Tech-ing Ourselves to Death

My students use their cell phones in their purses, in the front pocket of their hooded sweat-shirt, under their arms, or even down under their seats. Some are even good enough to text while they stare me in the eye. Just last evening I opened my cell phone and took a picture of my wife’s grocery list and then sent that picture to her phone—she had forgotten the list at home. Again last evening I uploaded three pictures of my old car onto Craigslist. By this morning seven people were asking about the car. In order to make a sales pitch to some colleagues I slid my 2.0GB thumb drive into my computer, downloaded the pictures of the car and brought them to work.

The phenomenon of Craigslist, the cell phone (which serves so many functions it’s a misnomer), or the thumb drive are just a few of the tech innovations that will change the way we look and think of our relationship with media and the printed/displayed word. Social web sites are quickly becoming a form of communication, and, so much so, that students are resisting writing a five paragraph essay more than I’ve noticed in the past. Their writing is quick, and to the point. (Some are already screaming, “How is that bad!”) Writing is changing, and I’m noticing the change in my own writing as well. Written expression is being redefined by the media itself—my Craigslist post consisted of a single sentence with a bulleted list.

What interests me is to question whether or not writing in this sense will have a negative impact on what we consider literature and, by extension, the significance on our cultural well- being. I notice all too often that students can’t stand writing that isn’t as flashy in description or tone the way a television or movie now is—authors used to expect imagination to complement the language; it’s not working that way anymore.

My college prep. courses are full of students who both read books and those who haven’t read a single book on their own. (These, by the way, students are very willing to confess.) How can these students co-exist in the same class? Easy. Tech. In a world where “copy and paste” has replaced “research and write,” students don’t have to read long passages in a novel to advance; they can simply use tools to get around that.

This isn’t intrinsically a bad thing. Why should students be forced to find a single solution to a problem when their world has presented them with twenty? Knowing there are different ways to solve a problem is a freeing experience, one that allows you to use methods that were never possible before simply because they didn’t exist. For example, on an assignment a student needs to explain how the protagonist in a story acquired a desire for power. They go to Google where they first enter the terms “power” and “literature,” and are instantly presented with the option to buy a term paper on power in literature (the site that pops up is called AcaDemon). Ok, so most students don’t have the bankroll to finance a continuing operation like that, so they skip to Wikipedia. Quickly zipping through this site, a student can peruse a plethora of subjects that deal with power. The point is, the student has so many resources at their fingertips, that they would sooner use these rather than their own noggin. That, therein, lies the problem.

What will happen to our society if the tech that provides us with the information becomes a vehicle for intellectual stagnation? Is it possible to still have innovative thoughts other than innovations in tech? My worries lie in the possibility that all of this tech will assist us so much that we’ll forget what it’s like to have to think through a problem, we’ll struggle to come up with original and meaningful discourse. In his 1980s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman unearthed the tip of a large boulder when he speculated that technology (tv specifically—it was the 1980s) and our insatiable desire for entertainment are leading to the decline of public discourse and literacy. Unfortunately, I’m noticing that his prophecy is coming all too true.

Flattening the World

One of the greatest things our technology allows us to do is communicate with a world-wide audience. My students are currently expressing their views on a blog that I run. However, due to the unknowns of the Web, the blog is private, which, admittedly, I feel is somewhat counter intuitive. I've been brainstorming a way to allow students to safely speak with the larger Web community. Even though our connectivity allows us to share our experiences and thoughts worldly, safety is a foremost concern. Ironically, safety has become the foremost concern outside of the Web too.

Blogs and other technomedia are the neopolitical forms of the Greek polis. Students, teachers, and world learners all need to embrace this technology but at the same time provide uniform and reliable security measures. Once we accomplish this, my hope is that our newfound technology will allow us to not only bridge the gap between geographic and political differences, but also bridge the gap between ideologic and philosophic differences as well.