Question

Research paper for "To Siri With Love by Judith Newman"

Answer 1

Research paper for "To Siri With Love by Judith Newman"

Answer :

Research Paper

1.Background (History to Present prospectus) :

Article about her autistic son’s connection with the Apple virtual assistant Siri went viral. An accomplished essayist, Newman enlarges on her entertaining, candid tale about the joys and concerns of raising her son. She covers meals, bedtime, playmates and school – all made more challenging by an autistic child. Newman finds the humor in big and small events, and when she’s worn out she asks every mom’s question: “Am I to blame?”

Just how bad a mother am I? I wondered, as I watched my 13-year-old son deep in conversation with Siri. Gus has autism, and Siri, Apple’s “intelligent personal assistant” on the iPhone, is currently his friend. Obsessed with weather formations, Gus had spent the hour parsing the difference between isolated and scattered thunderstorms — an hour in which, thank God, I didn’t have to discuss them. After a while I heard this.
The article is less about a solution to combat autism as it is about technology being a teacher for social and communication skills. This is especially evidenced when the author cites examples of how grown (non-autistic) adults use Siri as a companion. Relying on your phone’s robot to keep you company rather than using your phone to connect with real people. Wow, and we wonder about the rampant feelings of isolation.

2.Objectives(Aim, Goal, What you are going to do, How you are going to do and why you are going to do) :

Siri would be a god-send for my adult son with autism. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of anything and everything film related, but we also converse about this information on an obsessive, repetitive basis. This would provide an outlet for his endless questions -- and I can see many other benefits that would enhance his quality of life. I knew nothing about this technology before reading this wonderfully written article.

Siri teaches Gus how to enunciate his words, pick up social cues, be polite, and practice etiquette. However, Siri also allows Gus to quench his thirst to learn, as he spends hours a day leaning about weather formations, “trains, planes, buses, escalators, and” lizards . Gus’s interactions with Siri shows just how important technology can be in learning.

3.Methods and Techniques :

Autism as a phenomenon, at least in a day-to-day sense. GUS: OK! Well goodnight! SIRI: Ah … it’s 5:06 pm. Gus: Oh sorry, I mean good-bye.  With this exchange, readers can easily imagine how Gus and his peers with autism might be soothed by Siri’s precise language and gentle frankness. The author notes that the bot “doesn’t let my communications-impaired son get away with anything.” If precision is one hallmark of autistic conversation, perseveration is the other. The fact that Siri indulges Gus in “semidiscuss[ing]” his favorite topics “tirelessly” quickly endears her to him: GUS: Siri, will you marry me? SIRI: I’m not the marrying kind. GUS: I mean not now. I’m a kid. I mean when I’m grown up. SIRI: My end-user agreement does not include marriage GUS: Oh, OK. Newman’s humorous style and asides to the reader makes the memoir engaging but at times can strip situations of the more complex emotional resonance they likely deserve. In ruminating on why Gus developed autism, for example. Yet another shortcoming involves the placement of the Siri . For some unknown reason, the author withholds almost all of it until two-thirds the way into the narrative. Readers will wonder why. And yet, in moments, the memoir does delve into the thornier questions related to raising a child with autism. For example, realizing that Gus’s obliviousness protects him from certain discomforts of a neurotypical childhood, Newman muses that “through pain there is growth. I think about this all the time”. And she concludes ultimately that she does want Gus to feel more self-conscious and embarrassed—that such steps are part of becoming a more fully realized person. She also grapples with whether or not Gus will one day want to have children.

4.Result :

How wonderful to read this exchange. Not only to know yet another application of Siri's influence to those who access her for information but a way to reach someone who's thought patterns are not as common as many and the information and the exchange spur more interests and more exchanges within their world. They become more and more a part of the world in general.

Technology often soothes Gus while also drawing out a certain relaxed social self. Readers may wonder if, with time, his easy interactions with Siri will eventually help him develop more comfort in the more complex arena of human-human interactions. Most narratives of autism hew toward the extremes, describing perhaps a boy “smashing his head against the wall and finger painting with the blood” or, even more likely, “the eccentric genius who will one day be running NASA”, Gus’s strengths and challenges, as depicted by Newman, are like those of many people on the autism spectrum: more mundane. As an educator of future teachers at a liberal arts college, I find that many of my students assume most people with autism have savant-like attributes.

5.Summary and Conclusion :

Autism or not, there has to be a delineation between an aid and a substitute for parenting, and recognizing how slippery this slope can be. At some point, it's no longer about how technology helps mollify a neuro developmental disorder, it's about how parents are no longer taking it upon themselves to teach children social development.

Through Judith Newman’s deeply provoking and creative article, “To Siri, With Love,” she was able to truly help me further understand the bridge between the beautiful mind of autistic children and the important relationship which Siri can provide. By using her touching, personal story with her autistic son, Newman argues the vital importance of modern technology, such as Siri, opposed to the frequent argument blaming technology for the many faults of our modern world. After reading this powerful article, I am a firm believer that the use of modern technology should be incorporated into helping autistic children and other children who share troubles on picking up social skills. Instead of harming our society, I think that Siri is providing a wonderful relationship between kids with autism and also encourages polite language which overall improves our society. Siri not only becomes a “nonjudgmental friend and teacher” for these children, but also is able to devote its full attention one hundred percent of the time on each child, an aspect which is unattainable for any human interactions. This article has not only made me curious about the other technological advances which have continuously received scrupulous criticism from our society yet have actually had positive effect, but it also makes me respect the modern age of technology and creates high hopes for the future of innovations in our modern world.