The rise of technology in this modern era is having a profound effect on human efficiency. Because of the new advancements and developments in the technological world, we are now able to do things much faster than we were before. However, the growth and development of technology has created a rift in society, divided into those that believe technology should be embraced for the sake of our future, and those that believe that technology will be our downfall. I fall into the latter category, taking on the approach of how technology hinders education. I know this to be true, as I’ve experienced it first hand in my journey through the educational system. I’m an IB Diploma Graduate and halfway into my first year of college. By the International Baccalaureate standards, I’ve been fully prepped and prepared for college, I’ve passed all of their requirements, and taken all of the tests. And yet, as I sit here writing this essay, I don’t feel prepared at all. Fortunately, I am able to identify the reason this is: Implementation of technology. In college, technology is used for everything. All of my textbooks are online, all of my assignment submissions are online…even my notes are online. It seems as if the only things that aren’t online are tests and exams, which are obviously to prevent from cheating. It’s a little overwhelming, having to adjust from the physicality of pencils and paper to scrolling through a textbook on a backlit screen. And of course, it’s incredibly distracting. With the threat of the Internet looming in the background as I work on my assignments, I find it so incredibly challenging to remain focused on my work. I’m only one autofill away from Instagram, or Tumblr, or whatever online game piques my interest that day, why should I do my work? It is for this reason that I firmly believe that technology should not be utilized as much as it is in schools.
I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way about the integration of technology into society. Nicholas Carr, the author of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“, writes, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” It’s clear that even the more educated among us are facing the same problem. This threat of distraction is especially promoted by articles all over the Internet, which quickly spit out the information we desire and leave nothing more in their path. That sort of thing is likely to have some profound effect on productivity, and is likely to further complicate analytical skills, especially if it happens a lot. Psychologist Maryanne Wolf shares this same concern. Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace (qtd in Carr). I’ve experienced this very phenomenon. When I’m researching a topic for an essay I have to write, I prefer to have the information quickly. I don’t want to read a long article in order to find the information I need, I need the information in the first couple sentences. If I don’t find it, I move on to the next article, and rarely leave the first page of Google. After many years of doing that, I feel that I’ve sort of lost the ability to read things on my own and piece them together myself. I can’t read into things as deeply or analyze as critically as I used to be able to do at the start of my high school career. But again, why would I need to do these things when I have the Internet to hold my hand? This is the sort of thing that is threatening to the whole of the educational system. Children and teenagers are being slowly taught that the Internet will provide all of the answers for them, should they put it into their search bar and press enter. School-age children no longer have to figure things out for themselves, as the Internet will provide it for them. I believe that the whole essence of education, the core principal of it all, is to be able to discover things for yourself. Experiencing things, and using your experiences to define and shape the world around you with knowledge. As a child, I loved exploring the world and then learning about what I had experienced. Learning was, and still is, a beautiful thing. I feel that the Internet takes the sort of “magic” that goes into education away. The acquisition of knowledge is no longer something to undertake proudly, but rather something to get over with as quickly as possible.
The integration of new technology has historically brought up concerns of how it would affect the developing world. This can be observed as early as Socrates, who worried that writing down information would weaken our ability to remember information (qtd in LaFarge). In a time where all information was memorized and passed down through word of mouth, his fear is perfectly valid. With written transcripts of all of the information, why would there be a need for oral histories? This same argument can be applied to the world today. With the Internet, why is there a need for students currently attending school to memorize the information they’ve learned? There is no incentive for doing so, and it doesn’t help that standardized tests are all about regurgitating information anyway.
It’s clear that now that technology has been widely accepted into schools, there are negative consequences in using it. Several studies in recent years, during the prime of technological advancement, have shown that technology is really, really distracting. Albeit slightly out of date for the current time period, studies from 1992 concluded that people read slowly and less accurately when they read on screens (qtd in Jabr). Although this conclusion is out of date, I find myself able to relate with it quite well. For me, reading on screen is much more difficult than reading a physical book. When I’m reading, I find the light of the screen to be distracting, and it causes me to look somewhere else to try and relieve the distraction. In doing so, my eyes move to and glance at 50 other things on the screen, so I’m not reading, and most definitely not absorbing any information. For me, reading a book is free from distraction, as my eyes are easily able to drift across the page. There is an interesting correlation as to how paper books produce so much more output than screens. Call it a form of “classical training”, but even in the age of digital natives, many people grew up reading books. Being taught how to read was a huge deal, and almost everybody was involved in the effort. After years and years of reading books, the brain has become used to this behavior, and has schematically associated reading to the physicality of a book; holding it in your hands. And the reason why reading online is so much more difficult is because the brain now has to go against what its been taught for so many years, and for the brain, incorporating new information into schema is a hard task. The rapid change from books to technology in schools is a part of the reason why children are more distracted while using technology, and aren’t able to process as much information as they are when reading a book. Jabr writes, “In most cases, paper books have more obvious topography than onscreen text. An open paperback presents a reader with two clearly defined domains—the left and right pages—and a total of eight corners with which to orient oneself” (The Reading Brain in the Digital Age). For school age children with minds that are still developing, it is difficult to break the classical training they have received in reading books. Technology should be integrated into their life at a slower and steadier pace, in order to mimic the classical training they have received with books, and minimize the potential for distraction, or should be kept in books altogether.
In order to conclude, the integration of technology into modern society has created a wide array of problems for school age children. Due to the threat of distraction that it poses combined with the hazards it poses to a developing brain, it is not a good idea to keep technology in schools. The classical training of books is entirely more effective than the adaptations of technology, and with the best interest of future generations in mind, it should stay this way. However, if technology were to be integrated into the educational system, it should be done at an earlier age, in order to combat the naturally distracting nature of it.