facebook increased from 1.7 billion minutes to 13.9 billion minutes – an annual growth rate of 700 percent" (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/06/02/total-us-time-spent-on-facebook-up-700-in-the-last-year/).Facebook is one of the leading social networking sites.
In the book, the Feed controls everything the teenagers(and most of society) do. Titus and his friends are constantly thinking about what to buy from from places like 1eatherbee and Crotch, just like teenagers today are thinking about what they want or need to buy. Whether its clothes, games, food, or the new hottest digital device, teenagers in the book and our society today are always wanting for something. I feel this has to do with the constant use of advertising. With Titus and his friends, the Feed is always showing them sales and specials at their favorite stores, but also geàring certain products towards them.
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I really liked the way you dramatized the way digitalization is taking over teenagers' minds as a build up to what happens in the book Feed. I think, like me, you need to make a case for why these digital devices are changing us and the use of our time more than watching too much television did. We have a choice online to look at the news of the day and see what Obama is doing just the way teenagers have always had a choice about whether to read a newspaper or not. So, what is different about todays use of digitalization by teenagers? I think you have a really good start
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