Into the Wild Chapters 1 through 5 (pages 3-46)

I definitely agree with you. Having phones is a really wonderful thing and have been able to open up so many doors for us. Sadly, many people spend too long on their phones. Your piece made me realize that reduced screen time would allow for better face to face connections and such. In public, everyone is always looking down at their phones and not engaging in conversation with one another. A decrease in screen time would do a lot for society as a whole.

I totally agree with this, considering I wrote about this topic too. I like how you pointed out how it's a "small touch screen we hold in our hands". When you break a phone down like this, it shows the real idea of what a phone is, though for almost everyone in America, it is something so much more than an object. It is their life for some, including myself in some ways. My question to you is, would giving up memories like pictures be hard for you, or do you think you would find it easy to let that all go?

I unquestionably agree, phones are useful items however when it comes down to fake lives, unrealistic body expectations that have been determined by society, and infallible  expectations, all contributing factors to lessen mental health. Phones like you said are good for calling in an emergency or to make plans with someone, however should not make you feel bad about yourself that’s not why it was invented. Reading your post strengthened my realization on how badly phones affect people. Hearing from multiple posts that they would give up their phones/social media because of how greatly it impacts their lives is honestly sad and sickening. Giving up phones is quite difficult in society today because they have evolved to be used for everything and it’s just a norm. It is crazy how much time of our lives are spent on a small object that causes these issues, not having our phones so advanced would contribute to society significantly.

I really enjoyed reading your piece. I found it intersesting that you chose a feeling instead of a physical object. With comparison is it very easy to pull up my instagram and all of a sudden feel bad about what I am and then crave what I see on the screen. I sucks that this idea of comparison ruins our minds and shifts it to something different. 

I agree! I believe we live as a whole where no one has as much confidence as they used to. I feel like it has been normalized that people feel like they are avoiding being full of themselves which makes them pessimistic about themselves. Along with social media everyone is posting pictures and at times it's easy to compare yourself to them. Confidence is key to success.

You make an amazing point about phones. They are very useful and allow us to connect with people with just a tap. But phones have taken up a lot of our time connecting with others and the world. In your piece you mentioned how you are close with your aunt who lives in Mexico but not having a phone means no communication. I wonder if people would start to write more letters. I think a phone detox would do well for many people. As you said, there would be struggles but I'm sure that everyone would be able to connect in a different way. 

I can definitely relate to this. Phones have become a big part of today's society. I would be hard to give it up so easy because its the way we communicate with everyone. As much as it has lots of negatives, there are plenty of positives about this topic. The evolution of technology is an amazing thing and helped shape the future of communication. My phone is bascially my life and I would never want to give it up. 

I also have a high average screen time, think about that number, every day and how much of our life's are spent on our phones and not in the reality in front of us. It always leads me to feel that phones take our precious time we have and we seem to not care, if getting rid of that high screen time we could connect so much more to the real world around us. I struggle to think of ways this is achievable however, in todays society it almost feels like a necessity for everyday things, as more and more services are turning entirely mobile. What ways do you think exist to combat this phone pandemic? 

I couldn't agree more, when I was writing my piece I wrote about phones as well! Your execution on your piece was very good, great points made. I like how you mention this would make your relationships stronger, because I would've thought the opposite. I would think that because your getting rid of social media, it would be harder to have friends. You make a good point mentioning that it would strengthen your relationships. Great piece.

I agree, phones are definitely a great resource to have. However social media such as tiktok and instagram, the “easy to scroll” format significantly impacts everyday activities. I am addicted to watching videos on my phone and I catch myself scrolling for hours, and it may seem as simple as deleting the app but it has a much greater impact. I do believe like you have said that getting rid of this addiction/video watching will create room for more opportunities and activities. Your post made me realize how life changing “easy to scroll” social media is and how common the addiction is in our generation. Because of this in society, people fail to realize that overtime their motivation is lessening and  lessening the experience time we could be having instead of scrolling.

I completely agree, YouTube shorts and TikTok can be very addicting. In response to your comment about the button in settings, the closest I've found to something like that would have to be Screentime limits. However, those didn't work as I would simply shut them off when I wanted to keep watching....

I wonder if developers of apps like YouTube and TikTok knew the impacts of short videos on the brain and how addicting they can be. Or if it just happened like that. I would like to think it was accidental but you never know. I deleted TikTok around a month or two ago and my life has definitely improved, although instead, I've just resorted to substitutes such as Youtube or Facebook. Thank goodness they aren't AS addicting as TikTok. 

As hard as it is, my only suggestion would be to completely delete it. It's really hard and I still struggle with the want to scroll on social media, especially when it is so heavily ingrained in our generation's culture. It does get easier though! I'm currently in the process of comtemplating deleting Snapchat. What other apps do you think we could do without?

Oh my god, this is such a good topic, that would be definitely difficult to give up! This is very creative and something I never even thought about when reading the prompt myself. This just shows how we look at the sense of time as such a normal thing. When you said "I want to escape time", I really thought about what that entails, and how hard it would be, but also freeing. I think the world would not know how to function without the direction of what the day looks like. But also, the upside, imagine a world where being late wasn't so frowned upon. Haha

This was a very unique and abstract topic to choose. I agree that the topic of time can make you have freedom and help you keep your way. Your vocabulary throughout this piece was amazing and really brought your piece to life. You made a great point mentioning school and the framework of time. 

Wow, I love how you talked about time. You really made me think about how much time is shown and is everywhere, almost everything revolves around it. however I do not think it is about escaping time, I personally believe it is how we perceive our time and how we think of it.

This brought to my mind how every minute, hour, day that passes we can never relive, we only get one chance to live, to make the best of each and every moment. Even the days we now feel are boring, or tough, or hate because we are in school, I feel one day we will in fact miss these days. With age I feel more and more that I am losing time I will not and cannot get back, but it is still early, I am not yet even 18 it is now instead of when I am much much older that I want to realize this, even those long hours at work with what seems to feel like a million hours left, to enjoy the time it is now because one day I know as I have been told that I will in fact miss the time.

My question I leave to you would be, what does time feel like to you? does it feel valuable, or do you feel you are wasting it? Or better yet, what is time worth to you? just a number or is it more.

There's a lot here to think about. There was certainly a time when time wasn't an issue for us.  I don't remember caring about clocks (maybe my Dad's watch because it was cool) before I learned how to read one.  I recall hating it once I did learn.  

Think about all the stress that being on time creates and how often you have to end things you enjoy because a bunch of seconds, minutes, hours clicked off. 

We are governed by time so often--isn't that the largest thing we have freedom from on the weekends and on vacations? 

If it is so sought after why don't we escape it more? 

I like how you mentioned the harsh reality of social media. I find the media as a place that can be full of toxic information. As much as there can be good, there is plenty of bad. People like to spread false information and rumors and people also like to act fake. I agree that the interactions you have with people in person are the most important and that  dropping social media would be better for mental health.

Social media is a real problem for everyone in our society today; it can cause some peoples lives to change for the worse. The aspect of telling the whole world what you are doing at any given moment is quite the reality we live in with a click of a button. People let what other people think of them control their lives; the thought of a social norm or a new trend will contribute to that. 

Social Media will not be going anywhere though, it has changed our lives in good and bad ways and as long as the internet exists social media will also. The best way to controlling your life around social media is having a good balance between that and a life outside of it. Cutting Social Media fully from your life is a very bold thing to do; props to anyone that finds a way to live without of it in the life that we live. 

Social Media is definitely a big part of my life. I mostly use it for the aspect of sports and knowing any insider information before most of the public. I do not let it control my life though and I very rarely post or comment on any form of Social Media and stay pretty much away from it. Keeping my life and opinion off the internet has kept me from letting it control my life.

I congratulate you for giving up a lot of your social media platforms! I hope that doing this is benefiting you in the way that you said. I know that I personally struggle to break away from platforms like Youtube Shorts and Tiktok, I've noticed how much time I have wasted when I could be doing far better things. And your right, its not easy to break away from this form of media, but it's almost like an addiction where it keeps bringing you back.

I can agree that people spend lots of time scrolling on social media for way too long. I also like how you acknowledged the fact that  people can be fake on social media. I feel like the most important relationships in life are the ones with the people around you. Today's society is less observant or unaware of what going on in front of them because they are distracted by social media that can spread unnecessary info. 

Social Media has turned out to be a giant part of our life in the society we live in. The addiction of endlessly looking at your phone has turned into a really bad thing that we all have grown up into. Information about whatever that is desired can be found so easily and I do think that's why social media is used so much. We do not have to watch the news or go to the library to learn about new information. 

Having that balance between social media and a life outside of it is becoming harder and harder to do almost everything evolving our phones and the internet. All businesses now at least has a website and may even have a app, and social media accounts on multiple platforms. Getting away from Social Media and the Internet has almost become impossible with everyone adapting to it. 

My life has become incredibility harder to stay away from Social Media with everything I want about sports in on it. The new invention of Short Term content, YouTube Shorts, Reels and Tiktoks has made a way to make short videos more excess-able and more worth wild to watch. That type of content has made life extremely hard to stay away from Social Media because it is so easy to get invested into those videos. 

Giving up the Internet and exiting the world of social media is an escapism most of us relate to. For me, the social media apps you mentioned have drawn my attention away from more important things—like family and schoolwork.

At the same time, social media serves as a connecting branch to those in my local communities, as well as families from around the world. Severing this connection would mean I have to sever ties with my family and friends. This isolation from society is something I wouldn't be able to go through.

But you bringing the topic of social media highlights how consuming it is in everyone's lives. By giving up some of our attachment to it, maybe we all can be more free of its restraint.

I definitely agree that I would be a much more productive person if I didn't have a phone or social media. I remember when I was in middle school and didn't have a phone, and life truly was great. I had time to get my homework done, but I also was much more creative. I had hobbies such as painting, reading, and playing outside. I think boredom is a good thing because it forces us to find ways to stimulate our brains, instead of scrolling for hours to fill the void. 

Alex's methods to achieve his dream were definitely excessive but I can empathize with that feeling of not being able to escape charactertistics of something unless you escape that thing itself, especially with social media. I love TikTok and funny videos, but I didn't love its place or its impact on my life. 

I'm glad you talked about how connections to friends and family would be lost and how it's okay. For me, just giving up that sort of thing would be incredibly hard, its an addiction at this point and I highly doubt that I would survive a month without it. I hate how I see this issue and I do nothing about it. I am a bystander to my own addiction and I just watch it happen. I and many others need to see that too. I don't know about you, but I communicate with my friends through so many platforms whether that is Messages, snapchat or discord etc. It would be great to slim it down to just one. There is nothing but benefits to dropping most social media.

I agree, there is an overpowering influence among society due to the media. I do believe that there is a lot of false information that is being spread. I think a large problem is that it has made society naive. They see these sites that look professional and assume that what they are reading is factual. This has caused many different problems through the past and more expected in the future.

I 100% agree with your statement, although the internet has evolved into an informational stature it can definitely be unreliable. When looking through others' posts I came to realize that all internet including phones in general and social media are something that everyone struggles with, not just me. One thing that conflicts with me about the internet is that everyone can access the media. Whether that’s one of us in high school or a kid in elementary school. The internet to me is seen as insecure. The internet for example Google, should have age restrictions based on the websites that are provided, such as media that have gore, sensitive topics, and or inappropriate topics. By achieving this idea, I believe that to access google you should have an account, stopping younger generations and kids in general from exposing themselves to these things or unreliable information. Especially at a younger age most don't know what's wrong and what's right.

I understand your idea here, but wonder if pulling away from media is the answer to the problem instead of finding more and conflicting media to figure out what is really occurring. 

I can't (and won't) argue with your idea of media bias. We see a lot of examples from all kinds of media and political leanings, but I would worry that because news and info will get in one way or another leaving it all behind may actually make the problem you're describing worse.

I think canceling or walking away from things called "infotainment" and shows that don't position themselves clearly as news, but as something else while having news content would be a great first step.  

It is difficult not to see this as a huge problem in society, but with freedom of speech it is difficult to see the solution except to make decisions concerning what we choose to consume. 

If we all gave it up that might create an interesting idea for a utopia. 

If one person gave it up on their own could they survive?  Are there enough people who would be willing to trade labor for goods and services instead of money?  Would they even be able to with today's requirements about reporting income? Could a company pay someone in an alternative way? 

My largest piece of advice for young people is to not get bills. Paying for gas if I take the car and go someplace is one thing and I can avoid it, but car insurance is another issue.

Once bills begin they often have no choice but to work where before working is an option as is not working.  Once there is a need to work, it is tough to make that need go away. 

The thought of becoming an adult has always seemed to be an awesome, the more and more high school goes on I think about I have zero want of paying for stuff with my own money, I do agree Money can cause loads of stress and getting rid of the feeling of wealth would be interesting. Sadly in our society that would become a very bad situation with the government controlling our lives. 

The best way to alleviate that stress is watching how you spend your money. To a certain degree it doesn't matter how much money you make if you are smart with how you spend it. The smarter you are with your money the feeling of money insecurity may go away in a way. 

I have always been good with saving my money for things that I really want and not having the urge to spend it the second I receive it. I have bought some really expensive things but still have a good amount of money in the bank. Having a sense of categorizing your money into different sections so knowing how much you are willing to spend is important. 

I know what you mean, up to this point I always though that becoming an engineer of some kind would be the only way to be successful financially. I've always loved tech, and convinced myself that an electrical engineer was the way to go. But now that I have visited colleges and talked to some students, I found a completely different degree that I wouldn't have even considered before. It looks like it'll be just the right amount of difficulty and enjoyment, and I feel it has a potential to be a successful but I would certainly have to work for it.

I completely agree, as someone who also comes from a poor home it is difficult to motivate myself to want to go to college because I would be stuck in dept for many years. Its difficult living that life. It make sense for you to talk about this because we are expected to be held at the same level of equality but other schools with higher education are more expense then others who may not have that high education. For people in this situation free schooling wouldn't be taken advantage of because of that opportunity to save thousands. That's why with the free two years it is getting taken advantage of. i enjoyed your piece and was not surprise that you chose this topic, but i am impressed how you chose to bring something you're passionate about into an assignment like this. 

The idea of "paying for education" is even more important now for us seniors who are about to submit college applications. Your sentence, "...people who are rich can fund their kids for better colleges", accurately reflects the current nature of college admission. With tens of thousands of students applying to universities around the country, there is a discrepancy between kids who have opportunities and those who don't. This gives one an advantage over the other on the playing field, despite colleges saying they review applications "holistically". The burden of paying for higher education can perpetuate a cycle where kids go to schools that are a financial fit, rather than an academic fit. You also bring up a good point where we would "be rated on our academic abilities". Wherever I go, I want to be seen for my capabilities instead of my financial worth.

I had a wonderful professor who spoke to us again and again on this.  Wes McNair, a Maine poet and former Poet Laureate of the state, would go on and on about how our college education should be free or virtually so since the nation needs the young to replace the old in all capacities. At the time I thought it was because he had kids in college. I knew one of them, but now I realize what he saw coming.  

There are a number of sides to the idea...

One of course is that if college were free people might be more likely to choose majors that are already flooded and don't have good prospects long term... A comedian / and talk show host I often watch talks about the number of acting majors exceeds the number of roles available and how most won't make it.  

At the same point, don't we want the young to chase their dreams?

The conversation about how to pay for college brings a harsh reality to the college search process. 

How would a college model work if the students didn't pay? 

Your post reminds me a lot of my own in the way that we both expressed concerns about the cost of education and how that makes it a risk to go to college. The cost of education has so many drawbacks, such as people giving up on their dreams, and the fact that student loan debt is heavy and has long-lasting financial impacts. 

One of the big issues with free education would be the cost for taxpayers. Is it really free if we have to take out so much money to pay for society's right to it? I personally think that it is worth it, along with other things such as healthcare, but not everyone shares that viewpoint. I hope one day we figure out a solution that works for everyone. 

I agree with this topic a lot. This topic can be seen on a large scale as well in society. You see people changing the way they act and I think it has made people less bold and more two-faced. Instead of approaching people with your problems and trying to come to a good conclusion they will often talk smack behind people's back and have an argument about it over the phone. Overall this has changed the outlook on society as a whole.

Social media has evolved to a point where it dominates our lives. I am incredibly guilty of waking up in the morning and immediately reaching for my phone to check notifications from Snapchat or Instagram. They encase us in a bubble that's hard to escape. I like how you pointed out a benefit of social media, which is that it facilitates communication between humans. I can text my friends and they can respond within mere seconds. We can have a full conversation as if we're face-to-face when in reality, we're miles apart. But then again, I get lost in that bubble and forget the present reality. Your concerns about social media echo a point Sarah had made in her post, which was about the idea of comparison. When people are presented with a platform to "showcase" themselves, they would reveal their best aspect. It creates competition and fosters an environment of comparison and tension. 

I agree with the realistic aspect of your topic. I have found that all of the negatives to social media is over powered then the postitives. Getting rid of it would be helpful leaving people more active and involved with their lives. I have also noticed that a lot of people seem to get addicted to the media and its beyond unhealthy.