Is technology making our generation
regress? There is no doubt that the question of “whether the constant and
continuous development of technology at an unbelievable pace is hindering the
human mind of its full capacities” is a hot topic amongst renowned scientists
at the moment. Humans’ levels of intelligence have become increasingly
scrutinized with the release of new technologies that make our daily tasks much
easier, and thus, inevitably require less brainpower. It seems as though
technology has changed our lives so much that completing the simplest of tasks
without using it is a head-scratcher for the most of us. It is safe to say we
are at the point of no return.
Simple tasks, such as getting from
point A to point B without a GPS, or calculating the appropriate tip for a
restaurant bill have become tasks we rely on technology to carry out for us,
making our brains rather lethargic and activating them into inactive mode. It
is a given that we are nowhere near as likely to even try to solve a math problem
mentally as we are to pull out our phones, open up the calculator application,
and have the solution at the palm of our hands in a heartbeat, without exerting
a single joule of energy on our brains. But to what extent does this
necessarily signify that we are becoming less intelligent as technology is on
the rise, showing no signs of slowing down?
A classic but prominent example of
this is the study that tests whether laptop note taking is more or less
effective than traditional longhand note taking. Pam Mueller and Daniel
Oppenheimer carried out a series of studies, in which they tested for the most
effective method of taking notes, titled “The Pen Is
Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.”
Photo courtesy of Morguefiles
The arguments in favor of laptop note
taking—usually solely supported by students—include the greater amount of
information from a lecture that a student will be able to retain in writing,
and the fact that typed work is often times considerably more organized than
handwritten work. The arguments against laptop note taking include the idea
that laptops are distracting, and generate shallower learning, as compared to
physically writing out a piece of information, which requires more excessive
processing.
Both seem valid claims, but in the
overall conclusions, laptop note taking was detrimental to learning as students
who used it were inclined to write the lecture verbatim, instead of processing
it, interpreting it for themselves, and rephrasing it in a way that worked for
them personally. Laptop note taking limited the creation of helpful mnemonics
and compromised the information in the long run. Mueller and Oppenheimer’s
conclusions were summarized as “we found that participants using laptops were
more inclined to take verbatim notes than participants who wrote longhand, thus
hurting learning.”
It is safe to say that in this
particular case, technology is indeed affecting the way we learn negatively,
making us regress, and making our generation significantly more lazy than
previous ones who did not have access to as much technology as we do today. The
idea of shallow learning is outlines in Oppenheimer’s study. It is inaccurate
to generalize the study’s results and claim that it is a worldwide phenomenon
that applies in every case. However, the idea of shallow learning—learning material
solely on surface-level, without much depth—is the cause for long-term memory
being compromised. Shallow learning goes hand in hand with not storing the
information.
A different angle to assess the
question of technology debilitating us from completing the simplest tasks is
that the abuse of technology, specifically focusing on the technology of
notifications/automated alerts on smartphones, causes people to not take them seriously
anymore. Instead of reaching the desired outcome of warning people of dangers
such as weather hazards or criminal activity in the surrounding area, people
end up becoming immune to that kind of notification and ignoring it the second
they see “WARNING!!” on their screens, or any other desperate attempt to
capture people’s attentions.
An article by Jared Misner posted
on The Chronicle of
Higher Education, titled “Too Many Campus Alerts?” tackles this
issue precisely. There is no doubt that having technology that enabled these
kind of alerts has had a positive effect on society. There are plenty of times
where I would be unable to foresee a tornado were it not for the “tornado
warning” message alerts I get from campus emergency services. However, the
abuse of this kind of technology has caused the inverse of the desired outcome.
A student interviewed in Misner’s article claimed that, “the idea behind them
is that they’re for emergencies, but because a lot of the times it’s about ‘it
could rain this afternoon or it might storm later,’ a lot of the time I just
don’t care to read them.” A technology that was intended for progress and quick
spreading of information might be causing us to regress due to overuse.
It seems as though these modern
technologies are playing with the status quo, and the way it has always been
done is no longer the way to do it. The school newspaper is shifting from
producing printed copies thrice a week to being completely online. There is no
doubt that this saves paper, labor, and resources, but does it reach as many
people as it would if there were also printed copies circulating around campus?
Are the benefits of these technologies enough to cover the opportunity cost of
applying them?
There is as much debate being pushed
forth for either sides of the issue. There is strict evidence to backup the
idea that laptop note taking hinders learning, as students who took notes on a
laptop scored significantly lower on conceptual-application questions. However,
laptop note takers took more notes on average than those who did it by hand,
and the students who took more notes tended to perform higher as well. It is
not an exact science, and not a single conclusion can be applied to every
individual.
Analytical Reflection
Though the composition of
my blog in its entirety was a compilation of all the critical texts, examples
and class discussion combined, the two texts I kept in mind constantly while
writing it were “Accommodating Science: The
Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts,” by Jeanne Fahnestock and “Blogging:
Digital Media and Society Series” by Jill Walker Rettburg.
Rettberg’s
text discussed the fine line between blogging being considered a medium or a
genre. She claims that “scholars have suggested that, rather than looking at
the Internet as a single medium, it makes more sense to consider different
authoring software as providing different media” (Rettberg 32). She explains
that the actual blog itself is the medium, however, what is written on the blog
determines the genre of it. With that in mind, I intended for my text to be in
the blog medium, evidently, and in a “science for the general public” genre.
That is what I aimed for as I wrote it, and I attempted to make sure I
satisfied those characteristics. Rettburg’s text was important for maintaining
clarity and forcing me to make decision early on, which I carried out
throughout the entire post.
Furthermore,
Fahnestock’s text that touched on accommodating science to better fit the
public sphere resonated with me as well. Fahnestock was much more lenient in
her rigidity about accommodating science to fit broader, less knowledgeable
than the counter-part article we read, “Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental
Politics in America” by M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer. This
was useful for me as, though I am not a scientist myself, I instead made myself
knowledgeable on the topic at hand by reading extensively on it, and this does
not strip away my rights to write about it. Fahnestock claims that “the science
accommodator is not telling an untruth; he [she] simply selects only the
information that serves his [her] epideictic purpose” (Fahenstock). Thus, I
chose to remember and apply her principles as I was writing my blog. I am not a
scientist, or even a science-inclined person. With that said, I attempted to
find a topic that I was comfortable and knowledgeable enough to speak about,
without compromising my credibility to my audience. I believe I helped put
things into perspective for a public audience, while not mimicking or simply
reiterating the concepts I read about.
Grant-Davie’s article was
crucial to the build up of my blog as well. I consistently asked myself what my
exigence, constraints and audiences (all kinds) were, and if I was using the
proper terminology and syntax to target the intended audience. "The
rhetorical situation" as described and elaborated on by Grant Davie was
the backbone of my post. At points I would stop and check if I could still
identify the 5 constituents just by what I had already written down.
The actual primary source
I used was the main focus of my blog post. Although the source was a series of
studies on whether taking notes on a laptop was more or less effective than by
hand, I decided to broaden that topic as a whole, and adapt it to a more public
sphere. In order to do this, I generalized it, as Fahnestock’s article claims
tends to happen when adapting a scientific article. My new main idea was that
technology is hindering our generation from learning, and that doing things
manually has its benefits, despite the lack of convenience in doing them.
Works Cited
Fahnestock, Jeanne.
"Accommodating Science: The Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts."
Sage Publications, 1986. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
Grant-Davie,
Keith. "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents." Rhetoric
Review, Spring, 1997. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
Misner,
Jared. "Too Many Campus Alerts? Officials Worry That Students Tune Them
Out."The Chronicle of Higher Education. 19 Sept. 2014. Web. 25
Sept. 2014.
Mueller, Pam, and Daniel
Oppenheimer. "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of
Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking." Psychological Science. Sage
Publications, 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 25 Sept. 2014.
