By Marhia Zook
Earlier in the term I made a post about how I would be doing two final projects… Completely thought that I would be able to have that locked down—I was completely wrong. That young idea was squashed before it even started. There was no way it was going to happen. I’m not so sure anyone could pull off working on two of these projects. The initial state of the term and our glorious delusions about how the current term will somehow be different from others—where you’re dragging yourself, legs exhausted and limp behind you across the finish line, praying that you will just pass—proved futile as always.
I am certainly content with this, however, because of the quality experience I have gotten out of our “Bridging the Gap” project. Let me just start by saying that none of this has been easy—nothing about a group project has ever been. You bring together individuals who are going fifty different directions, and probably have other group projects with individuals who are all going fifty different directions, mix that with food deprivation and personal attachment and you damn near have the emotional equivalent of an A-bomb.
Fortunately, for how limited our time was together as a group, we have pulled through well. Everyone took the initiative and got assignments done on their own, which is huge! It hasn’t been a situation where one person is left having everything dropped on them at the last minute because nobody else ever checked in and completed their assignments. Having this was key because we were so limited on time that we could actually come together and collaborate as a unit, that the need for people to go out and interview and gather information on their own or just as a pair at the last minute was crucial.
What we have learned about the topic we have ventured into was as well surprising. We came into the project with the same—call it stereotypical, perhaps—idea that senior citizens had no clue of how to navigate themselves through new media and the internet. They are so scared of it and need to be shown why it is so valuable and why they “MUST” use it… Well, we had two professors who told us that this just really isn’t so—at least not holistically. We learned that senior citizens as well just don’t feel a large need for some new media, or they just use it for different reasons other than social networking ( e.g., searching health-related topics). Through my interviews with Bill Loges, Professor in New Media Communications and Sociology, and Jon Dorbolo, Professor in Philosophy and Associate Director of TAC (Technology Across the Curriculum), I learned that the problem—assuming we should even be calling it a problem—isn’t so simple as senior citizens are terrified of new media and technology. I learned that the use and purpose of use across the generations is where the difference lies. Certainly there are things right now that kids ten years behind me are growing up with that I would look at and consider completely unnecessary and useless. These two professors really helped me put this into perspective, as to not write a certain group off as illiterate to a technology and its potential uses simply because their uses and outlook on whether or not it is or isn’t useful to them simply because it is different than mine.
So where I came into this project with a complete outlook that our theory was completely accurate and the project would end up being of benefit to seniors really turned around and has become more of a benefit to those of us who are misinterpreting this assumed digital divide, or at least can now see it in a different light. This has been the most exciting part about this project to me. I started off thinking that I knew, but I didn’t, and instead I learned. That is really priceless and I hope that all of my future work in this field provides such a fruitful experience. And it has changed how I look at how to conduct an interview and how to report and tell a story in general. You have to be unbiased. It’s all about the information. You can have your opinion and assumptions but you have to be willing to accept what transpires through the unfolding of the story as the facts are revealed.
Earlier in the term I made a post about how I would be doing two final projects… Completely thought that I would be able to have that locked down—I was completely wrong. That young idea was squashed before it even started. There was no way it was going to happen. I’m not so sure anyone could pull off working on two of these projects. The initial state of the term and our glorious delusions about how the current term will somehow be different from others—where you’re dragging yourself, legs exhausted and limp behind you across the finish line, praying that you will just pass—proved futile as always.
I am certainly content with this, however, because of the quality experience I have gotten out of our “Bridging the Gap” project. Let me just start by saying that none of this has been easy—nothing about a group project has ever been. You bring together individuals who are going fifty different directions, and probably have other group projects with individuals who are all going fifty different directions, mix that with food deprivation and personal attachment and you damn near have the emotional equivalent of an A-bomb.
Fortunately, for how limited our time was together as a group, we have pulled through well. Everyone took the initiative and got assignments done on their own, which is huge! It hasn’t been a situation where one person is left having everything dropped on them at the last minute because nobody else ever checked in and completed their assignments. Having this was key because we were so limited on time that we could actually come together and collaborate as a unit, that the need for people to go out and interview and gather information on their own or just as a pair at the last minute was crucial.
What we have learned about the topic we have ventured into was as well surprising. We came into the project with the same—call it stereotypical, perhaps—idea that senior citizens had no clue of how to navigate themselves through new media and the internet. They are so scared of it and need to be shown why it is so valuable and why they “MUST” use it… Well, we had two professors who told us that this just really isn’t so—at least not holistically. We learned that senior citizens as well just don’t feel a large need for some new media, or they just use it for different reasons other than social networking ( e.g., searching health-related topics). Through my interviews with Bill Loges, Professor in New Media Communications and Sociology, and Jon Dorbolo, Professor in Philosophy and Associate Director of TAC (Technology Across the Curriculum), I learned that the problem—assuming we should even be calling it a problem—isn’t so simple as senior citizens are terrified of new media and technology. I learned that the use and purpose of use across the generations is where the difference lies. Certainly there are things right now that kids ten years behind me are growing up with that I would look at and consider completely unnecessary and useless. These two professors really helped me put this into perspective, as to not write a certain group off as illiterate to a technology and its potential uses simply because their uses and outlook on whether or not it is or isn’t useful to them simply because it is different than mine.
So where I came into this project with a complete outlook that our theory was completely accurate and the project would end up being of benefit to seniors really turned around and has become more of a benefit to those of us who are misinterpreting this assumed digital divide, or at least can now see it in a different light. This has been the most exciting part about this project to me. I started off thinking that I knew, but I didn’t, and instead I learned. That is really priceless and I hope that all of my future work in this field provides such a fruitful experience. And it has changed how I look at how to conduct an interview and how to report and tell a story in general. You have to be unbiased. It’s all about the information. You can have your opinion and assumptions but you have to be willing to accept what transpires through the unfolding of the story as the facts are revealed.
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