Digital Nation, Digital Dangers

PBS's "Digital Nation" reflects not only the existing and emerging technological trends of modern society, but the growing causes for concern that technology implies.  The expanded use of computers in the classroom helped one inner-city school in the program make great leaps in its standard test scores, yet the case of the studies done on MIT students' multitasking abilities suggests that technology has negative impacts as well (i.e. making us believe that we are better multitaskers than we really are).  Though trite, the claim that one interviewee made about technology not being good or bad inherently, but rather dependent on how we make use of it, remains valid.  Another interviewee suggested that school is the one place where students are given the chance to escape from all the technology that is a distraction to more in depth thinking.  I actually found this view somewhat insightful.  However, I do not believe the answer is to remove technology from the classroom.  Rather, going back to the view that technology's valence is dependent on how we make use of it, educators need to keep a handle on technology so that it is not a distraction.  One vice principal on the program actually used the webcams to be sure students were not misusing the resources they had. A controversial practice I'm sure, but there are certainly other measures that can be used to monitor students and make sure they are using technology properly in the classroom.
       The most surprising thing the program suggested to me was that students reading and writing skills seem to be negatively impacted by the distractions that technology causes.  At one point a student admits that his paragraphs, though independently coherent and well written (he was an MIT student), do not flow together in a logical manner.  Another commenter, a university professor, pointed out that he cannot assign a book longer than 200 pages because students do not have the patience to get through long novels.  Yet another student described using the web-based crib-notes to read "Romeo and Juliet" in five minutes, rather than reading the actual book.  Clearly technology can be abused in the classroom, to the detriment of students attention and education, as much as it can be a boon.  I have personally noticed more students demonstrating difficulty in reading and writing and wonder if technology is to blame.  Is technology going to make the coming generation a nation of "bibliophobes", as the program suggests? Only if we allow the technology to be used in a counterproductive manner and do not require greater accountability from our students.
       The greatest dangers seems to be to students focus, as suggested above. But one commentator pointed out that prior to the development of writing, and later Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, individuals would memorize many lines of poetry (Ancient Greeks would memorize as many as a million versus of epic poetry as part of their education).  The victim then was memory, but who today would say that we lost a great deal as a result? The potential victim in the modern era seems to be the ability to focus and maintain extended, in-depth analysis of an isolated topic.  Books and writing could replace memory when it came to long stories, but can computer-power and technology replace human focus, reason, and understanding?  I have a hard time buying that argument.