Time's Person of the Year: You
I have to admit to a great deal of ambivalence about the omnipresence of technology in our social, intellectual, and creative lives. On the one hand, it's fantastic! I can skype with people in other countries and establish and maintain connections that simply would have not been possible in the past. I love being online, and the ability to access any information that I could possibly want - and whenever I want to-- stil seems, to this person in her mid-life (who used to go to the library quite frequently) almost miraculous.
But it's strange and alienating to me, too. I am decidedly not a social person, which isn't to say that I don't like people, I DO! I am just very quiet and more than a little shy in many circumstances. Oddly, stories about how such people afflicted with similar social anxieties have found friends and a place to belong in online communities has not been true for me at all; if anything, my social discomfort increases in such places like Second Life and Facebook. I explored Second Life quite eagerly when I first learned of it, but it left me feeling puzzled, estranged, exhausted, and more than a little nauseous! Facebook was too demanding for me, and I found it a bit annoying. I don't know how I ever lived without email, but I resent being on-call every second. Sometimes, I don't want to provide an answer right away, and the expectation that I should is cumbersome.
A lot has been gained, certainly, but (and this makes me sound really old), I can't help thinking that we are losing something, too. Are the moments of my life only meaningful if I can record it and post it for others to comment on? What about that quiet moment in the forest that no one else witnessed? The world stopped... I had no camera, no phone... if I had felt compelled to freeze it digitally so that I could post it on Facebook, I think the moment would have been qualitatively different: less real, not as poignant, because my attention and intentions would have been altered.
Should we all be the person of the year? Did you earn that? Did I? Is it good that we are all celebrities, with the accompanying overexposure and insight into our every thought and movement? The abundance of garbage that fills cyberspace tells me, perhaps not.
The fact that I have received assignments from college students (note that I have used the plural) that used 'u' instead of 'you' and lacked any sort of punctuation seemed, to me, the harbinger of the very disintegration of humankind!
Then again, rock and roll was evil too, right?
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I can relate to your post. We actually had a speaker come and talk to the faculty at the community college were I am employed who discussed the learning needs of the GenNext student. These are the kids who grew up with the Internet. The lines of authority are blurred. This group has a wealth of information available online that previous generations did not. This speaker indicated that this group may not respect knowledge and authority of a professor the same way earlier generations have. They are empowered by the Internet and the ability to post, which makes each person an expert.
ReplyDeleteI too can relate to this blog as a college instructor. My first semester teaching I found myself needing to tell my students how to write a professional email that uses complete sentences (with punctuation and not emoticons and not in the form of a text), addressed me as Ms. Daine (not "hey") and then they were asked to also include their name at the end of the email because I may not know who straycat91@hotmail.com is. In many ways, the thought that goes into letter writing, which today for many is simply emailing, has been lost. I use my email to touch base and for professional purposes, but I still feel that taking that quiet moment to write a letter to someone can be evermore meaningful in this digital age.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the Internet and all its resources, voices, and "experts" has helped to blur the lines between teacher/authority and student. In the past we went to class and listened to the (one) expert - the teacher. Now, however, we have available all types of very specific information, in several different media formats, authored by MIT professors, professional organizations, high school students, reactionary kooks, and just plain old misinformed bloggers. When I was an undergrad I might have suspected that a prof was biased or a bag of wind, but now I can easily confirm it with a web search and some reading. As teachers we need to acknowledge that we no longer control access to information and expertise, and use all those resources and voices to our (and our students') advantage.
ReplyDeleteDebra, thanks for sharing your experience and feelings in VR places such as SL and FB. I thought the literature said that VR helped shy students to be more able /courageous to express themselves, such as in ESL learning context. interesting social psychological phenomena that need to be further studies as a research topic...
ReplyDeleteDaine, I like your idea of training students how to write a proper email. Even some graduate students would not address me but simply begin her email by "Hey...". I felt it annoying, but I didn't know what or how I should tell her.
To all, I agree that there is less authority in the teachers' part due to student' access to all kinds of information. But still does it make us all expert of certain domain?
Nice points Debra - I certainly connected with what u (you) wrote. Perhaps the new "wired" generation will redefine the entire way we communicate. Writing is simply an encoding method of our verbal speech, and there are many ways to encode a message. The new code will have its own set of grammar rules - e.g., nglsh :).
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