Recently I observed students sitting in a graduate class, and while the professor was talking they were surfing the Internet—one was toggling between 6 different windows. Besides the disrespect factor, I wondered if the constant barrage of scattered information might damage their ability to think deeply in a single direction. Have any of you noticed a change in your own thinking or spiritual habits since you started using the Web? I’m honestly wondering: might too much immersion in our current technology hurt us in ways that we aren’t even aware?
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glundin on September 18, 2009 at 6:34 am
Mike,
I understand how you say it is disrespectful.
On the other hand, I am excited if my students are surfing the net looking to understand the topic at hand.
I am taking a French class and last night we did an oral exercise on Tiannamen Square. One young man had his Iphone open finding out what happened at Tiannamen Square . 95 % of the students just sat there looking dumb.
I think the use of technology depends.
mike wittmer on September 18, 2009 at 3:00 pm
glundin:
I agree–and I have had students find instant information on the web that helped the class. The students I observed were interested in other things though, and they were cheating themselves out of the tuition dollars they had paid to be there. I think the fact that it does “depend” should caution us that technology can both help and hurt us, so let’s use it with our eyes open to what it is doing to us and others.
Izek on September 20, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I believe technology is hurting us. relationships have become a lot more impersonal due to text messaging,myspace,facebook, etc. people are losing the ability to approach and talk to one another. Technology is doing everything for us which we once had to do ourselves. there was a reason and benefits for doing things manually. I feel in some ways that technology although very helpful in many different ways is on the backside destroying our character, disabling our ability to focus, and slowly but surely transforming our world and our people as we know it. Think about this, i’m on facebook, i meet people old friends and new friends everyday-now there was once a time where once you left the state, graduated high school, college, etc you never saw people again but now I wonder what kind of effect it will have since this never ending web link of people can just type in your name and find you and reignite old flames. good, and bad. in all tech is a big help but also a big hurt. just like anything else take the good with the bad…
Dawn on September 22, 2009 at 12:38 am
While technology has many advantages, I agree it does have the down side of interupting our personal space. I was brought up to turn the television off when visitors arrived etc. Now people tend to just turn off the sound which, I find very distracting. The use of mobile phones in the middle of conversations has the same effect. Also the internet does have the effect of dulling our attention span to for deeper concentration and social interaction to name but a few.
axcvilla on September 22, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Oooh… This is my first post here at ODJ and I’m glad that the topic is on technology.
The other day, I brought my laptop to the customer repair centre and no surprise, the atmosphere there was less than pleasant. People were disgruntled, the personnel were trying to be placating (with no success)… the root cause of this? Technology.
I’m not saying that technology is evil and that we should stay away from it. I LOVE technology. Without it, things would take much longer to do. Plus, its an excellent R & D tool (research and development). That being said, I do believe that being DEPENDENT on ANYTHING is a one-way ticket to disaster. This however, is the track of human mind.
Technology can bring out the best in humans but it can also bring out the worst. Technology can become a tool – useful and productive or it can become a crutch – disenchanting and debilitating.
When we buy any particular piece of technology, we are placing our trust in what this gadget offers — whether its quality, convenience or just ‘social standing’. In a perfect world, we’d get exactly what we pay for. But more often than not, goods fail to deliver on all its promises.
Never fear. Because we already know the One who can.