Screen Schooled by Joe Clement and Matt Miles

The present generation of students are no doubt dumber. Not dumber because they are not being taught correct information. No, more likely they are heading toward the distinction of being dumber because of technology.

What do I mean by that? Dumber? Why they are smarter because of technology. They have the computer handy and can access so much more information quicker than the earlier generations. Why do I make this statement?

I am not the one inferring this. But when we can see digital screen technology having a negative impact on our brains, it is time for us to slow down and consider.

“Our brains adapt to the environment,” states Oxford Neuroscientist. Susan Greenfield. “The human brain is an extremely complex yet malleable piece of the human hardware.”

This means that our brains can adapt to what we put in it. The use that students make of their iPhones, iPad, and other devices, the screen time, can tend to stunt the mental growth and possibly tend to lobotomize rather than enhance.

The idea of education is to enrich the process of learning by giving the student skills that are useful for adult life.

Instead technology addition leads to increased depression, anxiety, withdrawal, demised focus and diminished cognitive function. Not at all what is desired.

When the student beings his technology device into the class room and starts to multitask, which is what they attempt to do when they sit in class and listen to the teacher, read email on their screen, play games, they tend to slow down and increase their mistakes.

The sad truth, as our authors point out, is that unfortunately the ill effects created by an entire childhood of multitasking may be irreversible, severely impairing one’s ability to focus as adults.

I feel this book should be read by concerned adults. It is stated that the more we shield students from the consequences of their inability to focus and complete the work, the more they will continue to struggle.  Therefore, we should know what is happening in education and take steps to help our young ones adapt.

The two authors are teachers and they know what they are writing about.

It is copyrighted 2018 and published by the Chicago Review Press. It retails for $18.99. Better yet, see if your library has it. Either way, get it and read it.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

 

Microsoft. Google. Apple. It seems their main objective is to blanket the world with their technology. They can do this only by capturing data provided by users.

 If not held in check or stopped, just imagine what the world be like. Imagine what your life would be like.

In this book of fiction told through the point of view of a young woman named Mae we are able to explore those questions.

It starts out with Mae getting hired by a group that is based at a campus. Her main job is to monitor data and at the same time come up with better ideas on how to make the complete world transparent.

Think of a time in which you were not alone. You could always be found. Your privacy is gone.

Small startup companies want what you have. To be a player you must be absorbed.

Just how much would a person be willing to lose to follow and be part of a transparent society?

The campus sounds a lot like one you know about already-Google. Only you hope that what you are reading here is not actual.

Mae finds herself caught up in this world of trying to be the best. Her accomplishment is based on a number system that is consistently being flashed before her on a computer screen. Her achievement and advancement within the group is based on being better rated than the next. In order to achieve she spends more and more time in the complex and not with the public. It starts to become an obsession with her.

These are some of the issues handled by Dave Eggers in this believable and very frightening novel. You have to hope it hasn’t gone this far. You have to hope that there are ways to check it. You have to hope this vision of a world where technology becomes all obsessive will not be our future.

Technology is meant to be a tool, not our master.

This is a good read and ,sad to say, very possible. It may already be present. We may have already gone too far.