Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age
Lynn Helding · Journal of Singing · 2011
THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT OF Mindful Voice, Creativity in Crisis?, concluded with a look at some of effects of digital technology, and what that technology's overuse may be wreaking upon human creativity. As I noted in that column, . . . creativity . . . does need mental space. And space implies time. experts are still debating whether or not digital technology destroys concentration, but no one who uses it can dispute fact that it gobbles up big chunks of our time.1 According to technology reporter Matt Richtel, in one recent year (2008), average person consumed three times as much information each day as he/she did in 1960.2 This is almost entirely due to limitless amount of information that is now so easily available via Internet on personal computers and Smartphones. question is, what is this information overload doing to our brains? That is exactly question that author Nicholas Carr set out to investigate in his book, Shallows: What Internet is Doing to our Brains. Implicit in Carr's title is one of his central conclusions: when information exceeds brain's cognitive load (the limit of our short-term memory), we lose our ability to think deeply and draw connections between new information and things we already know. Instead of diving deep, we zip along surface like guy[s] on Jet Ski[s].3 In other words, way we read on web has not just changed way we read; it has changed way we think. The technology is rewiring our brains, said Nora Volker, director of National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of world's leading brain scientists. She and other researchers compare lure of digital stimulation less to that of drugs and alcohol than to food and sex, which are essential but counterproductive in excess.4 This and future installments of Mindful Voice are a closer examination of function in Age, both for so-called Digital Natives (those who were born into Age) and Digital Immigrants (those who have migrated to Age). If you are neither native nor immigrant, life without digital media is still a viable choice, though probably not for long; as we shall see, there is growing concern among experts that technology has potential to be addictive, and new wave of self-help books on market advise unplugging as first line of defense. However, to choose this path is to miss out on wonders of digital media, which has potential to enrich as well as entrap. Teachers who maintain a personal aversion to technology should not take a pass on this subject due to their personal views. This column is predicated upon maxim that a shift in emphasis must occur in light of Cognitive Revolution, from how well teachers teach, to how well students learn; therefore, understanding implications of technology is essential for teaching new tribe of digital natives. And when it comes to Revolution, all perspectives are needed because we are, in words of Sherry Turkle, psychologist and director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Initiative on Technology and Self, still in the early days. Because we grew up with Net, we assume that Net is grown up. We tend to see what we have now as technology in its maturity. This is a dangerous habit of thought. We need to remember that we are in very early days.5 DIGITAL HEAVEN: TAKING THE MEASURE previous two decades have ushered in an onslaught of new technology, and when compared with other significant innovations that deeply changed human culture (the printing press, clock, microscope, automobile), magnitude of effect of digital revolution is unprecedented in human history. On upside, human endeavors as disparate as medicine, marketing, and music all have been enhanced by ability of their practitioners to harness riches of digital media. …