I can appreciate the concern that there may be a lot of young people
ho are incapable of reading a complete novel or be as focused on tasks
s some adults like but it ignores the kids who are into the Harry Potter
ooks, the Narnia books, and many other book series. How are these
ids able to read such thick and complex books if all they can attend to
re tweets and text messages?
Indeed I wonder too if we simply over-estimate the number of young people in
the legendary "olden days" who enjoyed (or did) read complete novels and seek
out higher-level intellectual/cultural experiences.
It reminds me of the same fixation on "kids were better back then" or "it was
better back then" that forgets that "back then" (as recently as the second
quarter of the 20th C children still died much more frequently than they do now
of easily treated or prevented [vaccination] diseases.)
Or that psychologists at that time wrote the same articles about comic books
destroying the intellects and moral character of youth that they now write
about video games and tweeting and Facebook.
for the record I am not objective about Facebook - I have an FB page and I love
it. Admittedly I spend a lot of time there.
But I think this is the same old same old back again for more rumination. The
good old days simply weren't. They never were.
Nancy Melucci
Long Beach City College
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Palij <[email protected]>
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) <[email protected]>
Cc: Mike Palij <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, Nov 21, 2010 8:20 am
Subject: re: [tips] texter and gamer, Facebook addict and YouTube potato
On Sun, 21 Nov 2010 07:27:38 -0800, Annette Taylor wrote:
This link was posted on the pod list today so some of you have
probably seen it; but for those of you for whom it is new, it
supports what we have probably all seen in the last decade:
the hypnotic? addictive? lure of the internet for our students
when they should be studying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Michael Smith mode on:
was going to read it but it was too long. Does anyone have a
weeter version of the article?
ichael Smith mode off.
A quote provided in the NY Times news summary email is this:
|"Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping
to the next thing. The worry is we're raising a generation of kids in
front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently."
MICHAEL RICH, executive director of the Center on Media
and Child Health, on how digital technology affects children.
Now, I may be wrong or I misunderstand my pop neuroscience but
sn't Rich's concern unfounded? True, students and young people
ay find it more reinforcing and/or interesting to engage in various
igital media -- especially short form -- but if we believe in the
lasticity of the human brain throughout the lifespan, isn't the brain
eing continually rewired (neurologist Richard Restak, of author of
Receptors", "The Brain", and "The New Brain", says in the latter
hat the brain is so plastic that parts of it are different after a lecture
elative to its state before a lecture)? If experience continually rewires
he brain, shouldn't the concern be with behavioral and environmental
ontrol to make sure that certain skills are developed and maintained,
ike reading novels in book form? If "Vishal" can only read 43 pages
f Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" in two months (the article is unclear
hether he was reading it in paper form or ebook format), might this
e more about more poor contingency control (i.e., lack of reinforcing
ook reading) than a rewired brain that is incapable of handling novel
ength narratives?
I can appreciate the concern that there may be a lot of young people
ho are incapable of reading a complete novel or be as focused on tasks
s some adults like but it ignores the kids who are into the Harry Potter
ooks, the Narnia books, and many other book series. How are these
ids able to read such thick and complex books if all they can attend to
re tweets and text messages?
Too bad the article didn't interview any yeshiva students, especially
hose in high school which would be the appropriate comparison group.
hese students also make use of digital media (at the very least, the
modern orthodox") as well as devoted Torah study and the study
f other texts.
-Mike Palij
ew York University
[email protected]
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