Nathan Branson

How To Stop Wasting Your Time on Youtube: Using a Blank Piece of Paper to Prioritize What You Want

What if I told you that Youtube can be a threat to personal agency? Personal agency is the ability to make a choice free from strong outside influences. It is the idea of my choices being aimed at benefiting my long-term good rather than distracted from my goals.

My brain is not always rational whenever I sit down to watch Youtube . . .

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May 27, 2021

What I Want Every One of My Students To Know on their First Day of Class

Every April I spend about 50 hours per week grading essays. That doesn't include other duties at my job. During those hours, I begin to take note of the good and bad habits of my students. As I grade I sit and ponder the personalities of my students: students who made an A in my class, students who do the bare minimum to pass, students . . .

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May 17, 2018

Millennials: Addicted to the iPhone but Wanting to Know How to Live Without It

Are Millennials really in love with technology?

About 3-4 years ago my dad told me that some of guys who worked at his auto shop were so distracted by their IPhones that it was affecting their productivity. The "tire guys," who put new tires on cars and do the oil changes, were the ones he was concerned about. As a high schooler, I was a tire guy every summer, where, like NASCAR . . .

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January 21, 2017

Distraction is No Excuse for Millennial Adults

Four Tips to Help the Untrained Brain

As a college English teacher, I often hear students flippantly self-identify as being easily distracted. My students speak as if this is unusual and inevitable. It seems as if they’ve been taught that a distracted brain cannot be cured, outside of ADHD medication.

Being a 33-year-old American adult who is easily distracted, I . . .

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November 08, 2016

Why We Never Stopped Watching TV

And One Method for Watching Less

Is cable television is hurtful or helpful for our society in 2015? This is not a new question. 2015 marks the 30 year anniversary of the 1985 publication of Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." Postman's book lays out multiple arguments that show how cable television is . . .

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July 15, 2015

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