Amusing ourselves to death....

I can’t keep up with the pace of technology even when aided by my ADD mentality. I agree with John Son in that students have developed an amazing ability to multi-task and it will help them succeed in our fast paced world; there is no doubt in my mind that this is true. I too can multitask, but I hit limitations like typing and listening to music results in lost thoughts and fragmented sentence structure. Another example of a multitasking limitation is that my pace slows considerably and all my projects seem to be completed at the same time. I am also male which hinders multi-tasking due to biological brain development. Whatever the case may be I agree that multi-tasking skills are very valuable.
However, I think the instant gratification provided by technology makes big questions very difficult to process for many people. Technology allows people to flit from one topic to the next so easily that only a superficial understanding of the world results. I have a cousin who races from one activity to the next in pursuit of entertainment and when he sits alone with his thoughts he admittedly does not like the company he keeps. I believe it is important to take the time away from the hustle and bustle for no other reason then breathing. Ask any student, in any high school class when was the last time you looked at the stars? They are all awake well into the night, yet it would not surprise me if any of them said “twice this week.” There are bigger things in this world then the activities most of us choose to occupy our time with, for this reason I do not watch sports, I do not watch more then 15 minutes of T.V. a day, and my e-mail has not been checked more then twice this week. I have spent two nights sitting around a campfire with my family talking about books, beliefs, and how our day had been. I spent at least an hour talking with my grandmother, listening to her tell a story about the depression (not kidding). I went on a hike to a place I had never been before (angels rest) and I rafted the Clackamas River with my brother and little sister, it has been a fantastic week. These are things that I will remember forever, how did you spend your time? Did you multi-task all week or did you allow yourself to focus and develop your soul?
“I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments,” Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Marcovitz, D.M. Son, J.D. (2008). Is Educational Technology Shortening Student Attention Spans? Learning and Leading with Technology: Aug, 2008.