So, this weekend, my younger sister and her boyfriend came to visit. Just to set this up for you, my sister is seven years younger than me and still a college student. Her boyfriend is two years younger than her. They are both students at the nearby Hamstertown Tech College.They sat on my couch playing games on devices all weekend.
Okay, that's not entirely true, but it's pretty close. They came out for two and a half days and brought 3 computers, a smart phone, and a tablet with them. I'm not sure I had a conversation with either of them sans device except when I got my sister baking with me. Even when I did that, her attention span is so short that I can only get her to do quick and easy jobs, like mix these things and fill this pan. I cut all the bananas into little pieces because that was the boring job.
For a while, she did her online homework for one of her classes, which produced much complaining. I cooked every meal this weekend for them with nary a thank you, and some interesting commentary on what they eat at school.
I mean, I love my sister, and we do have some similar ideas on teaching pedagogy and she's helping me make an infographic summary page for my syllabus next semester. However, we did some quick comparisons (my kitchen staples are eggs, onions, tomatoes, and bread and hers are milk, sugar, and soda), and I'm consistently amazed at the college life and wonder how I ever survived it. It is really interesting though to get that first-hand experience of what my snowflakes are like on their off time. Especially tech generation snowflakes.
Then, I get to send them home. To their classes. I should have sent along sympathy cards for their professors.
I'd kill to have students hooked on their computers like that. I taught a junior how to copy and paste today (story forthcoming). They're technophobes who have been taught that reading and computers will make you fat. They're very very good at outdoorsy stuff, and in some ways I appreciate that, and they can sit down and do things the long way, but OMG READ A BOOK OR LEARN TO CLICK A MOUSE ALREADY.
ReplyDeleteWow, I can't get my students off their devices, so my experience is completely opposite to that of My Little Proffie. Mine WON'T go off to do outdoorsy stuff. When I told them we'd be having class outside, they complained that there was no wi-fi available for the hour-long class. I wonder what the difference is in our experiences.
ReplyDeleteState? Maybe? Mine beg to have class outside... though I refuse. One, we can't take the school's laptops out there. Two (and more importantly) all six times I've taken a class outside I've been shit on by a bird. EVERY TIME.
ReplyDeleteSounds a bit like my Thanksgiving. When the four younger kin (all adults) all checked their cell phones in mid-conversation at the table, I said, as casually as I could, "I thought we might have a screen-free visit today." They shot me looks, glanced back at their screens, and -- I swear -- tracked them with their eyes back into their pockets. Like a lover jogging to keep up with a train as it pulls out of the station.
ReplyDeleteDitto also on the attention spans and their not being able to figure out how to help.
Was our generation (mine being Boomers) that bad? Any Silverbacks care to comment?
There are people from the 40+ age group who have the TV going all the time, even if nobody is watching, even at parties or when guests come over. This manifestation of the problem goes back decades, of course. I see it a lot abroad as well, but the frequency varies by country. We're sitting there having coffee and the gaddang TV is blaring away stock prices, car chases, detergent commercials, etc. Of course our gazes are sometimes drawn to it. It is not only a time suck, but an everything else suck - mind suck, conversation suck, friendship suck, people suck.
ReplyDeleteWhile visiting cousins I saw neighbor children come over to play. They brought some toys - DVDs.
Yes, this certainly isn't just our students. I have chastised friends (late 20s, early 30s) who constantly check their texts during lunch. I'm sorry, but if you actually want to get together and catch up with me, then keep your damn phone away. I find it the pinnacle of rudeness.
ReplyDelete@CiT ... forget rudeness, how about a pinnacle in narcissism?
ReplyDeleteI am a tail-end Boomer who, growing up on Star Trek re-runs, eagerly awaited the wiz-bang devices it foretold!
I have a laptop, smartphone, and most recently a tablet (which I am loving!).
Still, unless I am expecting a communication on an urgent matter (for which I give advanced warning), all devices go away when interacting with other humans.
I have a FB page that began only because it seems the only way to get manufacturer coupons nowadays (srsly, I have to "friend" Chex?). My FB friend list only expanded after some deaths in the family which brought far-flung relatives back together.
But the audacity of the navel gazing I see some people engage is just staggering. No, I do not need to know what you've had for breakfast or how much you LERVE Angry Birds.
That there are people out there chasing their 15 MB of fame is sad and pathetic.
@Eskarina. Silverback report. the "time sucks" I recall fondly are having a beer (or two), playing pool, talking a walk--always with others. To me they were more social than checking the status of one's FB 680 "friends." Okay, I'm starting to sound really old!
ReplyDelete@AdjunctSlave. You're right about television. For that very reason, my spouse and I have two sets: one in our bedroom and one in the basement tv room. When we have guests and students over, usually someone asks, "you don't have a tv?" because the sets are not "public."
@Aware and Scared "chasing their 15 MB of fame" is freaking brilliant.
My parents don't own a TV. They do have a computer, and my dad (who has a PhD in physics) built it.
ReplyDeleteMy OH's parents just bought their fifth TV. There's one in the living room, one in the kitchen, one in the basement, one in their bedroom, and now one in the den. Every time I walk into their house, I think of _Fahrenheit 451_ and how Montag's wife is pissed at him because they only have three walls of their house that have screens--she wants the fourth one so badly.
The OH and I have one TV, and since we have a very small house, it's in the living room. It's freakin' huge (47" flat screen) and I'm OK with it. We got rid of cable years ago, and we only watch TV on DVD or Netflix.
As for devices--I don't have a smartphone but the OH does. Last night, after dinner, I had to say something when the OH turned it on to check his email--we hadn't even cleared the dishes. Not good. I got upset when my younger sister gave my 7 y.o. her smartphone so that she could play "Angry Birds" and my kid, who I am having trouble encouraging to read, got addicted to it. In less than a day.
Needless to say, screen time is severely limited at our house, but I don't know how much longer we're going to be able to hold back the tide. Our minivan *came with a DVD system*. We told the kids that it's broken. I've already had to tell my MIL twice that the 7 y.o. does not "need" (and cannot have) a NintendoDS. But now homework (something called XtraMath) is now online.
I don't think I'm going to win this one.
I was startled at a recent visit to the local Chili's restaurant: there are now portable digital devices on every table that allow you to call the server, order dessert, split the check, pay the bill, play games, etc. In the area of the restaurant where my husband and I were sitting, there were only two other tables where the couples were actually talking to one another "face-to-face" as opposed to interacting with the computer screen. Everyone else...kids, parents, teens, undergrads, and even some "silverbacks" were enraptured by these devices. I'm with Aware and Scared: everything is off when dealing with real human beings.
ReplyDeleteBut to bring it back to students, I find that my students are very adept at using these smartphone technologies, apps, etc. but have very limited understanding of actual computer programs used in educational settings like Microsoft Word, the library database, email, etc. I know that on some level we need to "meet them where they are," but shouldn't they also trust that we know better sometimes and meet us where we are?
Oh, wait...I'm back to coddling again. How did I do that?!
FWIW, I've yet to see a retirement home without at least one TV blaring in every room. Usually Faux "News." But yeah, I think my students would explode if they ever had to go without their phones for a day.
ReplyDeleteOf course, to be fair, I'd be a bit twitchy if I went without the internet for a few days. When I have work to do I have to close my browser so I won't distract myself. Speaking of which...
@Liz Imbrie Several years ago, my college did away with the "computer literacy" course and proficiency exam when all students were passing. But I too notice that fewer and fewer understand any programs other than what's on their cells. We are considering revising the course!
ReplyDelete@Aware and Scared....
ReplyDeleteHrm, I'm not sure that narcissism plays into my own incessant message checking.
My old job ground it in our heads that we had to be available to students all the time. Out with friends? Really? Don't you feel guilty for not fixing that problem somebody had RIGHT THEN? And no, my students did not and do not put that same pressure on me (and if they do I smack 'em down for it), it was purely from the administration. If we didn't have phones or weren't comfortable giving them the number then we were expected to go to campus every day to check our mailboxes for messages. Tea party that jazz.
Getting a smart phone while I was on the job market allowed me to keep my job, keep in touch with students, and do the crap the admin expected me to do. In some ways that was freeing and a relief to me--I can go anywhere, do anything, and still do my job. Whew. Less guilt. I worked at that place for 6 years (crazy? Yes. Of course, they paid for the end of my degree and I got crazy experience that I used to land my current gig and they paid adjuncts very well) and it's going to take time to break the habit.
Oh yes, this is certainly something wrong with academia (and any job that asks us to be in touch 100% of the time).
But is it about ME ME ME ME ME? Heck no. In the back of my head it's about "God, shouldn't you be working now? Shouldn't you be grading now? Shouldn't you be answering questions now?" The pressure and guilt are somewhat neverending and were BEFORE I got the device that allowed me to deal with it on the go. I'm working on breaking the habit, but it will take time in my nice new department to lift the fear that was instilled in me before.
When I ask students who seek to volunteer as lab hamsters whether they have any experience at programming computers to do anything useful, they get this faraway look in their eyes. Can you calculate things on a spreadsheet? No? Make a computer talk to a gadget in the laboratory? No? Program anything in c? fortran? visual basic? python? perl? java? Anything at all other than using bad software someone else wrote? No? You are not suitable lab hamster material. I need someone to analyze this hamster fur texture data or change the code which controls the hamster fur loom. You are no use to me whatsoever.
ReplyDelete@MLP
ReplyDeletePoint taken ...
However, I would still assert that it is indeed narcissism at the core of your most horrendously intrusive employer's policy ...
They capitulated to the snowflake narcissism of students by employing the narcissistic conceit that admin can feather their own nests by selling out the faculty with a "the customer is always right" mantra.
It's all one big hamster wheel of narcissism.
Many of my students don't know how to use Word because they're using GoogleDocs to do their word processing. Anyone else have this experience?
ReplyDelete