Every two weeks in my college English class, everyone would split into groups to play scrabble. As a child, I loved playing scrabble and had always enjoyed different kinds of word games. However, overtime technology became more advanced which meant that I could play wherever and whenever I wanted through my device instead of sitting down face to face against my opponent. Sitting down face to face also has its own benefits so I didn’t mind having to play scrabble. But, over time, I began to dread having to come to class on a day where all we did was play scrabble. I didn’t see the point in playing and how this was supposedly beneficial. I began to think about games like word cross and words with friends which I could play on my phone, and in my mind, were much more beneficial in developing my vocabulary and making my brain think more creatively. I started to think more about if playing scrabble as a tabletop game was truly more beneficial than playing on a device. 

There was a lack of articles pertaining to whether playing online or tabletop, but I did find a multitude of articles about Scrabulous, an online knock off version of scrabble that quickly developed a large fan base. I also investigated articles relating to how playing games on a device can affect our brain. The first article of my bibliography compares digital and board top games, pointing out the pros and cons of each side. The second is an article going in depth on an experiment conducted to see the effects of gaming device usage patterns which can be seen between an extreme gamer versus someone who often plays on their smart phone. The third relates to Scrabulous and how it forced the gaming industry to adapt to the new craze. The final article relates to another highly played smart phone game, candy crush. It goes in depth into how and why candy crush is such an addictive game which in hindsight might not seem related to my topic, but it is by showing the dangers of digital games.  

There still isn’t a definite answer on whether digital games are better at cultivating word power, but research is continuously being done to see the effects of digital gaming. So even if digital games were proven to be successful in developing our brain power, there are still many negative effects that may come with it.  

Annotated Bibliography 

Edelen, D. (2017, September 14). Are Digital Board Games Better? Retrieved from https://gamingtrend.com/feature/editorials/are-digital-board-games-better/.  

“Are Digital Board Games Better”, gives a look into widely popular classic board games such as Ticket to Ride, The Settlers of Catan, etc. It discusses their wide success as a tabletop game and with the release of a digital version, sales skyrocketed both online and for the actual tabletop version. An example is with Ticket to Ride. Ticket to Ride is one the most successful tabletop games and won best board game in 2004. When the digital version of it was released, sales for the physical board game also spiked. People who enjoy the digital version of a board game, often buy the physical copy too. Despite this correlation, there are still games that are better played in person. The article discusses the pros and cons of playing tabletop games versus their online versions. In an example, they use the board game Escape: The Curse of the Temple. They explain how a digital version cannot create the same excitement as rolling a real dice and competing against people to race through the temple.  

The pros and cons given in this article are very beneficial in discovering if you prefer tabletop or digital version. It shows that there isn’t an obvious answer as to which is better, but it’s more dependent on the type of game and personal preferences. For example, tabletop games cater to larger groups and allow for better social connection/cooperation and sensory feedback which is important for some games. Digital games are more organized and better at explaining different concepts and rules as well preventing loss of game pieces and allowing easy cleanup.  

Soo-Hyun Paik, Cho, H., Ji-Won, C., Jo-Eun, J., & Dai-Jin, K. (2017). Gaming device usage patterns predict internet gaming disorder: Comparison across different gaming device usage patterns. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(12), 1512. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121512  

“Gaming device usage patterns predict internet gaming disorder: Comparison across different gaming device usage patterns” present findings from an experiment regarding playing games across a variety of devices such as a phone, game console, and pc. It focuses more on the use of smartphones vs pc and how gaming on a smartphone continues to evolve and diverse which causes an increase in people playing games on their phone. They also discuss the correlation of how gamers often not only play on their main console but spend a large amount of time playing on their phone as well. The experiment was done on over a large age group, students (high school and college), individuals with full time jobs, and individuals without full time jobs. They were asked a series of questions to determine what level they are on the internet addiction test, smartphone addiction test, self-control scale, patient health, anxiety disorder, alcohol use disorder, and nicotine dependency.  

The information from this experiment is crucial in seeing how the evolution of technology has caused an influx of gaming which has its own effects. Smartphone games can easily become addicting even if they’re games that are meant to be educational or challenge your mind and cause a chain reaction of side effects that don’t seem correlated at first sight.  

Timmons, H. (2008, March 2). Online Scrabble Craze Leaves Game Sellers at Loss for Words. New York Times, p. A1(L). Retrieved from https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A175781136/SCIC?u=nclive&sid=SCIC&xid=081423f2  

“Online Scrabble Craze Leaves Game Sellers at a Loss for Words” is an article reporting on the  

“Scrabulous” Craze which is an online version of the game scrabble created by an indie company for facebook. It amassed a large following of users who become loyal to the game and were furious when the creates of scrabble had it removed and sued the company that made it. It discusses the pros of the digital version and why “Scrabulous” managed to give scrabble such a boost in popularity. For example, “Scrabulous” makes it easier to play multiple games with multiple people over a large span of time. It is also more geared to target a younger audience whereas Scrabble previously had a close-knit community of players. It also discusses the idea that scrabble shouldn’t belong to anybody and should be a public domain like chess.  

This article is useful in seeing a clear difference between tabletop vs digital games. Both versions have their own benefits. In the article, Matt Mason mentions that “if somethings already out there and proven, the companies should go with it” (2008). This is important in showing how digital games changed the way board games were originally supposed to be played. 

Zafar, N., Kausar, R., & Pallesen, S. (2018). Candy crush addiction, executive functioning and CGPA of university students of lahore. Bahria Journal of Professional Psychology, 17(1), 67. Retrieved from https://login.proxy032.nclive.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2234553406?accountid=9935  

“Candy crush addiction, executive functioning and CGPA of university students of lahore” gives an example of how everyday simple games can such a large addiction. This article is crucial in relating gaming addictions to changes in our brain. It is an experiment that was done to observe the changes in people’s brains who play candy crush. 

By observing what a seemingly harmless game can do, it causes researchers to think more about the consequences of technology and what can be done to reduce these effects.  

Educated is a memoir written by Tara Westover which tells the story of her growing up in a devout family with a dad who is mentally ill. As a child, she is isolated from the rest of the world and doesn’t get involved with any kind of government meaning she didn’t attend a school or go to hospitals when she was injured. Every injury was up to God’s grace to heal and her mother’s herbs. Gene, her father and her brother Shawn are often portrayed as the villain of her memoir. They are both bipolar and try to control Westover and what she does, but Shawn is abusive towards her. She often overlooks this abuse as him not meaning to do it on purpose or that he is playing around with her without any ill intent. Growing up without knowing any better, Westover’s mindset has in a way been brainwashed to think that her father’s beliefs are always right. However, after she attends Brigham Young University, her mindset is slowly starting to shift. She is learning things that should be common knowledge and learning that her father’s teachings aren’t always correct both morally and factually. 

When Westover turns seventeen, she takes the ACT and gets accepted into BYU which is a school made up mostly of Morman students. She doesn’t fit in because things that should have been common knowledge are new to her and she experiences a culture difference between her and her peers who are also Mormons like her. She doesn’t think of them as true Mormons and thinks of them as gentiles because of her father telling her “that most Mormons were gentiles, they just didn’t know it” (154). It is after she comes home from BYU that she realizes that her mindset has started to shift. She went back to her daily routine of working in the junkyard despite her protest at first because if she didn’t, her dad would not allow her to keep living in that house with him. Her dad and her brother Shawn both dislike how she has changed since coming back from BYU and tells her that she has become “uppity”. They both want to drag her down and remind her of her roots (175). Shawn’s way of doing that was by calling her by different names which didn’t bother her until one particular nickname: “Nigger”. Before she attended BYU, Shawn had previously called her by that name before and she had heard her father say it a couple of times but it never bothered her. She had also read her father’s favorite book on the American founding, which was about how slaves were happier and their owners had to do more work to take care of them which was logical to her at the time (178). However, while she was at BYU, she took an American history class that covered slavery and many important people during that time who took a stand against it. Because of this, her whole mindset changes and she realizes that what was once logical before isn’t, and what was once meaningless took on a whole new light. 

Readers get to see how Westover’s mind continues to shift over time. In the beginning, her inner thoughts were things that we wouldn’t consider to be right, but now we can see how she is starting to change by going to BYU. She is starting to develop ideas and beliefs of her own instead of blindly believing in her father’s words and what she has known her whole life. Through BYU, she has gotten to know people who have the same religious belief as her but practice it in a different way which is foreign to her. She is also starting to learn more about American History and the real context behind it instead of small snippets she’s heard which can be incorrect. After only one semester at BYU, Westover’s mindset has already started becoming more open to change so readers will definitely look forward to reading more about how she grows and changes after a second semester at BYU.

Work Cited

Westover, Tara. Educated. Random, 2018. 

History is My Favorite 

Research is something that everyone must do, whether it’s researching which brand of dog food is the best or research for an academic essay. In order to get reliable information, it’s important to develop good research skills, not just for school but for everyday life. If you want to get a new life insurance policy, it’s important to research the best one and see what fits for you, but if you don’t have good researching skills or don’t research at all you can end up getting stuck with bad life insurance. I personally have done lots of research both formal and informal. I’ve researched things like which brands of food taste better, how to fall asleep faster, and I have also done formal research to get information for my academic essays. In elementary and middle school, I had to conduct some research for essays and projects which weren’t as hard as it is for high school and college, but it was a first step.  

I have had to do a lot of formal research for both my high school and college classes which was hard at first since I had to use more scholarly resources but as I developed better research skills it became easier. My first essay in high school was to write a short essay on an event that has impacted my life. I was given a basic guideline to follow such as how many paragraphs I need to write and how each paragraph should have a topic sentence and 3 details with sub details. I wanted to write a good essay, so I did some informal research on how to make my essay better. I researched how to make my wording better, how to make more essay more interesting, and what I should or shouldn’t do when writing an essay. However, since it was a personal essay, I didn’t have to do a whole lot of research and just needed to focus on conveying the content in my memory through my writing to the best of my ability.  

The first major essay I had to write was in my college English class when I was a sophomore. I had to pick a topic and write an argument essay on it. The topic that I chose was on whether year-round schools are more effective than semester-based schools. I had about two weeks to write it and had to conduct a lot of research on the pros and cons of both sides before I could compare them and make an argument. My research included things such as how high the average test scores were for each, how it will help lower class learning students, effects on mental health, and how it will affect other industries such as tourism, childcare, transportation, and food services. Some resources I used were scholarly articles I found on NC Live and books that I checked out from the school library.  

While I did enjoy getting to conduct these kinds of research and getting to learn new writing techniques through them, my favorite kind of writing that I have done was in my World History class. Every test in that class was an essay we had to write on every goal answering different questions he would ask. A lot of these questions involved relating what we learned about to the modern world. For example, one of my favorite time periods to learn about was during ancient Rome and Greece. I had to write about how Greece and Rome’s ideas have influenced us through our ancestors. I wrote about how Greece contributed to and shaped our government through their democracy. If you look at our current government, you can see that it is very similar towards Greece’s back then with minor changes but still the same basic idea. I think it’s amazing how something that happened such a long time ago is still very apparent in modern society and being used.  

After I read chapter 26 of The Norton Field Guide, I realized that my disciplinary interest is in the arts and humanities which was why I enjoyed my World History class so much. Writing in the arts and humanities “focus[es] on human culture and expressions of the human mind, and the purpose of writing in these fields is to explore and analyze aspects of the human experience across time” (Bullock et al. 307). It’s amazing to see how humans have evolved over time and how we are continuing to grow more and more. 

Work Cited 

Bullock, et al. Chapter 26: “Writing in academic fields of study.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook. 5^th ed. Norton, 2019. pp.307

K-pop is something that I’ve always been exposed to growing up, mostly big bang, 4minute, and girls generation. It wasn’t until around 2012-2013 that I really got into it and discovered a lot of new groups. The k-pop world is extremely competitive especially since everyone is so talented and are always releasing amazing albums. My personal favorite albums are 9801, XOXO, Undivided, Summer Nights, and Square Up. All of these albums largely vary from each other in terms of style, but they all have really great songs that can either make me very hype or get in my feels. The artist who sing these songs are also part of what make their songs so amazing to me, all of their voices fit very well with each of their songs whether it’s an upbeat song or a slow ballad. There are so many other albums that I really love to listen to but I really especially loved these 5 albums not just for the music but also I was drawn in by the unique concepts and how well everything goes together.

Number 1: 9801 (Wooseok X Kuanlin)

9801 is a collaboration between Lai Kuanlin, a former member of Wanna one, and Jung Wooseok, a current member of Pentagon. The mini album was released on March 11th, 2019, about a month after Wanna One’s last concert and disbandment. The album consist of 5 tracks, the title track being i’m a star which is sung by both Wooseok and Kuanlin, the rest being solo tracks by each. I really love how every song in this album has such a deep message and it can be a big motivation to everyone who listens to it. The songs explain various feelings of keeping your head high in life despite the difficult times and doing your best and showing people who you are.

Every album typically contains a CD with all of the songs, a photo book, stickers/bookmarks, and a photo card.

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Number 2: XOXO (Exo)

XOXO is Exo’s first album which instantly became a hit and made them one of the most popular boy groups. It’s title track “growl” became a national anthem in Korea, with almost everyone in the country knowing it. It contains 14 tracks ranging from dance-pop songs to slow ballads. This album has a lot of “innocence” in it that you would expect from a newly debuted group. It’s really refreshing to listen to.

Number 3: 1/1=1 Undivided (Wanna One)

Undivided is an album by Wanna One, a popular boy group that was formed through a show called Produce 101. The album undivided consist of 5 tracks, the title track being “Light” which is sung by every member. The other 4 tracks were created by sub-units of the Wanna One members through a show called “Wanna One X-Con.” Every track in the album is very very different especially since they were all produced by extremely different people with their own unique styles but they all somehow still go together well with the concept undivided.

Number 4: Summer Nights (Twice)

Summer Nights is an album sung by Twice, one of the most popular girl groups. It’s a really fun song with sweet vocals that is meant for summer. This album is a more feminine and mature song which I really enjoy from them. It has 9 tracks, all of which are really good and relaxing to listen to.

Number 5: Square Up (Blackpink)

Square Up is one of Blackpink’s most successful albums, it’s title track “ddu ddu” was also widely popular and became a hit song as soon as it was released. The album contains 4 tracks which all relate to love. I find their songs really nice to jam to at parties and to get hyped up.

Discography

Blackpink. Square Up. YG Entertainment, 2018 https://youtu.be/pWNg20NH4Hs

EXO. XOXO. SM Entertainment, 2013. https://youtu.be/jdvK7ND75dY

Twice. Summer Nights. JYP Entertainment, 2018. https://youtu.be/5ebTkiPncOE

Wanna One. 1/1=1 Undivided. Stone Music Entertainment, 2018. https://youtu.be/5ebTkiPncOE

Wooseok X Kuanlin. 9801. Cube Entertainment, 2019 https://youtu.be/bOKZy-XH_8Y