Source G: A Political Cartoon Analysis

Throughout history people have been developing ways to make day to day tasks easier and overall improve quality of life. Every generation had its great inventions but the twenty first century brought forth many amazing breakthroughs involving communication and the accessing of all kinds of information. Even though the twenty first century has brought along many new and impressive technological advancements that would allow the everyday individual to expand their intellectual horizons, it actually ends up doing these millennials more harm than good.

These technological advancements are often very overwhelming and major sources of distraction. For example, Source G is a political cartoon created by Paul Noth that portrays a man in a lab coat at a desktop with a tab open that says “The Internet wants to destroy your productivity” with a button underneath labeled “always allow” This cartoon helps to highlight how the exponential freedom the internet provides can easily lead us to get distracted and stray away from
important tasks. Because we can access so much it often makes us lose focus on what's really important and procrastinate.

“Young Americans have much more access and education then the parents did, but in the 2007 Pew survey on “What Americans Know: 1989-2007, “ 56 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds possessed low knowledge levels, while only 22 percent of 50–to 64-year-olds did.” This helps to show that despite all the access to knowledge through these new age forms of technology, millennials still don’t surpass the previous generation in intellectual abilities.
The fact that we basically have so much information at our fingertips we lose the need to really retain a lot of information because if there is anything we need to know it's available at the click of a mouse. Bauerlein points out how even though it appears as if millennials have the upper hand because of all this access to technology that the previous generation did not have they actually don’t. Also Bauerlein highlights the steady decrease in intellectual capabilities as the technological improvements
increase.

The mistake that many millennials end up making when it comes to technology is allowing it to control them rather than them controlling it. In Source C Dave Crenshaw says “The reality, though, is that these things will make us productive only if we learn to take control them. They are the sermons. We are the masters. If you and I don’t set up a schedule and protect our time, we allow ourselves to be one over by the traffic of information. “ At time we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in technology constantly checking our twitter feeds, posting snaps, and liking pictures on Instagram. Although these allows us to connect with the outside world they simultaneously disconnect us from important work. This technology can allow one to drown in the sea of information but in order to rise above and float one must be consciously aware of one's online activity and organized so that one use their time appropriately.

All in all , in spite of all the good brought on by technology it consistently detrimental to both the work ethic and intellectual capacity of the everyday millennial.