Notes

How Technology Affects Our Youth
Recently I was invited to speak at our local high school as part of their "Great American Teach-in," an application held within Florida whereby guests are asked to talk with the students on a variety of subjects. One of my business related articles caught the eye of a local teacher and I was subsequently asked by the Business/IT Department ahead directly into make some remarks regarding business and technology. My talk was entitled "Our Changing Times" which discussed how technology affects us as human-beings. It had been my argument that technology comes with an adverse influence on our mental acuity and productivity in this country. I conducted two consecutive classes of approximately 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 over the last 40 years. I even brought in some old mainframe magnetic tapes, printer wheels, and plastic templates used for flowcharting.

I then discussed how technology affects us as human beings. It is my contention that technology has conditioned us to be intolerant of inefficiencies and limitations thereby causing us to believe faster, virtually, and to multitask. Think about it; we don't like to wait in traffic, we want information at our fingertips, we be prepared to be able to listen to any song or watch any movie whenever we're in the mood, we want to enter and out of hospitals, we want 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, writer 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 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 analyze the effect of technology at work. During his study he discovered that workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and texts suffer a greater loss 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 idea further, I asked the students how they received their news. Out of 100 students, only 4 read a newspaper, a couple of first got it from an app on the iPhone and virtually none watched the evening news. Interestingly, more info 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 generally upset with politicians, the economy, jobs, military conflicts, etc., our young people are rather apathetic. I don't believe parents even speak to them around the dinner table, that i found rather disturbing. Fortunately, this particular group of students will not be old enough to vote in the 2012 election; but if they did, I'm confident they could be easily swayed.

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

Wanting to understand their reliance on technology, I asked the High Schoolers if they could live without their smart phones. All except one said they believed they might manage. The main 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 only American history, but history regarding their chosen career path. I told them this was needed so they wouldn't commit exactly the same mistakes we made and realize why we made sure decisions over time. I challenged them to resist the temptation to be on "automatic," in order to avoid repetition; avoid stagnation; to question the status quo, and THINK (a vintage IBM expression).

I have no idea how successful I was at getting my points across. Some students looked as apathetic as plenty of adult programmers I've taught over time. The teachers appeared to appreciate my presentation and explained so. check here had several students thank me for the presentation afterward, shook my hand, and asked a few questions. I don't believe I batted 1.000 with the kids that day, but easily got them to at the very least start thinking about things, i quickly believe I made a hit.

Keep the Faith!

Tim Bryce is really a writer and management consultant located in Palm Harbor, Florida.
Here's my website: https://urlscan.io/result/31a0e8c4-97ee-4502-9c63-b236379a6330/