[DMEC] Essay Quotes: Empowerment
While there were only 14 winning essays, the majority of the over 130 essays offered some insight into and perspective on the role of digital media amongst today's teens. The following is a collection of some of the best quotes around the topic of Empowerment.
Kyle M., Wheatland, Wyoming:
Chat rooms and other forms of online communication provide a launching pad for the great think. minds of America's youth, with little or no consequence for failure.
Rebecca H., Belpre, Ohio:
Video games give teenagers, like me, the ability to control much more than a mouse.
Ryan B., Louisville, Kentucky:
Who would ever have thought it possible for a kid to travel around the world and back with a simple click? Who would have even guessed it to even be fathomable for a person to play a game, listen to Motley Crue's greatest hits, and yet still talk to friends all at once? It's possible and done by millions of people every day sitting in front of a computer screen, and I'm proud to say I'm one of them.
Dahye H., Brooklyn, New York
We own these new digital medias, we shouldn’t be slaves to them.
Sarah S., Kokomo, Indiana:
Blogs are online journals… Although I do not have the Internet at home, I know an Internet blog... because I have a sister that has to know everything that goes on in my life. I feel I have no privacy and I hate the fact that I always have to hide my journal and worry about my sister reading about my personal feelings. With blogs, passwords are required to get into personal writings. Access to a blog would give me more privacy and I would feel more comfortable.
Jonathan D., Wheatland, Wyoming:
My sister was on her way back to college, and she saw a person walk. up the hill, out of the corner of her eye. She stopped immediately, and got out of her car. When she was toward this person she saw how bad it was. A man, his wife, and their newborn baby rolled their car. When she got to the man my sister asked him if he had contacted 911. He said he didn’t because none of them own a cell phone. My sister saved the family just with the click of some buttons.
Kacy H., Wheatland, Wyoming:
I live six miles from town on a ranch in Wyoming, so most of the time I am in very remote areas. With my mobile phone, I feel like I have more freedom and fewer worries. … I know what you are probably thinking, what if there is no cell service? Text messaging is the answer! Often times, when I can’t make a call out, with only one “bar” of service I can still send a text message.
Scarlet S., Bob Jones High, Madison, Alabama:
As my friend tried to swerve off the road, bam! Out of nowhere, a wreck happened. What do you do when something like an emergency happens? No, you don’t write a letter to your mom saying you got in a wreck. You don’t send a message to her pager, and you definitely don’t send an email. This is why a cell phone can be so important.
Tom D., Tecno Tiger, Teen Second Life:
I was introduced to Second Life by my dad who plays on the main grid. After the first week of playing, I was hooked, and if I’m being honest, my grades started to slip at school… Once I figured it out, I started using SL to my advantage. I set up a small mall, and started selling my products, I then used the money I made from Teen Second Life to pay for resources to help me at school.
Cassie T., Kokomo, Indiana:
Another great thing about blogging sites is the ability to network…this helps teens that may feel like they are alone in the world find that they are not the only one who has an interest in one particular thing, or is different in some way.
Chris F., Louisville, Kentucky:
Being capable of solving other people's problems enriches me with a sense of hope for my future.
Brandon A. S., Bob Jones High, Madison, Alabama:
I began writing this essay using WordPad, a scaled-down word processor that comes with every version of Microsoft Windows, at the public library in Greenbrier, Ark. WordPad has no spell check. function. So, to take advantage of the power of computers, I e-mailed this essay to myself, finished writing it in WordPad and then transferred it to OpenOffice.org 2.0. OpenOffice is an open-source (translates to “free”) office suite similar to Microsoft Office or Corel's WordPerfect Suite. OpenOffice has spelling and grammar check. as well as thesaurus and dictionary. If I continued to use WordPad or Notepad, I could always look online at dictionary.com with my Internet Explorer should I need to find the correct spelling of a word; while you can't leave all the spelling to the computer, it is a big help.
