Notes

How Technology Affects Our Youth
Recently I was invited to speak at our local senior high school as part of their "Great American Teach-in," a program held here in Florida whereby guests are asked to talk with the students on a variety of subjects. Among my business related articles caught the eye of a local teacher and I was subsequently asked by the Business/IT Department to come in to make some remarks regarding business and technology. My talk was entitled "Our Changing Times" which discussed how technology affects us as human-beings. It was my argument that technology comes with an adverse effect on our mental acuity and productivity in this country. I conducted two consecutive classes of around 50 senior high school juniors each. Both sessions were interesting.

I began with an extremely brief description of my company and our methodologies for system design, data base design, enterprise engineering, and project management. Basically, I needed to determine myself as a credible businessman who had extensive experience in the business and IT world. I then reviewed the cultural and technical changes I witnessed during the last 40 years. I even earned some old mainframe magnetic tapes, printer wheels, and plastic templates used for flowcharting.

Then i discussed how technology affects us as humans. It really is my contention that technology has conditioned us to be intolerant of inefficiencies and limitations thereby causing us to think faster, virtually, and to multitask. Consider it; we don't like to hold back in traffic, we want information at our fingertips, we expect to be able to pay attention to any song or watch any movie whenever we're in the mood, we want to enter and out of hospitals, we wish instant food, instant pictures, instant credit, instant money, instant everything. We drive faster and talk faster because we have been conditioned to take action.

To illustrate the point, I quoted some references; first, Dr. Mack R. Hicks, author of "The Digital Pandemic," who demonstrated how technology alters the minds of impressionable youth. So much so, linked with emotions . exhibit the same robotic mannerisms of the technology they use that is not conducive for grooming socialization skills. Hicks basically argued that technology is really a genuine threat to the human spirit.

I next referenced the work of Dr. Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist at King's College London University, who in 2005 was hired by Hewlett Packard to research the result of technology in the workplace. During his study he found that workers distracted by calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater lack of IQ than if they'd smoked marijuana. The IQ of those juggling messages and work fell by typically 10 points - equal to missing a whole night's sleep and much more than double the four-point fall seen after smoking pot. The drop in IQ was a lot more significant in men.

These studies surprised the students. To stress the point further, I asked the students how they received their news. Out of 100 students, only 4 read a newspaper, a couple of got it from an app on the iPhone and virtually none watched the evening news. Interestingly, a handful said they got their news from Jon Stewart on "Comedy Central." Obviously, I came across it rather disturbing that students were out of touch with the world's ever-changing events and considered Jon Stewart a credible source for unbiased journalism. Whereas adults are usually upset with politicians, the economy, jobs, military conflicts, etc., our young people are rather apathetic. I don't think parents even speak to them around the dining room table, that i found rather disturbing. Fortunately, this specific group of students will never be old enough to vote in the 2012 election; but should they did, I'm confident they may be easily swayed.

As students in the late 1960's we obviously didn't have all the elegant technology as is available today, but most of us knew that which was going on on earth. Everyone read the daily newspaper and weekly news magazines, watched nightly news, paid attention to radio, and discussed it over lunch or making use of their parents. We all knew about the War (Viet Nam), the protests, major accidents and catastrophes, elections, the various assassinations, etc. If you didn't stay on top of recent events, you're considered a dullard. Not so today. In fact, I acquired the uneasy feeling that you will be an oddity in the event that you follow the news today.

Attempting to understand their reliance on technology, I asked the High Schoolers should they could live without their smart phones. All but one said they believed they might manage. The one exception wouldn't budge, even when I pushed her to defend her position. In her mind, the telephone was her lifeline to her friends and social life. Without it, she was lost.

In the summary portion of my presentation I admonished the students to build up a sense of history, not just American history, but history pertaining to their chosen career path. I told them this is needed so that they wouldn't commit exactly the same mistakes we made and understand why we made sure decisions over time. I challenged them to resist the temptation to be on "automatic," to avoid repetition; avoid stagnation; to question the status quo, and THINK (an old IBM expression).

I have no idea how successful I was at getting my points across. Some students looked as apathetic as a lot of adult programmers I have taught over time. The teachers appeared to appreciate my presentation and told me so. I also had several students thank me for the presentation afterward, shook my hand, and asked a few pre-determined questions. I don't think I batted 1.000 with the kids that day, but if I got them to at the very least start thinking about things, then I believe I made a hit.

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Tim Bryce is really a writer and management consultant situated in Palm Harbor, Florida.
http://www.phmainstreet.com/timbryce.htm

He is able to be contacted at: [email protected]

Copyright � 2011 Tim Bryce. All rights reserved.
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