After I finished my presentation and actually presented it to our class, I showed my friend group my presentation to get their opinions on autocorrect. Even with all the research I showed them proving the initial positive effects of autocorrect on learning literacy, they all didn’t believe it. They were and still are adamant that autocorrect obscures messages’ meaning, puts less focus on typing accuracy and decreases their word recall. I attempted to argue with my one friend with the information that I found, but he was sure that his learning literacy decreased as a result of autocorrect. This really made me ponder my findings over again and second guess my research. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I won’t know what autocorrect does to people’s learning literacy until much more research comes out. More concepts need to be focused on, like how does autocorrect obscure texts’ meanings or how does autocorrect rush writers. It truly was a bizarre thing to hear from the people that made me research this topic that they don’t agree with anything I found in my presentation. Maybe in a five years or so, I can conduct some more research on updated findings to truly see who’s right in this autocorrect debate.
I agree with what you are saying about friend groups being resistant to new information, especially groups from back home. Over winter break, I was showing my high school friends my psychology research project for the effects of nicotine on the brain and they didn’t want to believe the facts I was showing them. I feel that they had a predetermined high school image of me, and when I tried to show them something academic that interested me, they weren’t having it. I’m not sure if it was the fact that some of them were severely addicted to nicotine or just them waiting to get high and go to the beach, but it’s still interesting to me when I try to bring new ideas into the group.
I think that what Erik touches on really speaks to your conflict. I think it really matters who delivers the information that determines whether it is accepted or rejected. The evidence is there, but we young folk seem more inclined to trust how we feel more than what studies have shown.