Category: Week 11 – Attention and Multi tasking

Sheep?

In his article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”, Carr suggests that advancement in internet and technology has affected the way we think. His main concern seems to be that although information is available readily we spend a lot more time skimming and don’t often dig deeper – which is making us stupid!

My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Carr suggests that this is necessarily a bad thing – I find power browsing especially empowering – news apps/websites have curated their format such that I can get snippets of news, just long enough to keep my attention. In the preceding decades before the internet – content was limited and available only in the form of print. If you got one newspaper, there were only so many stories you could read. Now the content is unlimited and can be curated based on your likes and dislikes. There is no need for me to dig into every story – just reading a brief abstract is enough. If I find something that interests me I always dig deeper – in fact, there have been times where I’ve gone down a pigeon hole – clicking link after link from news article to Wikipedia and back and forth. This is also particularly good practice for doing research – nobody has the time to read, understand and contemplate about every paper – knowing what to read and how to read smartly will definitely set you apart in a Ph.D. program.  In personal practice, I have also found that skimming makes it easier for me to retrieve information at a later time.

Carr also suggests that we are in some sense becoming mindless sheep or “mere decoders of information” as our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. I disagree – the following comment from a reader sums up my thoughts succinctly:

It is ridiculous to bemoan a state which is self-created; that is a sign of weakness of will, of indiscipline, not of victimhood. Carr actually blames it on “computer engineers and software coders” who build things like Google—which is silly. Indeed, to that extent, Carr profoundly misunderstands the nature of the problem: to pretend that you can blame others (programmers, no less!) for your unwillingness to think long and hard is only a sign of how the problem itself resides within you. It is ultimately a problem of will, a failure to choose to think. If that is a problem of yours, you have no one to blame for it but yourself.

Given his stance on how our attention spans are reduced and we spend less and less time reading long prose, I find the length of his article amusing.

I want to be a scuba diver!

I love to read. I love books. There are few things that bring me such joy as getting lost in the “sea of words” where characters are of my creation and I grow attached to fictional places. I have even mourned the loss as I ended a book series. The book itself is wonderful, but I am slowly crossing into the technology world by reading some electronically. The point of it all is that I enjoy the depths of the written word, pondering over the meanings of things, or finding how what I have been reading works into the things I already understand. Then I read an article by Nicholas Carr called Is Google Making Us Stupid? which discussed how technology is changing the way we read, process, and absorb information. He used the analogy about how he was once a scuba diver in a sea of words, but now is more like a person covering a lot of area skimming along quickly on a jet ski. That is something that resonated with me in a deep way. Before I started working on my PhD, I asked those in the program how difficult the work was and how that work impacted their daily lives. Everyone seemed to be in accordance, that “it is a lot of work, but it is manageable”. This loosely translated to the work was at a doable level, but just LOTS of it you have to do in a short amount of time. So now that I am nearing the end of my first year, I find out that the work is training me to be a jet skier. I say this because I constantly feel like I’m not reading the material deep enough and having enough time to really process and consider what I’m reading. Which makes me sad. As much as I adore reading and learning, it is not feasible to invest the amount of time I feel necessary to each subject. So, alas, I jet ski. I read for the information I need to, process at warp speed (I am a slow processer naturally), and churn out my work. In my heart, many times I do not feel I am producing my best work. But it is the best I have at the speed in which I must go and I have found some balance in it as well as acceptance. Nevertheless, I am a scuba diver at heart. I am looking so very forward to being able to find the time to read for pleasure and at the slower pace and depth I wish. Perhaps many things I will read again with some free time, as I found I did following my master’s program. Until then, I will keep my scuba gear close by in case I have the extra time, where I will eagerly leap from the jet ski and dive deeper!

Experience vs. Memory

Now, I’m certainly not a Luddite but, I have some humanistic concerns about the increasing tendency for people to rely on external memory.  If the unexamined life is not worth living, what about the unremembered one?  One may argue that external memory still counts, that I can look at pictures on Facebook and remember the event in which it was taken; relive the experience that way.  But can you really be said to know something or remember it if you must constantly check with some outside reference?  It seems like technology is a tool for reminding more than remembering.  My fear is that too much focus on memory will cost us in our experiences.  The past is gone; it isn’t real.  There is only the eternal present – the here and now.  It always confuses me to see a concert goer holding an Ipad to record the show rather than enjoying the music.  Daniel Kahneman talks about the conflicts between the experiencing self and the remembering one in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.  There is also a TED talk that deals with it. 

I did enjoy the excerpt from Smarter Than You Think.  It presented a pretty balanced argument and I intend to read the whole book.

Sith Kristen 2016-03-30 14:05:25

Technology Gets in the Zone

Our equipment changes how we process, how we remember, and what we produce.  As Nietzsche said, “our equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”  The trick is to hack the advantages of each, and be ready to shift equipment as one type of equipment or interface is better for the purpose.  And even if we don’t know exactly what we want from each form of equipment, using diverse equipment will diversify the input that goes into our analysis, memory, and output.   In short diversify equipment, expand learning.

If our equipment changes how we analyze, input, and produce information, can we use this to our advantage?  This is exactly how Benjamin Franklin described the way he taught himself how to write.  He took an essay whose style he wanted to emulate, made a sort of an outline.  He gave himself time to forget the original, then fleshed the outline out again.  He also switched between essay and poetry and back.  Could this approach take advantage of different equipment we commonly use to learn and share information?  I could envision giving an assignment in which students are asked to make a PowerPoint presentation of a paper, including all important figures.  Then they could be asked to write a scientific paper from that PowerPoint (it would be tricky to reliably take away access to the original paper for the second part of the assignment, but I’m sure something could be done).  I can imagine paper notes to be used during the lecture-format portion of a class, and laptops to be used for in-class review for example to generate a list of questions about the material in a google document.

Every technology comes with pushback.  They are tools with their own set of advantages and disadvantages.  So what are our goals, the things we want to increase through technology and avoid disrupting?  How do we optimize?

I see three main goals of technology and format which both aid learning and enable learning to be better utilized:

  • To enable communication
  • To enhance productivity, either individually or as a group
  • To complement individual faculty – augmenting skills and opening access to enjoyable challenges

For each of these goals our use of our use of technology, equipment, and medium will affect them.

The point is to optimize the positive effects and utilize a diversity of effects, knowing that there is no form of learning that does not use a medium of some sort.   Does this piece of equipment in this context put you into communication or out of it?  Does more get accomplished in the end because of it – either individually or as a group?  Does it facilitate challenge and interest, or is it leading to worry, to apathy, and distraction?  Is a tool that draws you to be constantly “thinking about the task [you] weren’t doing,” or helps you is it something that helps you do the thing you were doing better?

Communication

A number of people have talked about how Plato critiqued writing as a new-fangled technology that would inhibit real learning and thinking.  This is often in the context of making a point like “well we know writing is a critical tool for our individual and societal development, so now we know his critique of this new technology was invalid – a fear of something new.”  I’m not sure this argument holds.  We do know that writing is critical.  But listen to his explanation:

Writing… has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing.

Although in other places his criticism is harsher, the point he makes here is that writing can’t replace interpersonal communication, and has weaknesses in that it cannot replicate the accountability and inspiration of interpersonal communication.  To this extant I think his comment is very valid and many modern technologies address exactly this weakness of writing, making written word more interactive.

I’m sure Plato would be happy to know we have not abandoned spoken conversations as a format in education.  Now we chose among many formats and technologies as we need to.  For example, in order to become a PhD candidate, I had to pass an oral exam.   The biggest exam and most formal exam I will probably have to take in my education is actually very Socratic in its structure.  We pick the format we want to use for the purpose at hand.  (Still, I am glad he did not live to see the invention of the scantron….)

Productivity

Technology is a huge enabler of productivity.  But this is an area that is rife with paradoxes and optimization problems.  As science and technology writer Clive Thompson says we are “social thinkers”

and technology that enables communication makes us more able and productive as a whole.  I would argue that productivity (in some form or another) is an almost automatic byproduct efficient communication.  (I don’t argue that this productivity automatically produces something that is necessarily good – effort and wisdom will always be important.)  Technology (whether it’s a bugle, pen and paper, or a super computer) is critical to communication-derived productivity.  I really wish google docs were around when my debate partner and I were writing up case briefs in high school.  I had an online class once in which we each had to post questions to a forum, and we could get credit for answering them as well.  The professor would clarify points we couldn’t.  My lab’s collaborators meet regularly via WebEx, which has options for screen share, document share, and chatting – a Skype for professionals.

When it comes to an individual productivity, the story is more nuanced.  On an individual level, productivity has a lot to do with an ability to focus, not just on topical knowledge, ability, and insight.  Technology certainly effects our focus.  Our technology effects the way we process information as we acquire it, the way we avoid distraction and prioritize information, and how we “get in the zone” really engaging in what we do.  The effect is very individual by person and context.  Sometimes technology streamlines this.  Other times simpler is better.   If I have writer’s block or am trying to jot down a poem without disrupting my flow of thought, you better believe the pen and paper is coming out.

The big productivity risk of technology comes with multitasking.  Since reading about the 2009 study done at Stanford on the disadvantage of multitasking on mental performance, I have been trying to be more conscious about focusing on one thing at a time and not letting myself think or work on something else until it is finished.  What is interesting is that multiprocessors were pulled from a group of people who regularly multi-process via technology.   That said, I found a lot of benefit from tying to make a point to consciously say “this is what I am thinking about for this next minute or so.”  And this helped me while I was doing work on a computer.  I needed the computer to accomplish what I wanted to do.  I also needed to be conscious about how I use it.  I noticed something while I was trying this that goes beyond an increase in productivity.  The increased focus came with clarity and motivation.

Flow – Or being in the zone

If productivity is a sign of equipped social thought, then being “in flow” is a sign of well-quipped individual thought.  Being in flow is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes as “a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work.”   I like to call it being in the zone.  It is essentially the signature of someone who sustainably and intrinsically enjoys what they do.   Flow comes from feeling both challenged and skilled.  It has seven basic features:

  1. Focus, concentration
  2. Ecstasy
  3. Clarity – know what to do
  4. Sense of the challenge being doable, even if hard
  5. Serenity, loss of a sense of self (too focused on something bigger)
  6. Timelessness
  7. Intrinsic motivation

What I noticed when I chose not to multi-process is that a I noticed a number of features of being “in flow” increase in addition to the obvious increase in focus.  Even when I don’t particularly enjoy the things I was doing at that point.  I had more clarity, a sense that I could finish what I was working on, and less of a worry about waiting time or of paying attention to it.  I wouldn’t say that my busywork acquired more ecstasy, but it was more enjoyable.

In other words, we have a significant about of control over how much our work resembles being in flow, even busy work.  We don’t have to reach the frenzied passion of an inspired artist to take advantage of flow by degree as part of the way we are wired as humans.  One of my new goals as a teacher (and as a learner!) is to encourage myself and my students to find as many of these seven features in whatever work we do to whatever extent it is up to us.

Focus.  Skills. And challenge.

And a diversity of technologies to help you do it.

 

The Technology Conundrum

For the 30th anniversary of the TED conference, held in Vancouver in 2014, artists Janet Echelman and Aaron Koblin created an immersive sculpture titled Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks. The sculpture consisted of five, high-definition projectors beaming digital animations of biomorphic forms onto a 745-foot net stretched over the plaza of the Vancouver Convention Center. The morphic animations and visuals were able to be manipulated by pedestrians touching screens on their smartphones. Audio capabilities of smartphones were also utilized as part of the interactive exhibition with high-pitched sounds being broadcast across the mobile phones while deep bassy sounds were played through nearby loudspeakers. Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks created a work of art where participants became much more than observers through the use of innovative technologies and the integration of smartphone technology. The result was astonishing.

Technology integration in the arts can sometimes face a slippery slope. Traditional performance experiences such as theatre, symphony, opera, and ballet come with a long established rules for audience etiquette where observers play a passive role in the arts experience. In orchestra settings for instance, audience members are not even supposed to clap between movements of the same orchestral piece of work. Applause is reserved once the final movement of a piece is played. Technology often clashes with the performing arts as was the case during the famous Patti LuPone incident of last year when the actress took the phone of an audience member during a performance. Another well known incident occurred around the same time when an audience member jumped on stage during a performance of the Broadway show Hand of God and proceeded to plug his cell phone into a fake electrical outlet that was part of the set

Technology can often be observed as something that is happening to us. This idea seems to be the central focus of an article written by Nicholas Carr where he questions Is Google Making Us Stupid? Carr suggests that the advances of the internet and the technologies we use to interface with it is changing the way we think. In his article, Carr describes the all too familiar scenario of becoming easily distracted when reading large bodies of text such as a novel, textbook, or long article. I find it somewhat amusing considering Carr’s article is quite lengthy. Carr suggests that the over-saturation of media and the instant gratification of internet searches is changing the way we read. Rather than delving deeply into a source text, we are being conditioned to skim for information, hopping quickly from one source to another. While skimming through large amounts of information may becoming commonplace, is it such a bad thing?

Another article, written by Jason Farman discusses The Myth of the Disconnected Life. Farman takes a different approach towards the use of technology describing it as a way of enhancing our real world experiences. Farman describes apps such as Murmur which is a Toronto based mobile story telling project that allows users to connect and contribute to the multiple histories of a specific place through their smartphone. Arts and technology integration is exponentially growing by leaps and bounds as artists continuously explore the intersection of immersive environments, site specific theatre, and various ways to embrace technology rather than distance themselves from it. In fact, Appcrawler recently published a list of the top 100+ apps for interactive art.

Echelman and Koblin saw an opportunity where technology could be utilized to change the passive role of the arts observer into an active one. By embracing the possibilities and inviting their audience to move beyond the role of observer into the role of practitioner, they created something that gave audiences the ability to pause and interact with the world around them. Skies Painted with Unnumbered Sparks realizes technology is a tool and uses it to create meaningful experiences between artists and audiences. Does technology change the way we think? Of course it does. The real question becomes do we utilize it in ways that enhances meaning within our lives? There is no easy answer but the important thing is to explore the endless possibilities and not be afraid of the outcomes.

73janpuv6d1680ph

An Argument Older Than Christ

Socrates once told a story to his student Phaedrus, which Plato recorded. It went like this: I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters. Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved  or disapproved. The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise. I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters. Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved  or disapproved. The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise. (From Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9, translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London) Now, while I apologize for the lengthy quote, I hope that this strikes a chord of recognition for you with this week’s readings; it should. Within the parable Socrates is using the discussion of two gods to make a point about writing. Socrates is taking his position behind Theuth, whilst his students are presumed to be behind Thamus. He makes logical points about the entire argument, and even reaches a viable conclusion when he states that “this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory,” but, as we are aware, history has proven that his final statements about wisdom and the human condition remain untrue. He attempted to frame the narrative in the form of two gods speaking with one another to give the tale credibility. Gods are powerful an knowing so certainly what they say should be accurate, but this is just an empty attempt at an argument created from an ethos that doesn’t even exist. He structured himself in a false argument to attempt to accurately convey his predictions for the Human race. However, it fell short. By in large, humans have been better off since the invention of writing. Our memory has remained, and our thinking has deepened. The Greeks were not the last people on the planet to invent and produce, and Socrates was disproven. So why do I bring this up? What does an old argument have to do with this week’s readings? Simple, it’s the same argument. Look at the article Is Google making us stupid? by Nicholas Carr. He begins the article with an excerpt from a made up story about humankind in the future and the problems of technology. He is using this story in the same way that Socrates was, as a means to bring an ethical appeal to his argument. In essence, he was saying, “look! This movie acts like a glimpse of the future and what a dark future it portrays. Humans will be like robots!” This argument is meant to tug on your fears and make you see him as an authority on the future. But, in the end, Mr. Carr is just a storyteller like Socrates. His fear isn’t unwarranted, but I doubt it will come to pass. Like writing, the internet and new technology is a massive leap forward in the progress of mankind. And, like writing, there are those who will oppose the change that it brings. However, to say that Google will somehow halt the wisdom of people or their ability to read carefully is akin to saying it about reading. There will be negative effects associated with these changes, but the positive ones far outweigh the downfalls. Life will carry on, and humanity will adapt. Google gives us a chance to stop focusing on the memorization of facts and data and start focusing on the skills required to use those facts to benefit humanity. We will all be better because of the internet, because we will have more time to be better. Mr. Carr’s concerns about emerging technology are valid, but they are not new. People have been complaining about change since the dawn of time, and his is one more concern in the wake of many. The point of this is not to criticize Mr. Carr or Socrates, but instead to pose another position to them. Instead of worrying about the change that is occurring, we should spend our time worrying about what we are going to do with that change. I would direct you back again to connected learning. Connected learning is what happens when we stop fretting about the change that might occur in the future and start worrying about how we can use this change to benefit our students. They are the ones who will live through this massive change in human culture; it is important that we train them to make the best of it. As always, let me know what you think below!