Technology and Students: Problem?
Technology is growing profusely and spreading through the country and the
world. The newest generation is hungry for technology and they have a very large
amount of it in their every day lives, this includes their school lives. Technology is a
major issue for students when it is used in improper ways. The reality is that
students, myself included, get addicted to this technology and of all of the new
mobile devices enable them to have it all the time, feeding the addiction. Probably
the biggest issue for students with technology is procrastination, in the classroom
and out of it. Technology is growing and changing our lives; unfortunately the more
technology is growing in schools, the more it causes procrastination and limit
students learning.
Technology (electronic devices to be specific) has such a broad range of uses
that it is easy for students to not be distracted by other features. This promotes
procrastination, which is one of the biggest problems for college students, especially
for new students who aren’t used to the amount of “on your own work”. This is why
it is up to the students to use it in ways that benefit them.
Many people have different views on student’s use of technology. Neil
Postman is an author that wrote an article titled “Virtual students, Digital
Classrooms”. It is written about how technology is taking over the classroom and
may one day replace it. In his article he includes a quote from Dr. Ravitch, former
Secretary of Education, in which he describes a new world where children learn
from watching TV rather than in the class room. “In this vision there is, it seems to
me, a confident and typical sense of unreality”(598). This means that he believes Dr.
Ravitch is strong in his beliefs but Postman believes this world is hopeful yet
doubtful He believes that although technology helps in the classroom, people are not
ready to have it replace the classroom; largely do to the fact that they won’t be able
to stay focused with so many temptations. He says that people are more likely to
“tune in to a good movie” than chose to do work. This is why postman doesn’t
believe society is ready for technology to replace the classroom. Postman may be
right with this, but he also acknowledges that technology IS on its way there and
people WILL embrace it.
Other people have similar views as Postman. For example, Bob Sullivan,
columnist at NBC news. He wrote an article titled “Students cant resist distractions
for two minutes… and neither can you”. In this article, Sullivan explains how
students are not only drawn to technology but how it prevents their learning and
they don’t even know it. He wrote of a study that took place in which student’s use
of technology was being observed while they were studying for 15 minutes. “Socalled "on-task" behavior started declining at about the two minute mark, and
overall, only 65 percent of the time was used on schoolwork”. Sullivan says the rest
of the time the students were using their mobile devices or social media. Sullivan
says “So-called” because the time was clearly not being used effectively. He also puts
“on-task” in parenthesis because the time was specifically designated for the
students to do their work but they were distracted. These students might not even
realize how much this technology is distracting them. If they did they might try to fix
the problem.
More specifically than just technology in general, the Internet seems to be
one of the biggest causes of procrastination. The Internet not only shapes the way
we go about doing things, like research, but it shapes the way we think. Nicholas
Carr wrote an article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” In this article Carr
explains the many ways that the Internet and Google specifically is changing the way
we think. Carr adds this in his article “what the Net seems to be doing is chipping
away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.”(371). What Carr means is
that the more he uses the net, the shorter his attention span becomes. This makes
perfect sense. If a person uses the internet, which is a highly extravigent and
engaging, when they go back to reading to a simple book or article they will be less
inclined to stay focused. Keep in mind that Carr is an author and used to be able to
read for extensive amounts of time. Now he says “my concentration often starts to
drift after two or three pages.”(371). He blames this lack of ambition on the Internet.
This new way of thinking is clearly causing problems for people, like students, who
are trying to focus and promotes procrastination even more than it is already there.
There are many reasons for this procrastination. One reason may be the fact
that the Internet is so fast. Megan Garber might agree with me. She is the author of
an article titled “Why the Internet Makes It Hard to Procrastinate” published in the
Atlantic Times. This article describes how the Internets speed is causing a problem
with information’s accuracy. Something could be true one second and totally wrong
the next. The main reason, she believes, that people procrastinate in regards to the
Internet, is its immediacy. Every thing is only one click away. If a student is having
trouble writing a paper and they have the ability to check Facebook with only a
motion of a finger, would they have the self-control to stay on topic? This varies
from student to student. However, while writing this paper I have spent more time
on my phone or Facebook than the paper it self; according to the study Sullivan tells
us about, this is not uncommon. Carr would agree with Garber in regards to the
Internets immediacy being a large factor in its popularity. However, he looks at it as
more of a tool that an inhibitor. “Research that once required days in the stacks or
periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.”(371). Although Carr may
like the immediacy for this reason he also acknowledges how this can be a problem
in regards to procrastinating.
This procrastination follows technology everywhere including into the
classroom. There are two types of technology in the classroom. The first is
technology that is meant to be there; designed for learning. For example, smart
boards, laptops, and projectors. The second is technology that students bring into
the classroom; cell phones for example. Both of these can have good and bad
influences on learning.
Technology in the classroom has been being pushed in the recent past and
with that it has changed our lives dramatically. In Postman’s article he says:
The technology is here; or will be; we must use it because it is there; we will
become the kind of people the technology requires us to be, and whether or not
we like it or not, we will remake our institutions to accommodate technology.
(599)
What he is saying is that people love technology, especially young people/students,
therefore, the fact that we have all this technology available means that it only
makes sense that it will be pushed into classrooms. He also acknowledges the fact
that some people may not agree with this movement but that its existence is
undeniable. From Megan Garbers prospective this could be a good thing. If the
Internet and technology it self is so instantaneous, than this could be a huge learning
tool and save a lot of time in the classroom.
However, it seems that the costs far out way the benefits. Bob Sullivan would
probably agree. The Internet is full of information and tools. With this much
available it is easy for people to become sucked into “multi-tasking”. He writes
“Brain researchers say that what many people call multitasking should really be
called “rapid toggling” between tasks, as the brain focuses quickly on one topic, then
switches to another, and another.” According to this, there is no such thing as multi
tasking. This means that when students are not specifically focused on the material
because they are doing something else with this technology, they aren’t getting
anything out of the lesson. Some students believe that if they are doing well in the
class, this shouldn’t matter. Sullivan disagrees; he ads this to his article:
The key to transferring new information from the brain's short-term to long-term
memory is a process called "encoding." Without deep concentration, encoding is
unlikely to occur, explained Nicholas Carr in his book “The Shallows: What the
Internet is Doing to Our Brains.”
What Sullivan means by this is, when people are multi-tasking with technology or
anything for that matter, they may comprehend the information and have it in their shortterm memory but they will not retain the knowledge in their long-term memory. This in
turn defeats the purpose of school. If technology is going to be increasingly in the
classroom we will need to change our self’s in order to be able to stay focused or learn to
truly multi-task.
Along with technology that is placed in the classroom, technology that the
students bring in is even more distracting and makes this same problem even larger. Most
people, students alike, take their cellphones everywhere. These devices can be a great
tool for people in all sorts of ways but they can also greatly prohibit learning. Megan
Garber would say they can be a great asset; because most mobile devices have Internet
access and the Internet is so instantaneous that we have an entire world of knowledge
right in our hands so what better way to learn. Postman would probably disagree because
of the fact that people don’t want to do work if they are not forced to. It’s not in human
nature. So most of the time these devices are used for texting or social media, which
creates the so-called multi-tasking, previously mentioned by Sullivan, that prevents deep
learning.
Technology is a huge part of our lives and is growing and spreading rapidly. This
means that students have access to it in the classroom more and more; whether or not it is
placed there for them or they bring it with them. This technology can be a huge asset to
students but is also a large cause of procrastination. Whether students like it or not,
technology is being pushed into schools and we will have to adapt accordingly.
WORK CITED
Garber, Megan. "Why the Internet Makes It Hard to Procrastinate." The Atlantic. N.p.,
Dec. 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Sullivan, Bob. "Nbc News Technology." NBC News. N.p., 18 May 2013. Web. 18 Nov.
2013.
Postman, Neil. "Virtual Students, Digital Classroom." Composing Knowledge (2007):
597-607. Print.
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Exploring Relationship (2013): 370-77.
Print.