Seeking How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous.
By Emily YoffeWell, this was an interesting reading... I was thinking that seeking if you apply this concept of seeking for pleasure to non-technology situations, humans already do this all the time. Why do you think we have slot machines? Have you ever walked in to a casino and just stopped, listened and wondered? I love going to Vegas. It isn't because I gamble. I'm a cheepie that sometimes plays the penny slots. I like to go to people watch. It is quite fascinating to watch people totally hooked at the excitement of possibly winning.Teaching Generation M: A Handbook for Librarians and EducatorsI haven't decided on how I feel about this article. It seems to say that the instant access to technology wirelessly is ok, and very much the same representation for teenagers as it was in the past, just more public. I agree with that somewhat. I am someone who is involved with technology, but have a bit of a stand offish approach. I knew when I was in college and everyone had cell phones, and that they were bothering me about getting one, that I should wait as long as possible to function without them. I knew that there was no turning back once you had one. It is always that way. Then when they no longer had non-color screen models, I was a bit sad too, because I didn't want to be attached to a charging station when battery power wasn't good efficient enough for my standards to power a color screen. Everything just keeps advancing, so quickly. And as time goes by, it advances even quicker!
I am not the only one noticing the down side to the changes. I was talking to my father, who is a retired engineer for the big three. He has always been an advocate of making your brain process concepts and learning the "why" behind every step. Learning was more important than just finding an answer. Last week, he told me that he noticed he was finally just doing what the GPS was saying. This was a huge shock to me. He used to walk with me around state grounds and show me different ways to find north, south, east and west while in the middle of nature. He would spend road trips driving the wrong way, even if he knew it, because he had me or my siblings navigating a map telling us where to go on our trip. My father has always pushed to be a thinker, and not just follow along with assistance. So, hearing him tell me that he found himself just following the GPS and not thinking through the route himself, I almost fell over. What in the world would happen to everyone if all of technology was lost. Mother nature still rules. Then what?
New York Teacher takes students on a virtual trip to learn realities of refugee lifeI will focus on this for our post class blog!
RE your dad and the GPS, I think in part that technology helps us when there starts to be too much to think about. For example if there is construction or traffic, a GPS can take this information into account more efficiently than you as an individual would be at looking at each technology individually. The good thing is that he still has those skills for when he needs them or to check against what the GPS is telling him, and will have those cues when the GPS seems to be leading him astray.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. I find the story concerning your dad very interesting. It shows how much even the most unlikely of us have turned to rely on technology now for so much. In the case of your dad, and many people, it's like we don't even bother learning from it sometimes, and rather just passively let it direct us where to go without really giving it much thought. But what if technology does fail in the future? Will we all not know how to do very much on our own anymore? Is technology a crutch moving us along without us having to use our own two feet? What happens when the crutch is removed?
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