[DMEC] Essay Finalist: Untitled Essay by Emmanuel P.
On school days I usually wake up at six o’clock. My morning starts with me turning on my computer and listening to my music while I take a shower and brush my teeth. After that I get dressed watch TV with the volume off while still listening to my music from my computer. When my ride comes I turn off the music I had been listening to all morning, grab my cell phone, my iPod or my PSP and head out the door. When I get into my to school my first period is a Study Hall. My teacher, Mr. Johnson, is very lenient, so he lets the students in Study Hall listen or play with any of their digital devices. During 6th period I have a class called SRP. This class is just like Study Hall, so I usually do the same thing I do in Study Hall. My last period is called TV Productions where the majority of the time in this class is spent using digital media. Either we are filming on a video camera or we are editing on a Power Mac G5 computer.
When I leave school, I sometimes go to a friend’s house and play a video game call Halo. This game is not your ordinary video game. A person can play this game over the Internet. So while we are playing in Kokomo, Indiana, we could be competing with people from St. Louis, Missouri or Tokyo, Japan. While we are playing Halo we are two steps away from his personal computer. Which is hooked up to surround sound. So if you are to see me playing this video game at my friends house, that is not the only digital media I am using. I am most likely text messaging on my cell phone, instant messaging on my friend’s computer and listening to music. Chances are I get home around four o’clock and get on my computer and make music on a computer program called Fruity Loop Studio. I might make up to 100 dollars a week just selling these "beats" that I do on my computer. After that I will get a phone call from somebody and hang out with him or her for the rest of the night. That is my usually day for me when it comes to using digital media and that is why it so important to me.
Technology has improved so much over the years. I remember when very few people had cell phones. Now a person is in the minority if they do not have a cell phone. The most you could ever do with your cell phone was talk to people and maybe play a game like Pong. Now a person can get on the Internet, play games, text message, instant message, write a book report, take pictures and make a video. I remember the best portable music players had to offer was probably a Sony Walkman. Now it’s an iPod that holds up to 15,000 songs and is also capable at showing videos. I remember a time when the best potable video games had to offer was a Gameboy. A Gameboy did not even have a color screen; it was played in black and white. Today the best portable video game device is a Sony PSP. This device is able to do what a Sony PlayStation can do and is at least three times smaller. A person can play video games, which have graphics equal to a Sony PlayStation and are capable of getting on the Internet, playing music and video. There was time not too long ago when video game systems limited a person to playing only with the friends that were in the same place as they were. Now you can play a person anywhere in the world.
See, we are the first generation who has lived with all this digital media for the majority of our lives. I am not quite sure what digital devices our children will grow up with, but I am sure that we will most likely know how to operate it, unlike our parents and grandparents. The typical person age 10 to 25 understands more about electronics more than our parents ever have or ever will. There are many more people who deal with digital media like I do. I am by no means socially inactive and I probably deal with more gizmos and gadgets than a nerd that grew up with my parent’s generations.
Digital media is how many people make their money. I make most of my money from making music on my Gateway PC. Ten years ago it would have been impossible for a person to make music at the quality I make my music with just a personal computer, microphone, keyboard and two turntables. There are people in the music industry who use the same technology that I got for just 100 dollars. A couple of these artists like the rap group D4L have had Billboard Number One hits. Many people would have never thought that computers would be so important to an average person’s day 25 years ago. There are so many jobs that require that a person at least know how to use Microsoft Word. If a person does not know how to operate a computer it is more than likely that they will probably never get an office job. I am pretty sure that digital media has opened up many jobs that were not even thought of five years ago and these advancements have probably held out the economy in ways one cannot imagine. We are probably the first who know at least one person that knows how to fix a computer without going to a school to learn how to do fix one. When my generation is old and weary, our grandchildren will describe us as the first children who grew up with the technology that dictated how their lives were lived.
Emmanuel P. lives in Kokomo, Indiana. This essay was a finalist in the 2006 Global Kids Digital Media Essay Contest. For more information, please visit GlobalKids.org.
