I chose the G7, Psychology 459 topic because it gave me the chance to think about popular culture (films and television) in a different perspective. The whole class wrote on this subject, so I somewhat arbitrarily chose Kendra's after looking through only a few of her classmates. Her report interested me because I am already aware of three of the sources that she cites in her report- Speed, Clueless and The Dukes of Hazzard. Finding this report only took a few minutes. The other topic that many of the G7 students wrote about was about self witnessing by children, I skipped over this report because after brief inspection I could not discern what these reports were all about.

Kendra's report on portrayals of driving behavior contains several sections. The first section describes her mission and purpose, the second section is made up of her resaerch into previous generations and their handling of the subject. The main section is her own research into the subject. She viewed the movies Speed, Clueless and Adventures in Babysitting. She also viewed the television serials Dukes of Hazzard, Highlander and ChiPs. Finally she viewed some cartoons. She rated the programs she viewed rather objectivly using a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst example of bad driving.

This report is valuable because the operational definition of bad driving behavior is so objectively used to rate the films. Using this scale is more valuable than merely talking about the different films. It is out of this process of quantification that psychology has come to be defined as a science. Unfortunately, this is where the report ends and we do not get an answer to the question that Kendra is interested in: Does viewing bad driving behavior cause bad driving behavior? This question is one that may prove extremely difficult to answer, largely due to the multifactorial inputs contributing to driving behavior. A possible way that this process could take place is suggested by Kendra, this process is modeling. In order to find out if there is any truth to this, one would have to search for people who have developed in an environment similar to everyone else except for their not viewing programs like the ones listed in Kendra's report.

I chose to read a report concerning the generational library because I had some questions that I needed answering when I was looking through the past reports. I knew what the generational curriculum was composed of, I wanted to know more about the idea behind the digital library. Tammy's web page was well organized and easy to read. I only looked through a few other reports on this topic, they all seemed to say the same thing and I decided to do my report on the last one I came across, Tammy's.

What is included in Tammy's report is an explanation behind the generational curriculum. She explains that it is a form of community learning where students studying the same subject are able to learn from each other through records that are kept from previous classes. In this type of learning community, the students are left to interact with each other and independantly of a structured classroom environment. She goes on to describe the internet as a "virtual book" where the reader can choose the direction of the story by clicking on links. Finally, she advises the future generations to work hard at their reports and actively participate in class.

Crucial to the concept of education and the Generational Curriculum is the interaction of students with their educators (in the case of the digital library this means students of prior generations). Is reading a report that a student wrote several semesters or years ago really a form of interaction? There does not seem to be any of the question/answer type of discussion that is so important for communication. When I read 1984, I do not feel as if I am interacting with George Orwell. True, the e-mail addresses of the student who wrote the reports are listed on their home pages, but I doubt that they would care to entertain my comments and questions about reports that they wrote a long time ago.

Ayada's report was one of the best looking that I have come across on the generational library. She makes visually interesting web pages through her use of graphics and backgrounds. I could tell that she took the time to do a good report from the attention to these visual qualities of web page design. Once again, I decided to search through the most recent generations of work as I am interested in up to date information. The quality driving circle topic seemed interesting because it was not simply a report on something that was researched over the internet, the people who wrote these reports actually did something active rather than merely reading something and writing about it. I only looked at two other reports before I chose Ayada's. This took less than a minute. I knew that I had found something that I wanted to include in my report after reading through her entire report.

The first two sections of Ayada's report summarizes the Quality Driving Circle (QDC) experiences of two students of (presumably) prior generations. She then goes on to describe her own experience in leading a QDC. The QDC met three times. During the first meeting the members answered questionnaires in order to evaluate factors such as irritability, patience, risk taking, speeding, tailgating and abuse to passengers. They were also rated on a sliding scale inventory of hostility. At the second meeting they discussed what "inconsiderate driving behavior was. They also discussed the characteristics of a smart driver. For their third meeting, they actually went on the road together to take turns driving and evaluating their behavior. During this meeting, the group member Sonya engaged in many risky speeding and aggressive behaviors.

Although the individuals in Ayada's group are almost certainly not the road rage murderers who we read about in the newspaper, there still exists some value to her leading the QDC. We saw in Sonya's case that she needed to make some significant improvements to her driving. There are many problems that stand in the way of people becoming better drivers. The most serious offenders are the ones who are most unlikely to volunteer for such a class (people who make excessively external attributions). Should QDCs be legislated into existence for people who have committed certain traffic violations? Even if people go through training, the behaviors displayed on the road may be stemming from well established personality traits- ones that can not be changed over a few discussion groups. It is clear that something should be done to make the roads a safer place.

Marini's report interests me because it cuts to the heart of the matter for students studying Psychology and how it relates to new computer technologies. This report is the best one that I have seen in the entirety of the generational cirriculum. The reason for this being the completeness of the report and the thought that Marini put into it. After researching the topics that I have discussed above, I wanted to read about something that was different from all of the others. I chose the generation five and looked at a few other home pages before reaching Marini's, these home pages did not indicate the topic of the reports, the links only said "report 1" and "report 2." Marini's web pages were well built, with many moving icons that attracted my attention. I am glad to have read a report done by someone with such a good writing ability and understanding of psychological research/theory as Marini.

Marini's report is very long, totaling 14 pages. The first topic she writes about is Cyber-Therapy, a new way of mental health care that takes place over the internet. She makes some valuable points. She says that the key element of therapy is interaction between a client and his mental health professional. With the advent of the computer telecommunications, this makes face-to-face meetings unnecissary. The advantages of cyber-therapy are that many people may feel more comfortable on-line, also, cyber-therapy is able to reach people who are handicapped, homebound, or living in rural areas that would not ordinarily find it possible to go to a mental heath professional's office. There are many disadvantages to this kind of psychotherapy. Do the client/therapist really get to know each other over the internet? Also, there is a lot that therapists can learn about clients from other sources than the words that they write. Clients may use the internet as a defense mechanism, therefore further hindering the all important client/therapist relationship.

Marini researched two web sites relating to this topic. Tom Raymond is one of these people, he uses participation theory to assess how well adjusted his clients are. He charges his clients for the time it takes him to compose a message to them. The other web site that Marini researched was NetPsych.com. This site led Marini to a licensed clinical psychologist who was opposed cyber-therapy, who stated the importance of face-to-face interaction between the client and therapist. This individual will charge you to respond to your e-mail only if you feel that it has been helpful- he does not consider this to be therapy. I went to his website and he he must be rater busy with this because he is not accepting new clients.

I think that the internet can be a valuable tool for promoting mental health. Descriptions of mental illnesses can be posted on the web as a sort of public health notice, instructions about how to go about seeking treatment can also be listed. Mental illnesses are not something that I believe can be cured or treated by asking someone a question and receiving an answer over the internet. I therefore agree with Marini's opinion that on-line services are not a substitute for psychotherapy. Using Participation Theory's view of mental health, the internet can be a useful tool if it helps people get along with one another. The internet can be a valuable way for people to communicate with each other who would not ordinarily do so because of long distances. For people who want, the internet can be a way of isolating ones self from the world, there are so many services offered over the internet that many people do not have to leave the security of their home to engage in many commercial and business activities. The second section of Marini's report deals with driving therapy. She discusses defensive driving, stress signs, and personality in relation to driving. In researching this report, she investigated Sy Cohn and Dr. Driving's web sites.

The final section of Marini's report deals with the cyberspace counterculture groups radio underground, computer underground and modern primitives. Cyberspace is a place that can support these types of groups because of its ability to connect people with the same interests rather easily. Through the clicking of links, we find sites that interest ourselves and we can become a part of a virtual community. The communal minds that work together, towards a common goal of free expression, or community mental health will continue to boost interpersonal communication to a higher level.

After reading other reports in my class, it is apparent that the process of researching the generational cirriculum is heavily influenced by personal tastes, intersts, and preconceptions. Some people were influenced by visually interesting designs and icons, others were only interested in the content of the text.

Future generations, try to write what you really feel. This is the only way to give value to your reports. If you chose to research someone's report because you thought he/she had an interesting name, juat say so. Take your time and look through the reports, something interesting will probably come your way.