Bennett VS. Boyd

I don't know if it's my own pessimistic nature, but I agreed with Danah Boyd. Boyd was honest in her opinion and to a certain extent right about people and their laziness. I am in fact one of those lazy people and that is a big problem that Boyd talks about.

A couple of times I agreed with Boyd when she said, that young people aren't using SNses to their advantage " It is this lack of motivation that we need to understand and address to improve our democracy and our government." I believe in what she says, but it's hard to change people's minds. People only do things when they want, not when others tell them to. 

I like how she uses the internet to prove her point to get young people interested in civic responsibility. People are all about self interest and flattery, why not use that to create a social networking site, "but social network sites certainly provide a platform for attention-seeking people to do their thing. 

With Boyd I have mixed feelings. I agree with him sometimes and disagree on others issues. Right away I agreed with his opinion of the younger generation being less interested in joining a political party. But, he is just wrong in saying young people don't vote. If you look at the last two elections, the youth vote was higher than it had been in previous presidential elections. There is a reason for young people turning out to vote. Young people and myself included feel like they can relate to the current president in his views. He has done a lot for education that matters to me and hundreds of thousands of college students all over the country. 

Overall, Bennett's tone was much better that Boyd's. It seemed like Bennettt had more solutions instead of placing blame on someone. Bennett is more realistic, "Learning to become an effective citizen does not happen automatically." 

I like the way Bennett writes and there is a flow to his writing. I find myself relating to him more, especially after my group worked on spruz.com to stop animal cruelty. "The bottom line is that digital natives largely do not participate in civic affairs out of a sense of duty or obligation but a sense of personal fulfillment." This quote is very true for me anyways. Honesty, I did not care about this project when it was first assigned, but at the end of the experience,you feel that you've made a contribution and a worthy one at that.