1. The document summarizes discussions from a university course about technology and media, with students reflecting on how technology impacts their lives. 2. Students discussed feeling lost in the many directions of technology but also the need for balance in their technology use. 3. The discussions touched on both benefits and harms of technology, with ideas around using technology to improve lives but also concerns about overreliance. 4. By the end, students were discussing crafting a unified message and strategic design that could juxtapose different views and lead audiences to further understanding.

1. How to Catch A Unicorn Patterns in Millennials’ talk about technology during a course on “Media & Culture” Communication Department UMass Amherst, Spring 2011

2. Lost? “I find myself constantly lost in the direction…maybe that’s just it - there isn’t a lack of direction but many directions…a war zone almost. We all have so much to contribute and say that we are always moving in different directions….” (ktrychon) “’getting lost’ and ‘let[ing] technology take over’ (Becca)…stuck out to me the most” (ddavies) “Stephthen goes on to discuss that ‘the opposite of being lost is knowing where you are’” (ddavies)

3. Lost? “we can stay lost in technology, or expand out” (ckmetz) “how our society gets lost because we use selective attention, or that our society expands to the outside world and has a balance” (ckmetz) “You don’t want to get lost in technology but find a ‘medium’ with it” (Hdanfort)

4. Lost In Technology “Is all this technology actually going to be this catastrophic?” (ddavies) “need… to be liberated from technology” (BrittR00) “what kind of impact technology really has on us…” (Carl Danoff) “our reliance on technology … show how this technology is driving our world and changing it for the good and bad…how consumed we are…” (Kimdelehanty)

7. LostIn Technology LOST “two sides of technology; an optimistic attitude, and a fearful, pessimistic attitude” (ckmetz) “we still use a lot of technology even when we try not to” (Hdanfort) “what we see in media and technology is becoming more of a culture” (Jamer574) “the options we have of working with or against technology … .options….or… limits…” (hbcohen91) FINDING OURSELVES WITHIN TECHNOLOGY

8. Lost In Technology “technology … used throughout…need to find a happy medium” (Kalf917) “Seth Gore discussed with us the role of technology in his everyday life, as well as how he maneuvers through our “acoustical world” as a deaf human being. When telling his story, he used ASL, which was then interpreted into spoken English. This connects to the Origami Unicorn because he is using a different medium to tell his story…see our worlds collide…” (AlPal13) FINDING OURSELVES WITHIN TECHNOLOGY

9. Benefits of technology? “to help us become the best that we can be in life and improve the world” (ddavies) “why is there variation” (BrittR00) “we all experience different things and combining them would maximize what we see” (Kimdelehanty)

10. Benefits of technology? “we have to give people what they want to see and make it interesting and entertaining, As well as putting our ideas and messages out there. We want the audience to see and understand the same way we do.” (Jamar574) “The scene in Demi’s video where her phone is her alarm clock can show a potential benefit of technology” (Kimdelehanty)

11. Harms of technology? “keep going on the next and the next. I find myself going and going and not understanding what it all means, I’m not making connections” (ktrychon) “the scene in Brandon’s video where all of his friends are using multiple types of technology may be used as a negative example” (Kimdelehanty) “Kimdelehanty’s…statistics…GPA’s being lower for those who take notes on the computer.” (ddavies)

12. Harms of technology? “a war zone almost” (ktrychon) “facing a situation that is already there, positive and negative attitudes keep fighting” (sichenchina) Crap!We have to manage ________ Realities! DIGITAL Patterns in Millennials’ talk about technology Digital Realities & Analog Living

13. Creating balance “Becca’s suggestion of ‘balance’ reminds me of what journalists seek to maintain. They want to be neutral and only report what are accepted by the general public. However, it is ideology of the power[ful] that shapes our understanding of be[ing] ‘normal’ (C&H)…” (Csi) “’Middleness’ - although this is not a real word - I find it is the best way to describe what it is we are all looking for. The middle.. .The direction we are supposed to go in” (ktrychon)

14. Creating balance “using all these different mediums, and all these different worlds, and making them coexist into one final product. It is kind of like a Venn Diagram” (Nate) “things in common because we are all students living here on this campus, but our videos are also very different” (ktrychon) “see visible differences in the small things” (sgershlak) “Each one of us is building a different part and we need to find out how these parts fit to have a good balance” (Jwegrzyn)

15. vision “we need to collaboratively come up with one powerful message…that will connect with the audience, springing up multiple conversations amongst whoever watches the video; possibly even springing up ideas displayed in our own individual videos and they can take our own individual idea further and make something of their own, something much more in depth than what we had originally made.” (Carl Danoff) “open-ended, where the audience can form their own interpretations” (BrittR00)

16. vision “the line between reality and illusion is constantly blurred”(NatashaKapadia) “time telling it’s own…no beginning and no end. To make this video symbolic in what mediums we want to tell our story and what stories we want to tell” (Jwegrzyn)

17. Strategic design “show people our ‘selective attention’ or lack thereof” (AlPal13) “take it a step farther and address questions like, ‘What does that mean for us? What does it matter?’” (BrittR00) “work carefully through these videos again, looking for things we are agree with and disagree with” (Csi)

18. Strategic design “present all the facts but then take them a step farther and push viewers to think about it a different way” (BrittR00) “Instead of Ali narrating herself, she used the song lyrics as what she is trying to express” (ckmetz) “show our initial confusion with the wiki, so we could show our final wikis and how complex they are…our progress” (AlPal13)

19. Strategic design “lead the audience down different possible paths in the quest for understanding and articulation” (BrittR00) “clips that flow one into another telling one story, but at the same time telling it’s own” (Jwegrzyn) “To make this project an origami unicorn it would need to be that each small video could be self-contained but together works the way we want” (NatashaKapadia)

20. Our Message: ( How to ride a unicorn? ) “sit down and digest… the information…” (ktrychon) “the bigger picture and consider… what the implications are” (BrittR00) “it’s not over and that there is no final answer” (BrittR00) “critique the commonsense assumptions…the way we live is not the only way to live…” (Kimdelehanty)

21. Our Message: ( How to ride a unicorn? ) “Media structures our society. We create our own culture of media based off what we want and how we react to certain sources of media.” (Jamar574)

22. Our Message: ( How to ride a unicorn? ) “this media that surrounds us everywhere and at anytime will be used to tell a story” (jameshoffman) “involve the distinction between time and space and how our society moves within the day” (ckmetz) “show both sides of the tension … what [is] the middle” (csilv17)

23. craftinga Digitized Life Patterns in Millennials’ talk about technology Representing a Millennial Ideology

24. Selective intelligence “function as a cultural attractor and a cultural activator” (NatashaKapadia) “We are an example, like the Matrix, of an origami unicorns” (ckmetz) “Currently, we are in a computer lab, with so many different mediums around us…” (ddavies) “The audience might not understand or be able to put all the pieces together until the end, when they start to fall into place and form a cohesive point” (BrittR00)

25. Juxtapositions Selective Intelligence In Action “in Jamar’s video when the Kid Cudi song is playing” (ddavies) “The juxtaposition of many doors and hallways [Nate’s] can relate to the options we have of working with or against technology…in some videos you never see past the door…in others…moving down a hallway and into the outside world.” (hbcohen) “different angles…took place in a car and showed the roads and the things that were passed while driving” (Kalf917)

26. Juxtapositions Selective Intelligence In Action “the library was used to show that the books are part of the past and that when your at the library you are using your computer and other technology” (wallybeckler) “compare the two daily lifestyles of deaf people and hearing people” (sgershlak) “compare the millennial time period, to [Ruth Moore’s] time period” s(gershlak)

27. Juxtapositions Selective Intelligence In Action “maneuver[ing] through our ‘acoustical world’ as a deaf human being” (AlPal13) “juxtapose Ruth’s ideas about technology over Seth’s and how they have a common ground that can say something about our class” (ckmetz)

28. in search ofselective intelligence An extension of Michael Wesch’s digital ethnography project: “Visions of Students Today”

29. Credits Students in “Media and Culture” – a Communication course at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Spring 2011 David Croteau and William Hoynes(2003). Media Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences (3rd Edition). Henry Jenkins (2006). “Searching for the Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling” in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Pierre Levy (1994). Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. Glenn Yeffeth, Ed (2003).Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix. With thanks to Seth Gore, author of The Buzz Buzz Boom, and Ruth Moore, for their guest appearances in our class. Funding and Sponsorship provided by the Communication Department, Umass Amherst and the ASL Program at Hampshire College.