The Internet is a fascinating intellectual tool. We seem to have embraced it over the years without much reserve and without asking too many uncomfortable questions about it. Any tool exerts an influence over those who use it. When I choose to use my car (a tool), I have the freedom to live further than walking distance from my work, I can get to the hospital in an emergency really quickly....but do I lose anything? Do I know my neighbours as well as I could? Do I get enough exercise? Do I need to make a deliberate effort to retain what I might lose because it is valuable?
Research seems to be suggesting that we are at risk of losing the skill of deep thinking as we skim and scan and power browse our way through the information we have at our fingertips on the Internet. Have a look at http://youtu.be/tXDGh8v-OhA
I would love to hear your thoughts on this as we seem to be diving into digital learning in education without pausing to ask whether we are losing some critical intellectual skills.
There are a few different levels on which to respond. I found it interesting that the author emphasized individual intellectual processes over collaborative modes. Some have pointed out that we may be returning to something like the age of orality, in that communication is once more only as authoritative as the reader perceives it to be. The authority of the printed word (and the type of thinking that was valued in that world) is waning. Maybe this is really what the author is lamenting....?
ReplyDeleteAs educators though, on a practical level, it is critical we assist students in developing the skills to make healthy choices around technology use. Actually many young people are very savvy about this. Facebook does not suck all kids into its depths! But the less mature, and more socially needy kids will get burned by not navigating their intensely complicated world successfully. Without our help.
On balance, the author is taking a more negative view than I would.
Cheers - thanks for inviting the conversation :-) Nigel Smith
Yes, there are great benefits that the Internet gives us to facilitate collaborative learning. I think that the shift from orality to print actually provided more people with access to information and knowledge than previously. Intellectual knowledge shifted from the hands of the elite to the general population. I think that the emphasis is perhaps going to shift back and although we have great access to information, the medium of the Internet actually diminishes our propensity to engage at a deep level with that information. Eg. One would guess that with increased Internet access, academics would be more widely read, however, apparently now fewer articles are being cited in published articles than before. Curious.
DeleteHi Yvette - this is a most interesting conundrum in the digital age. In my view there's no question that we are at risk of losing the skill of deep thinking through the increasing level of 'skimming' across the top of things that is happening, particularly in the online/social media space.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth I here are my thoughts on the matter...
While there's clear evidence that we see signs of lots of 'shallow' thinking arising from the skimming through overwhelming quantities of information, we can't simply assume that things were different before the use of social media, mobile devices etc. It's not clear at all that the levels of deep thinking were too much different to what they are now - it's just that nowadays we see so much more engagement with a lot more information.
The thing about deep thinking is that it requires (a) time, (b) the disciplines of thinking in this way and (b) the dispositions of reflection and acceptance of feedback from others to review and modify the thought. This is a requirement of deep thinking regardless of the medium we're engaging with to access our information.
As far as what we do in our schools is concerned, I'd argue that in addition to the impact of digital technologies, other factors are contributing to the lack of deep thinking - including the way we divide up the curriculum into silo-ed containers and make them time-bound in terms of topics and the school timetable, the way we 'atomise' assessment and place a focus on 'what we need to do to pass' rather than 'what learning will help me develop understanding and wisdom', and the lack of real engagement in reflective activity as a part of the learning process (by teachers and students), resulting in a culture of 'we've done that, now to the next thing'.
These are all big challenges, and not easily resolved - perhaps our first focus for some deep thinking????
Thanks for drawing attention to the issue of whether or not thinking was any different before. An aspect to consider is that skimming and scanning are fast becoming the predominant way we read and for many, the only way they read. The Internet encourages us, by its very design, to read until we see a link to something else that catches our eye. Research says that reading text with hyperlinks diminishes comprehension of the content (even when the links aren't clicked on). I would have thought that hyperlinks were great for comprehension, adding to the breadth of connections the mind would make across a topic, but it seems that is not the case.
DeleteYes, deep thinking requires us to digest what we have read. In the midst of interruption technologies like ads, hyperlinks, alerts, and social media that invite us to express our opinion really fast and furiously, do we take time to digest? The capacity the Internet gives us to express our opinion and gain feedback on it from others really appeals to me and I enjoy it but I know how much more discipline it takes nowadays to read through an entire book or even an article from start to finish. I learnt how to do that as a child. How are our children going to learn to digest, and reflect unless we deliberately emphasise it in the curriculum - the digital environment pulls them away from it.