{"id":28733,"date":"2025-04-06T12:31:04","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T20:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/?p=28733"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:30:56","slug":"fall-2016-spokeo-scholarship-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/fall-2016-spokeo-scholarship-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuned In: Shashank Rao Wins Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We are proud to announce <strong>Shashank Rao<\/strong> as the winner of the <strong>Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship<\/strong>. Shashank\u2019s powerful essay explores a timely and sometimes controversial question: <em>Has social media made us more distracted?<\/em> His answer is nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply personal\u2014an example of the kind of critical thinking and empathy that the Spokeo Scholarship was created to support.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"202\" height=\"202\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/image\/Screenshot-2025-09-30-at-1.31.48-PM.png?resize=202%2C202&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28734\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/image\/Screenshot-2025-09-30-at-1.31.48-PM.png?w=202&amp;ssl=1 202w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/image\/Screenshot-2025-09-30-at-1.31.48-PM.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Shashank hails from Canton, Michigan, and is currently a sophomore at the University of Michigan, where he\u2019s double majoring in English and Creative Writing with a minor in Japanese. In addition to his love of reading and writing, Shashank enjoys bike rides and long walks in nature. After graduation, he hopes to teach English abroad, engage with social justice and political organizations, and ultimately pursue his dream of becoming a novelist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read Shashank\u2019s winning essay below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Out of tune. Uninformed. Spoiled. Superficial. The litany of criticisms excoriating Millennials is endless. \u201cWhy do you always have to be looking down at your phone?\u201d older generations ask, \u201clook up!\u201d But as for the question at hand: have social media and smartphones made me a more distracted person? Yes, I believe it has; however, it is important to note that this \u201cdistraction\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">While I concede there is some credence in previous generations\u2019 claims that social media has become a point of obsession for some, one must remember that social media is multi-faceted of which the so-called \u201cselfie culture\u201d is only one part. Social media serves as a platform for public discourse on matters of race, gender politics, domestic and international affairs, etc. And with more and more news media companies expanding their digital presence with apps and social media, my smartphone can toss me down the rabbit hole of investigating and understanding important issues; some may call this \u201cdistraction\u201d, I call it \u201cbecoming aware of the world around me\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">One of the pivotal moments in my life both on and off-line was the case of the death of Michael Brown. The country was set ablaze with heated arguments about race and police brutality\u2014so to was social media. My smartphone, with its news and social media applications, became an expansive library where I could sift through thousands of sources; a gaping auditorium where I could listen to lectures on the subject; or a Roman forum where people could come forward and share their personal experiences with the issue. For the first time, I was able to really dig deep into the reality of race in America. The ordeal fomented in me one of the greatest passions of my life: combating racial inequality in the United States and I credit the richness of the various opinions I found on social media with laying the foundations for my understanding of the weighty subject. The sheer amount of information being exchanged at the time may have \u201cdistracted\u201d me (I spent a lot of time researching), but I believe it was warranted for I emerged a stronger, smarter, more informed individual.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Smartphones and social media have helped me look at the world through both a professional and personal lens. Smartphones and social media aren\u2019t cluttering up the news: they\u2019re consolidating it so that it fits in the palm of your hand. Though the flow of all that information can be overwhelming or \u201cdistracting,\u201d what we\u2019re actually witnessing is one of the greatest shifts in the way humans consume media and culture. Their smartphone is as revolutionary as Gutenberg\u2019s press and I\u2019m all the better for it. So next time when it seems like I\u2019m tuned out, know that really, I\u2019m more tuned in than you think.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are proud to announce Shashank Rao as the winner of the Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship. Shashank\u2019s powerful essay explores a timely and sometimes controversial question: Has social media made&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":28912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[640],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tuned In: Shashank Rao Wins Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship - The Compass Blog | Digital Identity and People Search | Spokeo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spokeo.com\/compass\/fall-2016-spokeo-scholarship-winner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tuned In: Shashank Rao Wins Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship - The Compass Blog | Digital Identity and People Search | Spokeo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We are proud to announce Shashank Rao as the winner of the Fall 2016 Spokeo Scholarship. 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