After a hiatus of a couple of weeks, I am returning this week to a final discussion of technology in an effort to give you a summary of what I think about this pervasive, complex and important issue. Since writing my last column on the subject of gaming, I've read Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, by Sherry Turkle, the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT where she is also the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Needless to say, she has a lot to say about our relationship with technology, most of it very similar to Catherine Steiner-Adair. A third grade mother sent me an interesting article about Minecraft (I love it when people send me articles, book titles, TED talks, etc!) which I have read as well. In addition, I attended a conference in Napa, CA where a number of the presenters came from the tech world, and we held an alumnae gathering in San Francisco where, no surprise, many of the attendees work in the tech field. All this has added fodder to my thinking, caused some subtle shifts, and left me with a pretty clear picture of what I think about the role of technology in our lives.
First, we need to recognize that technology, like most things, encompasses different aspects and dimensions and we need to be careful neither universally to condemn nor praise it. Perhaps surprisingly, as I started to make a list, I was stunned at the degree to which it has transformed our lives – for most of us, truly every sphere. We think of it most often in terms of communication -- email, text, and social media. However, technology has changed so much more than that: how we shop, arrange travel, write, keep track of our finances, file our taxes, research, take, edit, and store photos, and keep track of our daily lives. So much of our entertainment, even if we're not gamers, relies on technology whether we're watching Netflix or reading on a Kindle. There are also ways in which it affects us that we probably don't think too much about. How does that Amazon order get to us so quickly from a random vendor? Or how does that military drone operate? Or the tiny camera that allows for orthoscopic surgery? We know that technology has upended journalism and the music business, but unless we work in a given field, we may not think about all the other ways it has completely altered other sectors of the economy.
Indeed, technology has completely transformed the way we live, work, play and learn. There is no going back, nor do I think most of us would want to. So let's look at how we can benefit from the positives without succumbing to the negatives.
For many adults, technology often feels overwhelming: the demands of being available 24-7 and the way work has invaded family time, but also the challenges of keeping up with technology's rapid change. We particularly worry about staying current so we can manage our children's use of technology. People like Steiner-Adair and Sherry Turkle express deeper worry about the very nature of the human community in the digital age. What has happened to conversation and therefore relationships and empathy when we communicate primarily by text and email, without face-to-face interactions? And while we tend to talk about this regarding our children, it applies to us as adults as well. More specifically, we worry about how this plays out in young people's online activities, especially when those spiral into cyberbullying. We should also be worried about pornography online, and some of us worry how much time our children, especially boys, spend playing video games. Finally, Turkle worries deeply about privacy in the digital age. I confess that while I see her point, I am going perpetuate a problem she identifies – lack of concern for our online privacy, and not address that topic.
I can't say that I live in a world where people have lost the ability to talk to one another. In fact, I feel as though we all spend a great deal of time talking; I see girls talking to each other constantly, and I see them talking to adults. While our students are certainly attached to their phones, we fairly strictly limit the amount of time they, even as seniors, are permitted access to their phones. We do not allow phones on Middle School outdoor education trips or on Global Education trips. While they tend to resist this rule, our Junior Journey participants realize once they get abroad how much richer their experiences are without the distraction of their phones. They even report feeling relieved to be away from the constant demands their phones place on them. Turkle reports on children having the same kind of experience at device-free summer camps.
School can serve as a model for families to carve out device-free times and places. Family dinner stands out as an ideal device-less time. Truly to avoid being distracted by them, phones need to be out of sight, not even sitting upside down on the table. Family dinner also presents a perfect environment in which to practice the art of conversation and for us as parents to give our children our undivided attention. Times during vacations could also be designated device free. Ideally, think about how you might combine device free time with time in nature enjoying the many salutary benefits of the out-of-doors. Kids may resent these rules and opportunities. However, we as adults owe it to them and to ourselves to enforce them. Moreover, we MUST observe the rules ourselves – no double standard.
At Holton, we spend a lot of time talking to students about digital citizenship. As parents we need to do the same in the context of overall ethical and kind behavior. Absolutely no reason exists to treat someone differently online than one would face-to-face. Through conversations about how we treat one another and responses to unkind behavior (because what child hasn't been unkind at some point), we help children develop empathy. We have to stay diligently present in our children's online lives just as we do their off-line lives. As I've said before, we bought these phones and computers and we need to establish from the outset our right – even obligation – to monitor our children's online activity. We need to exercise that right periodically to help our children behave properly and to be able to seize the teachable moments when they present themselves. By staying on top of their online activity, we are protecting them and helping them to learn, two essential jobs of parenting.
If we struggle with technology in general, gaming feels like a giant challenge all its own. We worry that too much of it rots brains while breeding couch potatoes. Generally, however, as I've explained previously, research points to a number of gaming benefits. The The New York Times blog sent me by the third grade mom (who describes the popular game Minecraft as "A Force To Be Reckoned With in my household") asserts that "around the world, Minecraft is being used to educate children on everything from science to city planning to speaking a new language." An Australian history teacher has set up "quest missions" whereby students explore the ancient world in Minecraft and a California science teacher uses it to teach gravity. Games, online or not, engage students in learning. They don't substitute for reading, but they can help bring material alive and create incentive for learning it.
This is a key to Khan Academy's success: it feels like a game. You can't move ahead until you've solved the problem you're on. You get rewards for completing levels. This approach ensures that you actually learn the concepts before proceeding, allowing you to build a strong foundation. It also encourages persistence, and as Malcolm Gladwell asserts in Outliers, "Success [in math] is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard" for long enough to solve a problem. (246) It's hard to argue against learning math, and probably other subjects, this way.
As Eric Klopfer, a professor and the director of MIT's Scheller Teacher Education Program, observes in the Minecraft blog, "While the game is clearly good for kids, it doesn't mean there should be no limits. . . . As with anything, I don't want my kids to do any one thing for overly extended periods of time. Whether Legos or Minecraft; having limits is an important part their learning." Loving, attentive parenting involves limits and not just for Legos and Minecraft; it applies to all our children's technology use as well as their lives in general. We adults also need mindfully to set limits on our technology use in order to leverage it advantageously while avoiding it interfering with other healthy activities, most of all our in-person, human relationships.