Not long ago, I was discussing with our group of experts some of the challenges with all of this new technology and all of the information known to mankind literally in the palm of the hand of every student who was lucky enough to have a parent who bought them a smartphone. When they have all this knowledge at their fingertips, it’s no wonder they feel like it’s a wasted effort to memorize anything, “why bother, I can look it up!” Well, they are right, even if we know that there are some things that they need to know (memorize) and think about in order to survive in this world. Let’s talk.
Yes, the digitization of the world creates a different reality, one for which our brains and bodies did not necessarily evolve, therefore human-centric technology is the key, and we need it before we go too far. On the positive side, and it’s a big PLUS, we open our horizons when we connect digitally in abundance. And the only problem is not the technology, it is how it is used. That is the true digital divide. One person can use the technology to send photos of “cats” to their Facebook friends, another can use it to collaborate with canine researchers around the globe to save big cats from extinction. Now, the latter is much better, of course, but we must allow the freedom to choose how one wishes to use the technological gift presented to them, right?
I read an interesting article the other day; “We were promised flying cars, all we got was 140 characters,” which means Twitter is worth $10 billion and for around $500 million we could have successfully perfected VTOL personal flying machines. Humans vote with their dollars, the average person wanted to have fun with distracting text messages and self-validation since they were missing something in their lives, now they want more of it, why? Because they are so busy using technology that they feel even emptier inside, but then again, their addictions to these technologies were a choice, who are we to argue with their freedom to choose? Hard to say, but yeah, I tend to agree with you. Personally, I’m not on Facebook, nor do I own a smartphone for the same reasons most techies have considered, but couldn’t do without.
How we teach our children in the midst of all these social networks, information and technology will determine how they will use it in the future. Our entire human civilization is at stake and God forbid if all that technology were to stop working one day.
