The "Future": Perceived vs. Reality
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It's really tough to be a parent now. I have a young kid and I am trying to figure out how to introduce him to technology. I don't want him to be on a tablet all day, but I also don't want him to be behind either.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
It makes me sad to see young teens hang out and message each other on facebook while they are in the same room.
But why? They are still spending time together, communicating and sharing with even more people. I know adults love to hate this stuff, but what's the actual negative component to it? People are more social, more connected, more in touch than ever. I see it as wonderful. My kids will never face the loneliness and disconnected world we had no option but to face. Just like other advancements, our kids don't need to hunt for all of their own food or face a world without vaccinations. They can travel farther, faster, more safely. They can attend school and not be afraid of wild animals at night.
That we have improved our lot is not a bad thing.
But in an age where we are more connected than ever, we are also more disconnected than ever. People who are my age and younger may be able to fly on any given electronic device, but basic communication skills are being replaced by the ability to text and chat via IM. Pretty soon we'll live in a world where people can message someone on Facebook or text them, but put a group of people in a room together and tell them to "talk" and they'll have no idea what to do or how to interact like human beings. This is when the technology goes from being a tool as a benefit to something detrimental.
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@handsofqwerty said:
Yes, but the difference was that a landline wasn't portable. If you went to a restaurant or out in the woods, you didn't have the landline with you. The fact it's not portable and not tied to a location makes the effect that much worse...
Which made people often not go out. If you had to do anything important, like wait to hear about a job or a family member in the hospital or a kid that is out late you had to stay home.
Why is the effect "worse"? We keep using these terms based on the assumption that being connected to other people is bad. That having close friends, staying in communications and being social are all bad things. I realize that introverts hate having to be around people all of the time, but introverts can disconnect at will and extraverts can stay connected.
What drives the feeling of negativity towards advancement? Especially when it is optional?
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@IRJ said:
It's really tough to be a parent now. I have a young kid and I am trying to figure out how to introduce him to technology. I don't want him to be on a tablet all day, but I also don't want him to be behind either.
I prefer my kids be online to nearly anything else. More education, more interactivity, more friends, more socialization. Can't be the online thing, and it isn't, but SO glad that we have that instead of phones, television, radio, etc.
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@handsofqwerty said:
But in an age where we are more connected than ever, we are also more disconnected than ever.
That's just a trite statement that everyone says but no one backs up. We aren't more disconnected. That's just something grumpy old people say and forget that people never talked to each other as much as they do now. People just hate change.
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@handsofqwerty said:
People who are my age and younger may be able to fly on any given electronic device, but basic communication skills are being replaced by the ability to text and chat via IM.
I don't believe that there is any foundation for this. In what way could previous eras communicate better?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
It makes me sad to see young teens hang out and message each other on facebook while they are in the same room.
But why? They are still spending time together, communicating and sharing with even more people. I know adults love to hate this stuff, but what's the actual negative component to it? People are more social, more connected, more in touch than ever. I see it as wonderful. My kids will never face the loneliness and disconnected world we had no option but to face. Just like other advancements, our kids don't need to hunt for all of their own food or face a world without vaccinations. They can travel farther, faster, more safely. They can attend school and not be afraid of wild animals at night.
That we have improved our lot is not a bad thing.
There is nothing wrong with that view point, but as you already know it differs from what 90% of the world thinks. I feel like the human race would be lost without our roots. We can never fully appreciate nature without spending time in it.
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@handsofqwerty said:
Pretty soon we'll live in a world where people can message someone on Facebook or text them, but put a group of people in a room together and tell them to "talk" and they'll have no idea what to do or how to interact like human beings.
Based on what do you feel this way? Everyone says this stuff but what group of people is losing the ability to talk that used to be able to? Is there any foundation in reality for this? You are assuming a devolution of skills that is not observable or even expected. There is no logical connection between "communicating more in media X" with "losing the ability to communicate in media Y."
I know that Facebook, as an example, allows me to spend more time being social, even in person, than I could be before.
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@scottalanmiller not everything is black and white. I am sure you will train your kids to be social and to have proper communication skills. The problem isn't necessarily our children, it's everyone else's children too, in this evolving world.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's never happened before. This would go against all of history. There was never a backlash against printing, telephones, television, etc. It would be unprecedented for it to happen with the Internet.
I'm not saying any of these are right or wrong, but....
Book burning
Then you get into the real nut-jobs like boko-haram etc.
Far from unprecedented, though I suspect that the movement to unplug from the internet a bit will be deep, broad and have legitimate reasons. I find it very anti-social and I have to make sure I practice my people skills regularly (a great outlet for that is my job, talking to people)
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@IRJ said:
@scottalanmiller not everything is black and white. I am sure you will train your kids to be social and to have proper communication skills. The problem isn't necessarily our children, it's everyone else's children too, in this evolving world.
But the average children never learned to communicate well nor does it matter too much. The majority of the population is not well educated or skilled. Communication skills have always been mostly for the upper 25% or so. Those are the people who will, almost always, leverage the new technology to enhance that, not to fall prey to it.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
It's never happened before. This would go against all of history. There was never a backlash against printing, telephones, television, etc. It would be unprecedented for it to happen with the Internet.
I'm not saying any of these are right or wrong, but....
Book burning
Then you get into the real nut-jobs like boko-haram etc.
Far from unprecedented, though I suspect that the movement to unplug from the internet a bit will be deep, broad and have legitimate reasons. I find it very anti-social and I have to make sure I practice my people skills regularly (a great outlet for that is my job, talking to people)
Sure, that's how I see the anti-Facebook crowd. But those were not generally so much about the technology as the message. Book burning normally was only certain books. It was freedom they hated, information, not the books. If the books promoted their message they liked them.
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But none of those were every society as a whole. It was always fringe elements. Everything good always has a fringe that hates it.
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Often hating it because it is good. It is the good in things that makes a lot of people dislike stuff.
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@scottalanmiller I admit that post was mostly to point out that precedence for any anti-new-thingy is very typically.... human.
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My main point was, I suppose, that I don't feel like being plugged in 24/7 is a good thing. I need to ruminate about it.
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At a few talks that I have given recently, one of the things that I like to point out is that as IT practitioners one of our key jobs is embracing change. Change is scary for all people. Absolutely everyone. Change means the unknown. But IT is one of those fields where we deal with this daily and are trained to handle it well. That we are adept at handling change is what makes us good at IT.
This means, that with rare exception, as the world changes, the more it changes, while scary, the more it benefits us. We are the ones, on average, more prepared to benefit from rapid change. No matter how scary it seems, remember that you are likely the demographic most likely to make out well.
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@handsofqwerty said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@IRJ said:
It makes me sad to see young teens hang out and message each other on facebook while they are in the same room.
But why? They are still spending time together, communicating and sharing with even more people. I know adults love to hate this stuff, but what's the actual negative component to it? People are more social, more connected, more in touch than ever. I see it as wonderful. My kids will never face the loneliness and disconnected world we had no option but to face. Just like other advancements, our kids don't need to hunt for all of their own food or face a world without vaccinations. They can travel farther, faster, more safely. They can attend school and not be afraid of wild animals at night.
That we have improved our lot is not a bad thing.
But in an age where we are more connected than ever, we are also more disconnected than ever. People who are my age and younger may be able to fly on any given electronic device, but basic communication skills are being replaced by the ability to text and chat via IM. Pretty soon we'll live in a world where people can message someone on Facebook or text them, but put a group of people in a room together and tell them to "talk" and they'll have no idea what to do or how to interact like human beings. This is when the technology goes from being a tool as a benefit to something detrimental.
Is there evidence for this? I know there has been a number of studies done on attention span in the internet age, which showed that our (collectively) attention span has gotten shorter as we are exposed to more and more internet stuff.
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@coliver said:
Is there evidence for this? I know there has been a number of studies done on attention span in the internet age, which showed that our (collectively) attention span has gotten shorter as we are exposed to more and more internet stuff.
This is true. And it started before the Internet age. Reading books helps to offset this.
But there is another question, is a long attention span good in a world where we don't need it? Or are we properly adapting to the world as we know it? What's actually negative about handling shifting information streams more efficiently?
There are cons, of course, but what is the net effect? Are we adapting properly or improperly is the bigger question.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Is there evidence for this? I know there has been a number of studies done on attention span in the internet age, which showed that our (collectively) attention span has gotten shorter as we are exposed to more and more internet stuff.
This is true. And it started before the Internet age. Reading books helps to offset this.
But there is another question, is a long attention span good in a world where we don't need it? Or are we properly adapting to the world as we know it? What's actually negative about handling shifting information streams more efficiently?
There are cons, of course, but what is the net effect? Are we adapting properly or improperly is the bigger question.
I didn't say it was a bad thing. Around the same time an evolutionary biologist made the case for short attention spans as an evolutionary advantage, allowing our ancestors to focus on many different things at once while still being able to forget things that aren't deemed important by the brain. It was just a blog post... but interesting none-the-less.
