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Note: this post is filed under "Digital Citizenship" and "Information Literacy" to point out that sometimes knowing what we SHOULDN'T do is just as important as what we SHOULD do. Moderation AND true human connections are two keys that should help unlock a promising future.
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From the Wed, Sept 28, 2011 webinar hosted by HSM...
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From her session: (either quotes or paraphrasing)
Main quote (and sums
up her book):
“We’re too busy to think and too busy to connect… we’re in continual
contact, but we end up alone together”
...
Many people now have an “I share, therefore I am” mentality, which is “not
good for collaboration and not good for innovation.” Meaning… the “Old way
was: I have a feeling, I now want to share it; the New way is
I
want to have a feeling; therefore, I need to send a text” (or post something
online, etc — to get feedback, validation, etc.)
...
In other words, “we need ‘them’ to make ourselves real.”
...
“Social media is a performance."
...
"(Their device) is the place for hope in their life... where something new will come to them, the place where loneliness can be defeated."
...
“We’ve moved from conversation to communication."
...
Hyper connection is NOT collaboration!
...
“Even the happiest/most satisfied users of these technologies are paying a
price” (somewhere).
...
“We’ve moved from multitasking to multi-lifing”... (where people have on-screen
lives and/or realities, sometimes several).
...
(Technologies
today) “make it easy to hide” - we can choose who to reply to or contact.
...
When you text, you have time to think about what you’re writing... (which is a pro); but people become phobic about real-time interaction due to a fear of showing
our (real) selves (con).
...
“Younger people don’t know how to apologize face to face.”
...
“We are less willing to give each other our full attention.”
...
Ironically, in our more complex world, there is "decreased time available to us to sit and think uninterrupted"... and due to the shear amount of (emails), we "begin to expect or even demand fast answers, and in order to get them, we are asking each other simpler and simpler questions. So we're dumbing down our questions to get the simpler answers, even on the most important matters. We’ve (essentially) "put ourselves on cable news," which is "not a good climate for innovation."
“People of all ages admit they would rather send a text than talk.” (which is
sometimes a good, thing, but not always)
On Solitude – “If we don’t learn (how) to be alone, we will only know how to be
lonely... Loneliness is failed solitude, just as connection is failed conversation.”
Benefits & Costs - “There are MANY bounties of our ‘always on’ culture.”To make it better, Our “always on” culture -- we must face it’s costs — knowing
how to be alone; solitude is needed to energize and restore, which can lead to
innovation and even collaboration.
We should avoid the notion or analogy of these technology behaviors as an addiction, since that implies the solution is to completely rid it (technology) from our lives, which is not possible. Now is a time of opportunity to develop practices that help us use technology effectively... for connections and collaboration, which lead to innovation.
...
Favorite sentence in book - "Just because we grew up
w/ the internet, we assume the internet is all grown up" (that it won’t change
in the future). It can and will, as will how we work with it. But the time to make corrections is NOW!
...
People are in "performance mode on the network" where so many put a false self online or only share good news – people don’t want to leave a
digital trace online of those types of things.
...
Schools and businesses should be teaching uni-tasking!
In workplace, try the email reply “I’m thinking” -- and "model an approach to business life" to create that time to think
(rather than react right away).
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How can you help teach or model appropriate tech behaviors for your students (and/or your peers!)?
