Well, well, what a turbulent end to the semester, but somehow, I think my attempt at flattening hierarchies between teachers and students worked ;-). But now iTunes is playing Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros' Silver and Gold, because it has this beautiful line: "I got to hurry up before I grow too old." That song would have been apt for the wall wisher, but I don't want to run the UofE into trouble with rights organizations. The alternative would have been to repeat my wall wisher video from the opening week, also very apt. But that would be repeating myself and "I got to hurry up before I grow too old." So please Clara, have a look at the wall wisher and just think of what I just wrote down.
I also won't appear in the Adobe Connect sessions this week. Been there, done that. And I don't want to risk having to discuss the Land reading and get angry again. Kudos though to Hamish who lured me in a related discussion on the db yesterday night. I enjoyed it and it was, in a way, a healing experience. And a wonderful example of how a teacher can show his commitment to an, obviously, difficult and demanding student in an online environment.
Let's get started with two additional readings. The first one is the Guardian column by Charlie Brooker. The guy sets himself up for maximum distraction and then starts whining that the technology is to blame, really amazing. And if you don't like Google Instant, turn it off, the option is just to the right of the Google search bar. Thank God that Brooker just in time found the Pomodoro technique, so he was able to end his poorly written column.
On to Anderson, the second journalistic piece that Brooker maybe could have consulted before he wrote his column. The piece is well researched, but in the end, one misses an author's position on his subject. The part describing the research on multitasking and it's effects on the brain and learning is very informative. The part that describes Gallagher's work reflects exactly my idea on the issues of information overload and the 'attentional crisis'. People really need to learn how to make choices in what they want to do, read, listen to, or watch. Since I threw out my television years ago I have much more time to read. I gave up all terrain biking when I started horse riding again. Less is, in the end, really more. But, as I discussed with Hamish last night, people are bad at making choices and they get worse at it the more choices they have. My position is that the technology that is said to cause the trouble will also help us getting out of the mess we're putting ourselves in. One needs to learn how to use it wisely. It is possible.
Which is a nice bridge to the Levy reading, because that is in a way also the position of Vannevar Bush, one of the two protagonists of Levy's article. Ah, the ever accelerating speed of life, it's an age old problem that people complain about. Yes, time seems to move faster now that I am well into my fifties (cue Joe Strummer) and gone is the blissful boredom that I experienced when I was young and had to go to school on Saturday mornings as well. Strange isn't it: the working week has become shorter, and yet people complain they have got less time? Choose (again), focus on what you really want with your life (ah, but that's difficult isn't it? yes, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't difficult), think about managing your time, don't do more than one thing at a time (much more effective and satisfying).
The mentioning of the 'library problem' reminded me of a quote of, I think, Dan Dennett that scholars are libraries' tools for creating more libraries. Anyway, my experiences in library innovation over the past 20 years are that you can create great tools for scholars, but that in the end, their, what I call, 'information habits' are quite sticky. I don't think I mentioned unlearning in my blog before, unlearning might be more difficult than learning.
I could go on and write about the many notes I made in the margins of this article, it was well worth reading, but in the end, even in this scholarly article we find back the basic misconception that something bad is happening to us and that it is technology that is to blame for that. If you want more time to think, than plan your schedule accordingly. Choose and focus on your goals, and use technology that helps you to accomplish your goals and don't let it get in your way.
Reading back what I just wrote I notice that it almost reads like a sermon.
But anyway: "I got to hurry up before I grow too old."
Anderson, S. (2009). In Defense of Distraction. New York Magazine, 25 May 2009.
Brooker, C. (2010). Google Instant is Trying to Kill Me. The Guardian, 13 September 2010.
Land, R. (2006). Networked Learning and the Politics of Speed: a Dromological Perspective. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Networked Learning, Networked Learning Conference 2006, Lancaster University.
Levy, D. (2007). No time to think: Reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(4): 233–236.
Keywords: IDEL10
