Why the Digital Age Helps!

Many people have their own take on how technology can, or in some cases does not, help us learn. Some may say that technology helps us and that “The Web has been a godsend” (Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”) to the many who uses it for work and learning purposes. Then there are people who argues that technology is a bad way of learning and you should not use it because it causes us to lose focus when it comes to handling multiple jobs at once, for example typing an essay and drawing points and references from within an article. Both points are valid, but we can all see that technology is becoming more prominent in our daily way of life and in the way, we learn. Schools should adapt to the way technology has come in the lime light of learning by having the students take classes regarding how to manage using the internet for learning and not as a distraction.
Carr is someone who makes several points about how technology positively impacts learning. Carr eventually recalls how “A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after” (Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”) in turn meaning that the internet has shortcut tools in order to find information faster and much easier than you would if you were searching through a physical copy of an article. I personally feel that technology helps me when I’m doing school work, such as different research assignments since I can go search up something and go deeper into the topic at hand. Technology helps us because it allows us to make phone calls to people who are not with you in the same area physically, it allows us to quick search different researches, it allows us to make papers look professional, it also allows us to our jobs if we work corporate jobs at a desk. There is nothing bad with allowing a little technology in the way you learn; many people are doing it and it is becoming the new way to learn.
Davidson is another person who you can refer to who argues the view point that technology gives some benefits towards many peoples learning. Davidson mentions an experiment called the “gorilla experiment” which was based on the phenomenon of “attention blindness” and how the technology we use can help us overcome attention blindness (Davidson, 2). Attention blindness is when you focus on one event so much that you don’t pay attention to another stimulus or object that is thrown into the fray. She proposes the argument that “Fortunately, given in the interactive nature of most of our lives in the digital age, we have the tools to harness our different forms of attention and take advantage of them” (Davidson, 2). Davidson was saying that we can collaborate with each other in the modern world we live in, so we can have the ability to overcome attention blindness. Agreeing with Davidson’s point when she said “But once we acknowledge the limitations we’ve been living with, we can come up with a workaround” (Davidson, 8) I can say that I myself have been able to get around being blinded by my own mind and many obstacles thanks to technology giving me insight on a subject from many sources that has different viewpoints on it.
Goldhill disagrees that technology is helping us within our learning. She believes that “… despite the downsides of multitasking, we’re juggling an increasingly frenetic list of activities, as online notifications deliver ever more distractions” (Goldhill, “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). She’s basically saying because of technology we will be more inclined to struggle when it comes to juggling obstacles or in other words multitasking. Collaborating helps us because it allows us to see different viewpoints of a situation or topic such as the gorilla experiment when the objective was to count how many times the team in white passes the basketball, a gorilla was then thrown in the fray and depending on some people you either saw it or you didn’t. If you collaborate with one another then one person can count how many times the team in white passes the basketball and another person can catch the gorilla walking through the group of people, giving you the whole picture of what is given to you. Goldhill is blaming technology for the distractions it brings when it comes to handling multiple forms of works or topics when it comes to learning, such as pop up ads, emails popping up on the screen, or colorful pictures that may be within a website. I can see where that could be a problem, but you must know how to prioritize your work for you to not allow technology to take you away from what you are meaning to accomplish.
I say we can change schools for them to adapt to the way we are learning with technology by allowing the students to take classes that trains them to moderate the use of the technology in learning for only the purpose of learning. If schools acquire new methods of teaching with the technology such as classes online, uploading assignments online, having students use the internet to research everything they need, or even reading articles online. If schools take the initiative to enforce technology in their teachings then it will be easier on the students and the teachers to adjust and be more comfortable with the climate the learning world has come to, using the internet to learn.