8.RI.9

(TEXT 1) Your Brain on Technology by Annabelle Jordan

How many things do you do at once when you are in front of a computer? Do you think of yourself as a multitasker? As computer and Internet use grows, allowing us access anywhere to multiple sources of information and entertainment, so too do concerns about its impact on our lives. Technology isn’t just changing the way we do things; studies show that it’s changing our brains. But for better or for worse?

There is no doubt that Internet-connected devices give us access to more information than ever before. If you want to know the news of the day, check what your friends are doing, watch a music video or a movie, or look for a great deal on a product, it’s all instantly available. While the Internet is a powerful tool, allowing us to quickly access all sorts of useful facts, keeping up with all of the available information can also be distracting and overwhelming. Academic and professional achievement still requires the ability to focus for extended periods on complex tasks. However, some research shows that the distractions of the modern world are impairing this ability.

Have you ever been working on something and thought, “I’ll just quickly check if I have any messages”? How long did it take you to get back to your original task? People who multitask, or do more than one thing at a time, often feel they are being more productive by doing so, but studies show that is not the case. Researchers have found that heavy multitaskers actually take longer to switch between tasks, are not as good as non-multitaskers at ignoring distracting information, and actually feel more stress. Despite this, people are multitasking more. Studies indicate that computer users at work change windows or switch to other programs such as email almost 37 times every hour. That’s more than once every two minutes.

All this multitasking seems to be actually changing our brains. When users juggle information, it provides stimulation that triggers the release of dopamine, a chemical that activates the pleasure centers in the brain. In other words, their brains reward them for switching between activities. Evidence shows that doing this on a regular basis retrains the brain to prefer switching activities. This can cause problems in situations in which people need to focus on one thing for more than a few minutes, such as working on longer tasks or in social situations. Heavy technology users report getting distracted even when they don’t want to be, such as when spending time with their families. Without the constant release of dopamine, they feel bored.

Dopamine is also the brain chemical associated with addiction, leading to the worry that excessive technology use may cause dysfunctional behavior similar to other addictions. And given the effects on adult brains, experts worry that this will be even more pronounced in the still-developing brains of children and teenagers. The lives of countless young people are intertwined with technology; many youths send hundreds of text messages a day, not to mention the time spent on social networking, video games, or browsing the Internet. Students admit that their use of technology takes time away and distracts them from schoolwork. How can you not check your phone if a text comes in while you’re doing homework? And then you have to reply, right?

The loss of focus during a task isn’t the only way technology impairs learning. One study tracked how well 12- to 14-year-old boys remembered vocabulary words after two different activities. They either watched TV or played video games for two hours between studying the words and going to sleep. The results showed that playing video games both reduced the quality of sleep and significantly reduced their ability to remember the vocabulary words the next day. Researchers believe the intense stimulation of a video game after learning may have kept the brain from remembering the words. Evidence indicates that the brain needs a time of lower activity to process information. If we are always online, our brains are not getting that downtime.

Technology isn’t all bad, of course. Research also shows that the brains of people who use the Internet find information more efficiently, and video games can improve the brain’s ability to process images. Technology is here to stay, so it’s not a question of should we use it, but of how we manage it. We can only do that effectively if we understand how it affects us, especially our brains. As with many things, finding a balance may be the key to maximizing the potential of our brains on technology.

___________________________________________________--

(TEXT 2) “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson

As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write—and technology is to blame. An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?

Andrea Lunsford isn’t so sure. Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students’ prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.

“I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those [online] updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

It’s almost hard to remember how big a ¹paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they’d leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

¹paradigm: an example or framework

____________________________________________________________

Which best describes Jordan's interpretation of the uses of technology?

• Students shouldn't text while doing their homework.

• We must learn to manage the harmful effects of technology.

• We must find a way to stop using technology so much.

• We should stop using technology that is damaging our brains.

Tags

CCSS.RI.7.7

CCSS.RI.8.7

CCSS.RL.7.7

CCSS.RL.8.5

CCSS.RL.8.7

(TEXT 1) Your Brain on Technology by Annabelle Jordan

How many things do you do at once when you are in front of a computer? Do you think of yourself as a multitasker? As computer and Internet use grows, allowing us access anywhere to multiple sources of information and entertainment, so too do concerns about its impact on our lives. Technology isn’t just changing the way we do things; studies show that it’s changing our brains. But for better or for worse?

There is no doubt that Internet-connected devices give us access to more information than ever before. If you want to know the news of the day, check what your friends are doing, watch a music video or a movie, or look for a great deal on a product, it’s all instantly available. While the Internet is a powerful tool, allowing us to quickly access all sorts of useful facts, keeping up with all of the available information can also be distracting and overwhelming. Academic and professional achievement still requires the ability to focus for extended periods on complex tasks. However, some research shows that the distractions of the modern world are impairing this ability.

Have you ever been working on something and thought, “I’ll just quickly check if I have any messages”? How long did it take you to get back to your original task? People who multitask, or do more than one thing at a time, often feel they are being more productive by doing so, but studies show that is not the case. Researchers have found that heavy multitaskers actually take longer to switch between tasks, are not as good as non-multitaskers at ignoring distracting information, and actually feel more stress. Despite this, people are multitasking more. Studies indicate that computer users at work change windows or switch to other programs such as email almost 37 times every hour. That’s more than once every two minutes.

All this multitasking seems to be actually changing our brains. When users juggle information, it provides stimulation that triggers the release of dopamine, a chemical that activates the pleasure centers in the brain. In other words, their brains reward them for switching between activities. Evidence shows that doing this on a regular basis retrains the brain to prefer switching activities. This can cause problems in situations in which people need to focus on one thing for more than a few minutes, such as working on longer tasks or in social situations. Heavy technology users report getting distracted even when they don’t want to be, such as when spending time with their families. Without the constant release of dopamine, they feel bored.

Dopamine is also the brain chemical associated with addiction, leading to the worry that excessive technology use may cause dysfunctional behavior similar to other addictions. And given the effects on adult brains, experts worry that this will be even more pronounced in the still-developing brains of children and teenagers. The lives of countless young people are intertwined with technology; many youths send hundreds of text messages a day, not to mention the time spent on social networking, video games, or browsing the Internet. Students admit that their use of technology takes time away and distracts them from schoolwork. How can you not check your phone if a text comes in while you’re doing homework? And then you have to reply, right?

The loss of focus during a task isn’t the only way technology impairs learning. One study tracked how well 12- to 14-year-old boys remembered vocabulary words after two different activities. They either watched TV or played video games for two hours between studying the words and going to sleep. The results showed that playing video games both reduced the quality of sleep and significantly reduced their ability to remember the vocabulary words the next day. Researchers believe the intense stimulation of a video game after learning may have kept the brain from remembering the words. Evidence indicates that the brain needs a time of lower activity to process information. If we are always online, our brains are not getting that downtime.

Technology isn’t all bad, of course. Research also shows that the brains of people who use the Internet find information more efficiently, and video games can improve the brain’s ability to process images. Technology is here to stay, so it’s not a question of should we use it, but of how we manage it. We can only do that effectively if we understand how it affects us, especially our brains. As with many things, finding a balance may be the key to maximizing the potential of our brains on technology.

___________________________________________________--

(TEXT 2) “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson

As the school year begins, be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write—and technology is to blame. An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?

Andrea Lunsford isn’t so sure. Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organized a mammoth project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students’ prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusions are stirring.

“I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those [online] updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

It’s almost hard to remember how big a ¹paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they’d leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

¹paradigm: an example or framework

____________________________________________________________

Which fact do the two passages agree on but interpret differently?

• Technology is responsible for young people today writing more than any other generation before them.

• Computer users change windows or switch programs more than once every two minutes.

• Technology affects young people because they spend so much time engaging with it.

• Video games can improve the brain's ability to process image.

Tags

CCSS.RI.7.7

CCSS.RI.8.7

CCSS.RL.8.5

CCSS.RL.8.7

CCSS.RL.9-10.7

(TEXT 1) Are You Eating GM Food? By Richard Boylan

Genetically modified (GM) foods have been slowly entering our diets since the mid-1990s. These are foods that have been altered in laboratories for many beneficial purposes: to thrive in cold conditions, to resist pests and diseases, or to achieve faster growth. Other foods are modified to make them more nutritionally rich. For example, certain types of rice have been engineered so that they provide more of the nutrients needed in countries where rice is the main part of the daily diet.

Although there may be certain benefits of GM foods, we are not entirely sure of the side effects. Some may cause allergic reactions, for example, or increase cholesterol. Unfortunately, there are currently no labeling rules for modified foods, so consumers have no way of knowing which GM foods they may place in their shopping carts as they stroll through store aisles. The makers of GM foods claim these foods don’t differ significantly from natural varieties. They also say they do not want warning labels on their products. However, there are too many unknowns and potential dangers surrounding these foods. More GM research needs to be shared with consumers—they have a right to know exactly what is in the foods they purchase!

_______________________________________________________________

(TEXT 2) GM Crops are Superfoods by Sharla Silva

With the world’s population projected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, what is everyone going to eat? Genetically modified (GM) superfoods may be part of the answer. These are plants that have been modified to be more resistant to pests, cold, diseases, and drought. The benefits of these genetically modified superfoods are endless, and they could be vital to supporting our growing world. Some people are concerned about eating foods with altered DNA, fearing that there may be unknown side effects. However, GM foods do not differ significantly from natural foods, and there is no reason for not moving forward with their development.

__________________________________________________________

Which statement best explains how the two authors disagree?

• Boylan thinks that GM foods may cause allergies and should be labeled, but Silva sees only the benefits of these foods.

• Silva believes that GM foods are superfoods, but Boylan thinks GM foods can only cause harm.

• Boylan believes that GM foods may have some important benefits, but Silva believes that the benefits of GM foods are not significant.

• Silva thinks the unknown dangers of GM foods are a major concern, but Boylan feels that GM foods are safe.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.7

CCSS.RI.8.7

CCSS.RL.7.7

CCSS.RL.8.5

CCSS.RL.8.7