Numbers too large for me to calculate.
Like so many American children of the 1960’s and 70’s, I practically lived sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the television set. There must be serious chunks of my brain so steeped in the fiction of the stories and ideas I consumed that they are as much a part of me as my DNA.
TV was a window to the world. Like so many kids, at my home there weren’t many other affordable past-times such as sports leagues, music or art lessons. There were few parks or public pools, and no museums to hang out in my small town. My older brothers and sister, however, did not grow up with a TV in the house. My family was a bridge between the eras before and after TV's explosive growth.
I grew up and began my life-long study of communication. After college, I worked in commercial and public radio and television. Ultimately, I obtained advanced degrees so I could teach communication at the college level. I spent thousands of hours with hundreds of college students over the past 35 plus years, fifteen before the Internet, and the remainder after its arrival. We explored the evolution and business of mass media industries, their impact on society. We studied the emerging Internet-based communication platforms that now form the fabric of so much of our current social, educational and work lives.
Before and After Smart Phones
Like my generation of test pilot TV viewers, my college students were also test pilots, who lived in the world pre and post the arrival of the Internet and social media platforms. When I compared students engagement in my classes before and after the introduction of the smart phone and social media I noticed a marked decline.
The distraction of their cell phones on the desk was like an itch they couldn’t help but scratch. The immediate attraction of a new text message from home or from a friend, or a notification from Facebook or Twitter was too compelling to set aside during note-taking for lectures or lesson activities.
Their focus was lost for a few minutes each time their phone distracted them with alerts or to be glanced at for updates of any kind. After the smart phone interruption was attended to, the student then mentally returned to the course material. There were now gaps in their learning. Time was lost in the ramping up required to catch up. Multiply this by several times each class period by the majority of students. The loss in learning was the same as if a student arrived a few minutes late or left early each class period. A few minutes may not have mattered, but in the aggregate would come to matter quite a lot. I saw the distractions of a smart phone were a disadvantage that out-weighed its advantages.
What Tech Hath Wrought
As exciting as technology has been for me professionally (I am retired from teaching and now I write, shoot and edit videos), there are downsides to what tech has brought us. Like that of my students, I notice my ability to focus is a constant struggle.
Where was I? Yes. That bad. On the surface, I look steady, reliable and attentive. That’s the front yard. Come see the burning dumpster in the back yard, where half dressed projects prance around teasingly, wagging hands and fingers from their ears, wearing socks that don’t match.
I tried hard to focus and stay on task. I wrote daily to-do lists, practiced mindfulness and meditation, and I read and re-read hundreds of self-help books. Yet, the seductive siren call of the screen beckoned. I stopped to read texts, checked to see if there was a new text or email. I stopped and started my work several times every few minutes. I scanned social media, podcasts, and news sites. Just as for my students, time slipped stealthily away for in-real-life pursuits like face-to-face dinners, face-to-face walks with friends, getting to know more people and learn new things.
As my hours on social media increased so did my dissatisfaction. At the end of the day, I felt tired of constantly stopping and starting, setting and resetting my focus. I saw the hours slip away from the day and many of my goals recede further in the distance.
Screens accompany us everywhere we go. They help us get where we drive to, and act as our adjunct brains for learning, work and entertainment. Smartphones have become so familiar we often consider them a natural part of our life and home. But our phones and the platforms they contain are not natural. They are an industry. They offer us entertainment and access to information. They then sell our personal information and preferences to others for their advertising and profit. It is convenient to the industry that we keep thinking of smartphones as tools we employ, rather than see ourselves as employed (and exploited) by these tools.
Turning An Ocean Liner
The essays and activities in this book are a result of my efforts to do something constructive about my backyard dumpster fire. I want to transform my dissatisfaction with social media and its impact on the quality of our communication. This e-book is a contribution from a teacher in the frontlines of college teaching, whose boots are worn and muddy.
My goal is to have us rethink our contract with social media. From my classroom experience, I offer ideas and options to parents of children and teens to help them harness the tools in our purses and pockets. We can set up guardrails of our own design into place and practice, long before regulatory bodies can climb across lobbyists whose job it is to keep us blissfully unaware of smart phones' adverse effects.
The time has come for my college classroom to spread its message of empowerment and potential into homes and school campuses everywhere.
It is important for us to study how our tech tools, like all tools, can hurt us and our kids, when they are used without preparation or carelessly. Years from now, we may think of our culture's rapid embrace of smartphones as unfortunate, just as we now think about to the dangerous era of dynamite's early days, or when physicians and surgeons were uninformed about germs and refused to clean their hands before operating on a person. So many avoidable deaths.
Rethinking our relationship to something as familiar as our technology is easier said than done. For me it's been like turning an ocean liner. It takes focus, time and energy.
The good news is we are not alone on our journey. More importantly, the prize for our efforts is regaining for ourselves and our loved ones the priceless time and experiences that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in moments of distraction.
