As someone who has grown up in the age of smart technology, I have rarely reflected on the history of technology and how life has changed due to these advances. While discussing in small groups in class, I was surprised to hear the points my group was coming up with. We discussed how different communication, banking, and research are now, such as money not being the main form of currency, phone calls directly to people, and computers rather than encyclopedias. We also discussed how you can find anything online now, including movies, TV shows, clothing, and books. 

I also found An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube interesting to watch. Seeing how the Numan Numan and other meme videos became popular around 2008 was cool. It is interesting to see the differences from then to now, as videos and content can spread even faster today, due to apps like TikTok and Instagram, as videos can become popular in an instant and anyone can comment, repost, or respond immediately. I also found Welsh’s thinking of media as mediating human relationships and how as media changes, relationships will change interesting. I realized while watching it that I have seen this growing up in many ways. As a child, social media and being online were considered scary and you should not be on it besides research. Now, there is an expectation almost to be online, as employers, friends and family may look at social media or use LinkedIn. I have also experienced the change from in-person classes to online and how drastically different relationships become in these settings. 

Another point from Welsh’s video I am curious about is the age range of those who appear in YouTube videos now. In the YouTube video, the most prominent age range creating videos on YouTube was 18-24. Since then, there have been more family vloggers with young children as the main ‘characters’ and teens starting channels. Thus, I am curious to see how these statistics may have changed.

To hear all these differences and how integral the internet and media have become in our lives, it will mean a lot for future classrooms. It will mean watching and listening to what the students are to help build relationships by having conversations about their interests. It will also mean that I will need to become more tech-savvy as online websites have become a major part of the classroom. I also think the media and the internet are changing and will change relationships between the students, students and teachers, and parents and teachers. This has currently happened since the pandemic with online schooling. There are still options to be online, which results in communication being through calls, email, and text messages.  how people interacted and there are still options to be online. 

I think one of the main things that will need to be rethought about in schools is how media is discussed in schools. This could be the inclusion of a media safety, how to research, and how to present yourself online unit in Health or other classes where research may be needed. I also think that school and classes will be thought of as unavoidable, as I was already hearing this in high schools, such as ‘everything is on Google Classroom, there should be no reason you do not know what we did yesterday’. I think as virtual meetings, online classrooms, and videos of lectures and materials become more widely used, this idea may become more prominent to teachers. 

One thing that will continue to be important as digital reality offers more possibilities is ensuring that time outside and offline is included throughout the school day. It’s hard for us as teachers to know whether students spend time offline or outside after school hours, which is important for children. Thus, we may need to find ways to fit these times offline and outside into the school schedule, while completing the curriculum, to ensure students are getting time away from screens.