Is It Good for Our Students and Us to Be “Wired”?

According to Joan O’C. Hamilton’s article, Separation Anxiety in the Stanford magazine, we might be getting “way too much of a good thing” with our access to digital technologies and digital worlds.  Is “accelerated interaction” good for us? Some say that adding the excitement of video games to education and business stimulates learning and productivity, but others fear that being constantly wired to others and digital activities may result in serious consequences. How do we keep the real and the virtual separated? How do our students distinguish between actual friends and their hundreds of online “friends”?  While multitaskers may seem to be extremely proficient, are they? Probably not, according to a National Academy of Sciences study. Instead of accomplishing more, “heavy multitaskers are actually prone to distractions and irrelevant information and perform worse on tests designed to measure their ability to focus and successfully switch among tasks.” As we attempt to do more and more faster and faster, David Levy, professor at the Information School of the University of Washington explains, “We lose the life-giving dimension of being in the moment.” What does all this mean in our classrooms? With students used to a fast-paced digital world and with mobile technologies and social networks providing learning opportunities, how do we make sure that our students have the down time they need to absorb, think about and appreciate, what they are learning?