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Use New Media Wisely By Jordan McKean
 * This I Believe **

 media type="file" key="thisibelieve2.mp3" width="240" height="20" New media has allowed people to  communicate  in thousands  of ways. That means people have thousands of choices  to make about what technology they use and how they use it. I see this most frequently in the social choices we make every day. It is easier than ever now to keep in touch with people who are physically far away  from you. For example, my high school friends at colleges across the country are just a click <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> away on Facebook. But with each choice comes a consequence, and as <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 18.6667px;">residents of the world <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">, we all have the responsibility to consider these consequences when we make our choices.

<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">However, it’s tempting to use technology as a social crutch <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">. For some shy students, meeting new people at a large university is stressful. A student who takes risks <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> striking up conversations with strangers on her floor may be terrified at first but will eventually develop confidence as well as new friendships. But a homesick freshman who <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 26.6667px;">isolates <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> herself in her room so she has more time to Facebook close friends from home is never going to be comfortable in her new home. Modern technology makes it easier not to take risks. But choosing only what is easy <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">can prevent people from building up social skills they need. I believe in the importance of face-to-face interaction, even when it’s awkward <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> or difficult.

<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">Social skills are like a muscle; if you don’t use them, you lose them. A long-distance runner who spends the summer lying on the couch because she doesn’t have a coach forcing her to run **<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">will **** wake up one morning **<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> to find she can no longer run the length of a few city blocks without getting ** exhausted **<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">. Similarly, a girl who <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Cambria','serif'; font-size: 24px;">fills her free time with Facebook <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> may want to spend an evening out with an old friend but find herself suddenly <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 29.3333px;">unsure who to call <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 29.3333px;">, <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;"> and how to ask. The difference between these choices is that Facebook encourages its users to stay on the site even when it would be most beneficial for the user to ** spend some time away **<span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">. Technology might make aspects of your life easier, but it can’t <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 34.6667px;">live <span style="color: #7955bb; font-family: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">your life for you.

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">__Production Notes__

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">Text written by Jordan McKean, styled and formatted using Microsoft Word.

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">The photo was taken, cropped and sized by me using the program Windows Vista uses to view and edit photos but not otherwise edited with photoediting software such as photoshop. I originally wanted a photo of a door but I didn't like any of the ones I took of my own door. The picture represents the kind of interaction you get when you interact with a computer instead of a person and reminds the reader that even though they may be getting to know me through this essay, they is still a barrier between our social interaction because they are reading instead of speaking to me directly. I think this effect is a little more appropriate than a picture of a door in any case. I chose a font that was all one color for the body of the essay so it is easy to read. Purple is enough of a change of pace from a typical black text to get someone's attention but they aren't going to be so distracted with visual effects that they don't want to read. Words not in arial bold are phrases that capture key points of the essay. My inspiration for this is magazines, which sometimes will take certain quotes or phrases and make them bigger or in a more attention-grabbing color throughout the article in order to attract someone's attention who might be just skimming. Since the key phrases are the ones that stick out, the skimmer gets a sense of what the article is about and will be able to decide more easily if he wants to read it based on those phrases rather than just the title alone.

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">The audio was recorded through the use of Audacity. I am familiar with garageband and have used it before but I chose Audacity because I don't actually have a mac and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to learn a program I can potentially use after I graduate, when I no longer have access to fancy CU mac computer labs to use for audio. I have a headset and recorded in my car, although I had never used the microphone before and had some trouble with my fricatives making too much noise at first. I recorded over several times and ended up just changing the way I speak to get it to come out cleaner. Other than that I didn't have any problems with my recording. Recording was one of the last things I did for this project, because I wanted to wait until I had a finalized version of my draft before I got too far into the audio.

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">I did look up royalty-free downloads and sound effects but I could not find anything that I felt was appropriate to add to the soundtrack. I feel that most sound effects and music tracks here would be distracting rather than supplemental; the focus here needs to be on the words, no matter what medium one prefers to use to receive them, be that listening, reading or both. Any extras need to supplement that. Perhaps a song with words that speaks about an issue concerning how modern technology influences relationships would have been helpful but the trick here is finding something that is free to use, unless I wanted to compose one myself and I'm not really a composer. It would have been nice to have a song like that to open the audio file with before my voice comes in, the way authors sometimes put quotes or poems written by others in the beginning of a novel. I did not run across anything that I felt was going to work for my interests, however.

<span style="color: #4c3a8c; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode','Lucida Grande',sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;">-JM