On a very broad scale, each person’s individualism is based on their past experiences and the time period in which they were raised. For example, two 30-year-olds could be born on the same exact day, born in nearby neighborhoods, but they could have been raised radically different. Perhaps one was born female and the other person was born male. One was born into an affluent family and the other was born into poverty. One was popular and played sports in college, while the other was bullied in high school and never attended college. This example shows an extreme dichotomy that may not always exist, however, very minor changes in details for your background can alter your belief system as an individual. There are so many socioeconomic criteria for how you turned out to be YOU. Examples of socioeconomic categories include wealth, family dynamics, education, and location, to name a few.
George Siemens stated “Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking.”
Thinking about Siemens’s quote above, we can think about how the current day’s technology may affect how each individual person has come to be who they are. This thought process expands into viewing individuals across differing generations. Take, for example, a Baby Boomer, now in their 70’s in 2019, they didn’t grow up with smartphones or the internet or various other types of advanced technology. They may have applied for jobs simply by printing out a resume and walking into a business to introduce themselves. Their life experiences would take on a slower pace to today’s technology-ridden day-to-day activity. They would have only been able to contact someone at home on a landline telephone. When taking a bus, they would have used cash and perhaps viewed a paper map of the bus route. Instead of watching television growing up, they may have played outside with their peers. A millennial today grew up on the opposite end of the technology spectrum. Every single piece of their lives is engrossed with constant online notifications. And, they most likely spent very little to no time of their childhood without technology. They grew up with the internet, cell phones, credit cards and advanced online systems for every day life activities, including dating, transportation, education and applying to jobs.
I definitely agree with Siemens stating that technology is changing how we think. The constant access to anything you can dream of simply by searching on your smartphone has changed how social we are as a society. There are negatives and positives to this, of course, as with everything.
Positives include:
· Increased social engagement—
o According to a Pew study, 48% of those aged 18-29 years old decide to learn more about social or political issues based on what they learn on social media.
o Registered voters are at an all-time high thanks, in part, to online groups like Rock the Vote.
· Increased connection to people around the world—
o Traveling to any city in the world is much more convenient than in past decades. You can see if your bus is running online or book a flight to Madagascar at the touch of your fingertips.
o Instead of snail mail or needing to appear in person, systems like Skype and FaceTime have made connecting with friends, family and employers accessible.
o Face-to-face interaction is rarer and therefore, more cherished. With constant texts and emails coming in lieu of “swinging by” someone’s office desk or home, meeting up with a person in real life is precious.
Negatives include:
· Lack of in-person interaction—
o On the flipside of the positives of Skype, Facetime and instant message (IM), is that these technologic applications limit in-person interaction. Certain body movements and environment details are lost in these virtual connections. For example, how is networking limited when face-to-face interaction is discouraged in an office environment in lieu of sending an email or IM to colleagues?
o Connecting with someone virtually doesn’t have the same affect as meeting someone in-person according to FastCompany’s article, “The Science of When You Needs In-Person Communication”. Trust in relationships are built in-person through touch, such as handshakes, holding doors and light arm touches. Additionally, you can pick up on hidden messages such as through facial expressions to see someone’s true emotions. Additionally, greater attention and thus, deeper connections are formed in person. There’s a lot to be missed when connecting virtually or not at all.
· Misunderstanding across technologies and generations—
o Online social media platforms are creating algorithms to what we want to see, not what the reality of the world is. For example, Jenna Wortham of The New York Times Magazine talked about being blindsided by Donald Trump’s election win since all of her social media algorithms showed Hillary Clinton supporters.
o Pew has shown that older generation’s involvement with technology is much lower than those of their Millennial counterparts. Baby boomers, for example, have lower percentages of those that use the internet at home, own a smartphone and participate in social media. This allows for further disconnection amongst generations who differ in technology use.
In Rita Kop and Adrian Hill’s 2008 article, Connectivism is described as a process of learning and continually feeding information through a learning community or node. The greater your network is, the more knowledge can be distributed. From this general idea, one can look at the vast amount of possible learning that is happening in current day simply through social media connections. However, where is social media creating productive connections and where is social media simply connecting us to mindless entertainment?
Siemens is correct in that technology is rewiring us. However, at the same time, humans haven’t changed all that much since the beginning of time. Humans still require basic life needs, such as shelter and food. In every place in the world that I’ve ever been, each culture, regardless of the person’s age or background, is most concerned with being happy, cared for and the same for their family and friends. In this regard, one could argue that Siemens is giving technology too much credit for its affect on society today.
Personally, regardless of technology, connection to each other is as necessary as oxygen to live. Human connection, whether virtual or in-person, gives us a reason to have diverse interactions, as well as to have varied levels of emotion and life choices. The more technology broadens our social circle and knowledge of the world, the better our understanding of each other and the world will be. What do you think the children of today will say of the world that will become a reality in 30 or 40 or 50 years to come?
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