Issue #6: Student Attention Spans in a Digital World

The catch refers to the constant attempt at multi-tasking and trying to take in many small bits of information all at one time. Students are now wired to gravitate towards instant gratification. As a result, students who live in a digital world have shorter attention spans and are not able to think at a high cognitive level as those who did not grow up in a digital world. I am in a digital classroom all day long and those students still are pretty darn bored. Not to speak down about my classroom, but even activities like eating lollypops and chasing rainbows would bore these students. They are constantly texting, listening to music, and playing video games, even though what I teach is fun, important, productive, and on the computer. When they receive a text, they are unable to do anything, and that includes listening. It is too hard for people in this age group to live in the moment, to the point where I would say that aspect of our society will be lost in the future.

Also, I am keeping my notes from the essential questions here because I am going out of town and plan to do that assignment later. This way I don't have to take any technology with me. Feel free to comment if you want though it will probably be take down when I answer the essential questions.

There are two sides of the debate regarding attention spans in the digital world. However, I believe that student attention spans are significantly shorter the more that they are exposed to technology, especially in a fast-paced society. David Marcovitz provides his belief as to why students' attention spans are shortened as a result of digital technology in their lives. He brings up the Faustian Bargain, which is defined as for every positive benefit, there is an often unseen and very serious downside. He believes that this is shown when even the best educational technology teaches the hidden lesson of short attention. Also, students learn a guess-and-test technology teaches facts at the expense of training students to answer without thinking. 

In the video, from Fox news Mobile: Scientist Study Effects of Technology the professor being interviewed (sorry I didn't catch his name) says that “natural environments are the environments we are adapted to think in.” In other words, when we are surrounded by nature and the world as it was created before the introduction of technology, we are better thinkers and our cognitive skills increase. He also mentions the grand illusion, where we think that were taking in things but we take in a surprisingly little amount of information, about four objects at any one time. We don’t truly multitask because we only do one thing at a time.

Also included was  Book TV: Neil Postman, "Technology" When this video started, my first thought was, "my goodness he is the slowest talker ever." This happened because my short attention spans when watching internet clips did not enjoy having to listen to him word his thoughts in any manner. Neil Postman mentions that life no longer happens in public areas and we are more confined to our homes. He says that we “will one day be able to shop, vote, express political preferences at home.” Which is funny because since 2009 when this video was made, these things have happened. He, like David Marcovits, also mentioned Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The Hulu video, Does the Internet Discourage Deep Thinking?, stated that we’re training our minds with a particular way of thinking so we become good at skimming and scanning. It also said that there is no reward for more contemplative thought, thinking, reading, etc, and we then begin to lose them. I feel that this is very true. In our society, we are encouraged to move and think rapidly, so any type of slowing down isn't being rewarded.

On the other side of the debate is John Davidson who beleives that student attention spans are being helped by technology.  He asks, "Why should we expect our students to live two different lifestyles?" He states that students today can listen to their iPod, chat with friends, research on the Internet, and type a paper all while playing an online game. However I disagree with this because I very often witness students only being able to pay attention to one thing at a time. At best, when students are doing multiple activities using technology, they become too distracted to accomplish any one thing in a meaningful way. They are also unable to do more than one activity for a long period of time, as I have witnessed through my experience as a digital technology teacher. His example of observing a classroom that uses technology and one that uses a traditional lecture method where he states students were "disengaged and disconnected." I disagree with this observation because