Digital literacy has become an ever-increasingly hot topic, especially in 2020, when university students and professors were forced to adapt to a whole new learning environment- online and from a distance. Technology has never been more a part of our lives than right now, so, who better to interview, then, than Meg Carroll, who grew up in multiple technology-rich environments?
Meg is a junior at the College of Charleston, and she has an intricate background in digital literacy. During my pre-interview research, I learned that her father worked in IT, and computers were most definitely a big part of her childhood. Her first memories of her digital literacy journey are centered around her and her father designing her own website/blog, titled “margaretclaire.com.” Her father, Meg says, was captivated by photography, and documented many moments of her childhood, and he also taught Meg the beginning ropes of photography herself- although she was very young. Margaretclaire.com consisted of these pictures her and her father took, and was meant to be used as Meg’s personal blog. However, by the time Meg was able to read and write proficiently, she had lost interest in the site. Even though she no longer has the site she looks back on this memory fondly.
“I feel like my earliest memory would be taking pictures. My dad was always really into photographing everything that I did. So, he would just take pictures and pictures and pictures. And then I used to have, I mean I wish I still had it because it’d be kind of cool and I could give you the link or something, but I used to have a website that was literally just photos of me, and I feel like that’s my earliest memory with technology.”
Digital technology also followed Meg throughout her childhood education. Going to public elementary, middle, and high school in Columbia, SC, Meg and her school mates were given personal laptops for learning purposes.
With this information in mind, the first half of my interview questions were focused on how this upbringing had influenced her mindset towards digital literacy. She told me how, at first, it was a way for her to hide behind a screen, recalling a time when she broke up with her elementary school boyfriend over an email. Now, Meg says, it’s harder to say quite how it influences people because it is so ingrained into our way of life.
After hearing of Meg’s upbringing in multiple environments that encouraged digital literacy, I was curious to know how this affected her response to the changes brought on by COVID-19. Did she gracefully make the leap to online-only classes mid semester? Did she take her digital experience and surpass all of her classmates with her online expertise?
Okay, maybe I’m being theatrical. Nonetheless, I used the second half of my questions to find out how Meg’s digital literacy practices, and her attitudes towards them, had evolved during the pandemic.
Meg described her relationship with non-academic digital literary practices as complicated, revealing her distaste for Twitter, while also reflecting fondly on her morning ritual, which consists of her drinking coffee while reading the news via the Instagram pages of The Washington Post and The New Yorker.
Seeing as almost all of her reading materials are now online, Meg noticed a connection between her love of scrolling through online news articles and how quickly she was able to get acclimated to her new learning environment. Her years of communicating with others over a screen have come in handy, and communicating online has become a breeze. She would once fret over simple tasks, such as emailing teachers, but now feels confident in her abilities to properly represent herself through a computer, for pleasure and for academics.
Unfortunately, Meg isn’t as confident in her ability to pay attention via Zoom meetings. She stressed how important body language was to her while communicating and staying engaged with others. For this reason, she always prefers face to face interaction.
Her preference carries over to her online classes. Admitting that self-discipline isn’t her strongest area, Meg mourns the loss of accountability. While others may be able to keep their hands off of their phone during online class, Meg can most likely be found scrolling beneath her laptop screen 95% of the time- her words, not mine! Meg viewed this as her hardest obstacle to overcome when adapting to digital learning
We concluded our interview by thinking of ways the College could make up for this obstacle, only to come up empty. Meg felt that it was more of a situational problem that varied person to person depending on their needs. However, she commends Dr. Warnick for his use of exit tickets (short surveys at the end of the class that cover the discussed material), and suggests that this method could help other students in a variety of classes feel more encouraged to pay attention.
Below is an edited version of Meg’s interview answers
Mary Marshall:
Let’s transition a little bit here. What type of digital literacy practices do you perform outside of an academic setting?
Meg Carroll:
I read the newspaper actually every day. I read The Washington Post, it’s like, my favorite thing to do in the morning when I’m drinking my coffee. They have Instagram posts, and they link articles through posts. Sometimes I find them that way, so honestly Instagram is kind of a big way to get my news, because I’ll follow the important stories I see there. I like The New Yorker, too. Other than that, a lot of Tiktok. I deleted Twitter during quarantine, because I felt like I was seeing so much stuff on there.
When everything that happened with George Floyd, it was like, I do want to hear what people have to say, but I’d rather look on Instagram where there’s less words. It was just one of those things that had to go. It was making me sad. I would think about it all day, I couldn’t get away from it. It was either about him, or another black person who was murdered for no reason. It was a lot, something just had to go. On Twitter, everyone feels like they can say something which can be a good thing, but in this particular situation, I just couldn’t handle it.
Mary Marshall:
Do you see any overlap of any of these practices in and out of school? How do you think they aid in each other?
Meg Carroll:
I definitely think that reading the news every day probably helps since everything is digital now for school. I have so much practice communicating with people online. That’s pretty easy for me now. I used to stress when I would send professors emails and be like, “Oh my god, this is weird” like, “what am I saying,” and now it’s just another email that I have to send, and it’s no big deal. So that has definitely been a crossover. Now I know that I know how to communicate with people online.
Mary Marshall:
How has your attitude towards digital literacy changed during the pandemic and has it affected your digital literary activities outside of school?
Meg Carroll:
I think I really appreciated technology during the pandemic, because I have a lot of friends who went back home who I couldn’t see, like the old people in my family, I didn’t necessarily want to be around them, and so I could talk to them online or still keep up with what they’re doing on Facebook. I think it really made me appreciate technology and how even when we’re separate, we can be together.
Mary Marshall:
How has the pandemic affected your literary activities outside of school?
Meg Carroll:
I went through this phase where I was like, “I’m going to use this time.” So I go outside and I’m like, “I’m going to reconnect with nature. I’m not going to use my phone!” And I did do that for a while. I would just use it if I were catching up with someone or reading the news. Then, boredom struck, and I downloaded Tiktok… I feel like a lot of scrolling happened. I was on my phone way, way, way more than I probably ever was in my life. I did start watching a lot more movies and TV shows, if you consider that a digital practice.
Mary Marshall:
In your opinion, what do you think is lost from making the switch to primarily digital learning?
Meg Carroll:
I think the relationship stuff. It’s definitely not the same as seeing someone in the flesh and being able to touch them, or communicate with them in that way. You can’t read body language on Zoom, just a tiny face icon. I’ll also have zoom classes, and for the ones that I can have my camera off there is probably a 5% chance that I’m paying attention. Even for the ones I have my camera on for, I can put my phone in my lap and look like I’m scrolling and you would have no clue. It’s so easy to look like you’re paying attention and completely be somewhere else in your head. And I think that’s a loss, like, a loss of accountability. No one’s checking on me to make sure I’m tuned in, so it’s so easy to not pay attention. I have an art history midterm coming up this weekend, and I’m kind of screwed, because I get on my phone a lot.
Mary Marshall:
How do you think the College of Charleston can make up for these losses?
Meg Carroll:
I honestly don’t know. Like, the scrolling off to the side seems like an individual issue. I’m sure some people don’t do that. I don’t have a very good answer. I like how Professor Warnick does the exit ticket thing. Then I feel like I have to pay attention if I want to be able to do that. I believe that could help, but I honestly have no clue.