Computational Literacies Lab

Story 01

All right, um, let's go in. All right, so for this story, um I'm gonna take you back to um, COVID-19. We're like, where were you for COVID-19? Do you know? Bangladesh. You're Bengali? I actually have a friend that's Bengali. He comes to this class too, but you know, he was sick today, but um Back during COVID when it happened, I was actually a freshman in high school So this school goes all the way back to my first year of high school and right, right around when um, the pandemic hit during March, um We had lockdown for our schools. I don't know if it's the same for you. Was it the same for you or no? Yeah, so we were we were all quarantined in our house, right? So, you know and during that time, um You know four years ago, not like life was a lot different Remember the whole like LED trend where you have like LEDs in your room, you know, I had that stuff too. It was like, you know pretty pretty cool, I guess, you know being at home and whatnot, but And I just want to say this story isn't based on one event it's just like a series of events so Not that we have that established Um Yeah, um, I was just mainly at home and What I can remember was I was up for a lot of late nights, you know alone LEDs just blasting in my room and It felt really depressing because like I couldn't go outside my mom was really strict with the COVID because You know just my parents are just really strict about that they were really concerned about my safety so I didn't get to see any of my friends for a while like in person and You know like every day just passed by like it felt like every day felt the same to me like Like like my windows were all shut. Like I didn't see that much of a Sun, you know you ever seen like those like shows of like How yeah like of like no, you know those people like go into like a dark room for three days and they like lose track of time That was basically the same thing for me Like I lost track of time really easily like every day felt like deja vu like it was the same day happening over and over again and what really helped was funny enough my cell phone because I was able to even though it wasn't like The best way to like interact with my friends I was still able to like talk to my friends and you know get a hold of myself. So every day whenever we could me and my friends would talk on the phone for like as long as we can and That really brought me back together. So And you know, like I said, it wasn't as good as you know Having a face-to-face conversation, but you know There wasn't much we could do about it and I feel like the technology of cell phones is really useful in that sense of having connection and Like removing that wall of isolation Sometimes and this really there's also like times where I also got to interact with people from my school that I would never interacted with in Person because you know, I'm not really that Extroverted I'm pretty introverted. I'm fairly shy, you know, so I guess that also opened like a door like a door an opportunity to like meet all those new people, you know, so That was pretty pretty nice to have What else What else should I mention? That's really about it. Hmm. Sorry. Um, you could join me if you want. Sure What what's that Um, do you know him Oh, I didn't know I'm sorry, I didn't know that I have no I don't know All right. I'll just wrap up the story real quick It's fine, it's fine, it's not really that big of a deal but anyways, um, I guess the main the main lesson or message of the story is Although like cell phones aren't the best tool They can never replace, you know physical human interaction. I think they're a great tool for when like there's no other alternatives, you know, and I Think it's also very important to like understand this fact because like you can't it's not healthy to have you know to just have your phone like as your own method like the only method of like interactive people because it's it's good to have like physical human interactions because I also have there was also a point where I Guess I just disconnected from the world like this was at like after kovat I was just disconnected from the rest of my like the world like a school and I just wouldn't talk to anyone But I would just talk to people on the phone like on my phone or online I guess so, I guess that's also something really important to like, you know understand and That understanding that and sorry understanding that having us having the cell phone as a tool to Communicate it's good. But I guess don't ever do it. That's my story. You have any questions or anything you want to clarify? Yeah, no problem, yeah, I'm not the best at telling stories no you