Follow us
Learning to Learn - Differently
  • Home
  • What's the Difference?
  • 21st Century Governance
  • L2D2 Open Forum
  • Teaching and Learning
  • Resource Bank

What's the difference?

Thoughts on making a real difference in the lives of learners...

View all Blog Entries

Disconnected in a wired world

4/15/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
I guess that I had it wrong. It had seemed to me for the longest time that technology and the internet made us the most connected generation in history. I can Skype my mother in Ontario, or chat face to face with my grandchildren in Winnipeg. Through Twitter and Linkedin and Facebook, I can stay connected with my friends colleagues around the world. And, even when we go out to walk the dog (and maybe stop off at Starbucks!) my wife Rheanne and I can Facetime our boys at home to make sure that everything is alright.

You can’t be more connected than that! Can you?

Last Saturday morning, I was reading something on my laptop; Rheanne was catching up on her favourite TV show on her ipad; and our boys were playing games on their minis. We were all in the same room, but we might as well have been in separate houses. To give credit where credit is due, it was Rheanne who pointed out that unlike in the past we rarely sat together to watch television or a movie, instead we used whatever stolen down time that we could find to catch up on news or programming that we had missed, and the only times that we really connected as a family was when we could factor technology out altogether. Dinner conversations, trips to the playground, walks in the park, a visit to the aquarium, even driving to and from school, have become critically important family times when we can look each other in eyes and actually communicate. A recent road trip holiday to Southern California was less about rest and relaxation than it was about reconnecting as a family and having a truly joint experience.

We live in an era of “electronic town halls” which, as Neil Postman points out, bear little resemblance to their eighteenth century face to face counterparts. He calls them a “packaged, televised pseudo-event”. Information is disseminated through robo-calls or email “blasts”. Thoughtful, well-written letters to the editor reflecting on the issues of the day have been replaced by vitriolic on-line “comments” which make pronouncements, or try to score political points, without any pretence of attempting to engage in a meaningful dialogue on a topic or news story. We share “personal” stories on Facebook – in a kind of “look at me, look at me” attempt to publicize the fleeting and often mundane happenings of our day to day lives, and many of us work hard to appear clever or profound throughout the day in 140 characters or fewer on Twitter.

With so much of society permanently on “send” it is hardly surprising that cyber-bullying has become the vehicle of choice to torment and isolate vulnerable children and adults. Nor is it a shock when one political party elects a new leader, and their opponent immediately launches an electronic smear campaign to attack them. In a nation of multi-taskers and short attention spans – the sound-bite is king!

We now really do live in McLuhan’s “global village”. It is our challenge to insure that it is not a village made up of individual, isolated e-huts but rather a place where we can still hold on to the human dimension of our personal relationships. A place where we all stop before we press the send button and ask ourselves – “would we say this to a real person’s face, or have we become a dehumanized society that takes shots at each other’s impersonal avatars and screen names”?

Technology can bring us together, or drive us apart. It’s up to us to choose.


2 Comments
carol
4/15/2013 07:01:13 am

I enjoyed your article Jim. I think you should send this to our Prime Minister.

Reply
Jim
4/15/2013 07:31:42 am

Thanks Carol - but I think that he is too much on "send" to listen to anyone!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Dr. Jim Christopher is the Head of Kenneth Gordon Maplewood School and Maplewood Alternative High School in North Vancouver. A parent, author and long-time teacher, and educational administrator across Canada, he has been actively involved in the drive to differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    August 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2019
    April 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012

    Categories

    All
    Education
    Homework
    Independent Schools
    Learning Disabilities

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.