Friday, August 13, 2010

NY Times article on the effects of computer use on the developing brain

First of a series of three articles published earlier this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=your%20brain%20on%20computers&st=cse

Mr. Nass at Stanford thinks the ultimate risk of heavy technology use is that it diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another, even in the same room.

“The way we become more human is by paying attention to each other,” he said. “It shows how much you care.”

That empathy, Mr. Nass said, is essential to the human condition. “We are at an inflection point,” he said. “A significant fraction of people’s experiences are now fragmented.”

3 comments:

  1. Mr. Nass at Stanford thinks the ultimate risk of heavy technology use is that it diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another, even in the same room.

    “The way we become more human is by paying attention to each other,” he said. “It shows how much you care.”

    That empathy, Mr. Nass said, is essential to the human condition. “We are at an inflection point,” he said. “A significant fraction of people’s experiences are now fragmented.”

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  2. This is an interesting article on the claims being made that children in a digital age require a different style of education.

    http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine/CC_Winter10/readings/BennettMatonKervinDigitalNativesDebate08.pdf

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  3. Yes, interesting. Here is a quote from your article that brings up another concern:

    'As noted by Lorenzo and Dziuban (2006), concerns over students’ lack of critical thinking when using Internet-based information sources imply that ‘students aren’t as net savvy as we might have assumed’ (p. 2). This suggests that students’ everyday technology practices may not be directly applicable to academic tasks, and so education has a vitally important role in fostering information literacies that will support learning.'

    I wish Louise and crew would give us some *concrete plans* for how the teachers are going to *foster information literacy* rather than just telling us 'we can talk about that later'. Otherwise I feel the risk for us forking out hundreds of dollars for a device which 'may not be directly applicable to academic tasks' is too great - a waste of our money, and our kids' precious time in the class room.

    If the implementation plan is solid, there's no need to put off letting parents know how it will be rolled out. Otherwise we can only wonder why we're not being let in, or even worse, there is no plan.

    ReplyDelete