Example Of Essay On Literacy Skills And Communication Technologies

Communication is something that I do almost every waking hour of every day. The first thing I do every morning, after the alarm on my phone wakes me up, is check to see if I have any text messages and respond to them if I do. Within my first couple of waking moments I am usually communicating with someone in the world outside of my own home. As I stagger to the shower, my phone is in tow with me. I used to actually text people while in the shower, until I ruined a phone from the water. Now I resist that urge and leave it alone for those few minutes. One might think that I am then enabled a few minutes of solitude, but instead I find myself anxious when I hear the chime that I have a text, or even worse if the phone rings and I am in the shower, unable to immediately respond to the electronic beck and call. Awake for fifteen minutes and I am already enslaved to communication devices for the day.
When I get into my car, I set the Drivesafe.ly application on my phone so that it reads any incoming text messages to me so I can focus on my driving and not my phone. I also use the jack and plug in my phone to the speaker system so I can select a playlist to listen to while I drive. Occasionally, I listen to a podcast that is educational or about a topic that I find entertaining or informative. If I hit a traffic backup, there is a particular radio station that I can tune into to find out what is going on so I can decide if I should stay on my current route or select a different path to my destination.
On days I go to work, I do have somewhat of a technological withdrawal during my shift, although I am on my phone during my entire break. During that time I am checking my email, text messages, Facebook page, and Twitter account. I communicate with most if not all people that have messaged me since that morning or commented on any postings that I have left. I reluctantly sign off when it is time to return to work.
When I go to school, I do get to stay more connected on my social media sites. I check in between each of my classes and do postings during my breaks. Sometimes the messages have to do with school assignments or study groups. Usually, the communication is not related to school at all. It really is all for social reasons. At least when I am at school I do get to communicate with people face to face as well. Sometimes, I am so engrossed in my phone or occupied with my laptop that I have to remind myself and make a conscious effort to actually use my interpersonal communication skills and interact with the people that are actually around me.
If I meet up with friends after work or school, I am fortunate that we have made a conscious and collaborative effort to power down our phones when we are together. Once an hour we check them just to ensure that there are no emergencies, then we power them down again. We began this practice when we realized that we were making an effort to get together and spend time together and then we were not interacting as much with each other as we were with social media sites even though we were sitting in the company of one another. Even now, when we are out, we notice an overwhelming amount of people behaving just as we did before we made the choice to act otherwise.
When I return home at the end of the day, one of the first things I do is check my email and Facebook account on my laptop. I check Twitter on my phone. Even though I have probably been on each a half dozen times throughout the day, I cannot go about any business at home without updating my sites and checking to see if anything new has happened.
During the day, no matter where I am, I also use a site on my phone called foursquare. Each place I go I see if I can “check in.” For instance, I can “check in” when I am at the library on campus, many of the restaurants I go to on a regular basis, and even the gym. These places update on my Facebook page, so my friends know where I have been throughout the day. It has been convenient at times. For instance, A friend realized that we go to the same gym, she always left a half hour before I arrived, so with a little adjustment to our schedules we now go together and have accountability, so we are more inspired to go on a regular basis.
When I do settle down to do studying or other homework, I do tend to be a bit more “old school.” I like to take a regular sheet of loose leaf paper and a pen and write an outline out of material that I am currently reading. Keeping an organized binder helps me study. I can then jot freehand notes down when I do not understand a concept so I can inquire about it in class or mark a particular topic if it was emphasized during a lecture as it may be an area of focus on an exam. Math is something that I must do using a pencil. I was taught that way in first grade and it never looks right doing it any other way. I even keep my check book register in pencil. Even though I do not tend to erase my work often in math, doing any sort of problem in pen irritates me and the idea of doing it on the computer just seems wrong.
One other area in which I tend to do things in an old fashioned style is when I write in my journal, which I do several times a week. My penmanship will vary throughout the pages, based on how I am feeling when I am writing the entry. It seems to make the words that I write more authentic. When I am uptight or frustrated, the writing is smaller and more constricted. When I am happy and more relaxed, the writing is more fluid and a little larger. If I am tired, there is less of a slant to the letters. It took me a couple of years to pick up on the differences, but the consistency is there.
The only other time I write long-hand is to my father’s life-long friend who is now living in a nursing home after having a stroke. It seemed too impersonal to type letters to him and use a printer to send them. He does not have access to a computer. Since he has no children of his own, I am the closest thing that he ever had to a child. The letters are as special to me as they are to him. So, writing them longhand is worth the effort.
I also use Skype every Friday night to talk to a friend that I have that is stationed in Japan. She enjoys the interaction on a weekly basis, catching up with what is going on with many of our friends from high school. I also have her cat, so Tiger visits as well. I use ooVoo, which is similar to Skype, a few times a month to talk to my nephew and nieces. Even though I do not get to see them often in person, I am not missing them as they grow up.
The first time I ever thought about how much time I spend on average reading a day was for this assignment. If I include texting, social media sights, email, journaling, and school assignments, I read at least two to three hours a day. If there are long assignments to be ready for school, that number can double. I have never considered reading to be strenuous or a chore. With cell phones and social media, I think teens and young adults probably read more today than they did a decade ago. I do communicate constantly all day, every day, in many different ways. However, if I could change one thing, I would learn to not be so eager to always answer texts and calls on my cell phone.