Getting Caught Up in New Technology

http://bit.ly/caRxF1

This article made me think about the Digital Nation documentary I saw 2 weeks ago. They both explain how our brains have become scattered and inconsistent due to our simultaneous multi-use of new technology devices. Example: I'm working on my laptop writing this blog, my cell phone beeps letting me know I have a text message, in the meantime I think about that song I was singing all day yesterday and open a Youtube tab to listen to it, on the Youtube page I see a funny ad and click on it to entertain myself and then I remember I wanted to look up my online bank account and do some research on Peru.... I believe we've all experienced that at least once. The problem is that we think we can multi-task because our new technology devices make us think we can. In the end, we haven't accomplished anything. In the Digital Nation documentary, the producers interview MIT students who openly admit to their constant multi-tasking and who believe it's not harmful. Unlike when I was a college student, these students go to class with their laptops and last generation cell phones and have all of these outlets to distract them from class lecture. The consequences are pretty clear. This one professor explains that the students' way of writing papers has tremendously changed throughout the years. She says students today do not see the big picture as they did 5 or 10 years ago. Their papers are paragraphs that are not interconnected at all. There is no linear thinking because their minds are distracted and scattered by everything around them. Now, since college, I haven't written any papers and I have been more exposed to these technological distractions. I do not know whether this new phenomenon has affected me too. However, writing these blogs has really helped me get back into writing and has forced me to think more about new technology, how it affects my job today and Jun's great classes.