In the Parade magazine
that came within your Oct 9 Press Republican was an interesting article
“Generation Wired” by Emily Listfield in which she examines how children are
being affected by wired (and wireless) technology such as smartphones, music
players, video games, the Internet and the various permutations and
combinations of all of them.
To quote the cover,
“Being connected 24/7 is changing how our kids live. And it may even be altering their
brains.” This raises the important question: is it altering our brains
in a positive or negative way or both? In his article, “The Waking Dream” by
Kevin Kelley, Editor-at –Large of Wired
magazine, he writes, “We already know that our use of technology changes how
our brains work. Reading
Regarding texting, Listfield
quotes Dr Sherry Turkle, director of
MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self and author of “Alone
Together” as writing, “Kids have told me
that they almost don’t know what they are feeling until they put in a
text”. Listfield uses this example as a
negative cost of technology but I can
envision it as a plus, as a benefit and not necessarily a cost. Let me explain:
When I
was working as a Professor of Computer
Science, much of my research was on developing teaching strategies to facilitate development of
problem-solving skills in students, particularly in freshman as that would have
the maximum benefit for the student over his and her college stay. I decided to
use a combination of computer
programming (in a simplified language called Logo) and writing exercises as my
pedagogy. The main idea was to combine
the discipline of writing with the discipline of computer programming which
uses both a priori and a posteriori reasoning to solve problems. As
explained by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_priori_and_a_posteriori)
'”’a priori knowledge’ is known independently of
experience (conceptual knowledge),
and 'a posteriori knowledge' is proven through experience .”
In a nutshell, a priori
reasoning is “armchair reasoning” (you don’t have to get up and go
door-to-door to ascertain the number of
married bachelors in the greater metropolitan Plattsburgh area) while a posteriori is experimental reasoning,
the basis of all science so you can’t just solve the problem in your head.
But just as important
as logical, scientific thinking for problem solvers is writing. Writing is arguably the best method for clarifying our thoughts. When I have a
hard problem that I am struggling with I find that I can begin to make progress
by sitting down and “writing myself a letter” describing first how I feel
(usually frustrated) and then what the problem seems to be and finally offering
myself suggestions for its solution. It’s a wonderful pump priming process. By
first slowing down enough to really pay attention and examine the problem, I
gain clarity. And as I gain clarity, I also gain confidence, perhaps the single
most important behavior of good problem solvers. When I look down the hill on
my skis and say to myself, “Oh No, I’m going to fall” I most certainly will.
But if I say, “This should be fun” I
have a good chance to make it the bottom in an upright position.
This is why I think
that texting can be a positive outcome
of technology. So long as the kids are
texting (and not while they’re driving), they are writing and writing clarifies
thinking. And (in addition to “Love, sweet Love”) clear thinking is what the
world needs right now.
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