PBS Digital Nation gives a 90 minute quick tour of what is going on with the use of digital technology.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/
Most of the first 30 minutes of Digital Nation deals w/ college and high school students and all the electronic multitasking they do. It's really frightening. One thing to read about it, another to see all the laptops and no students focused on anything.
Stanford Professor Clifford Nass studies multitaksing and concludes multitaskers are TERRIBLE at everything and don't realize it. They also interview professors who find the quality of student work and learning has declined over the past 10 years.
There are also segments on the use of Second Life in the business world (IBM uses avatars instead of webcams to host meetings. You think you are watching an episode of The Office, but no, you aren't. Reality is more ridiculous than satire).
Is everyone getting eye strain and carpal tunnel? The documentary shows how humans are becoming very,very separated from "touch" and the "real world" including face-to-face interaction. Many implications (mostly negative) for this. There is even a segment about military air force pilots who fly drone planes across the globe. The pilots are never in any combat danger. They fly their bombing runs, then drive home to suburbia. One commentator jokes there is no need for physical training in the air force -- we just need to recruit people who have big butts and can sit and stare at a screen all day. Science fiction doesn't even come close to what is going on now.
Contributed by Jennifer Tsay
Omega Teaching
www.omegateaching.com
