Reflection on CI 4312
When I started this class, I expected to learn about the influence of technology, specifically the internet and social media, on our culture and educational experiences today. I didn’t expect to connect it to the centuries-old practice of meditation and mindfulness.
But that is exactly what I found in our examination last week of digital detox — that my problem isn’t specifically with too much screen time, but with a lack of focus in most areas of my life. Howard Rheingold makes the direct connection between the digital world and mindfulness, with a term “the literacy of attention” (page 32). He explains “I believe that learning to live mindfully in cyberculture is as important to us as a civilization as it is vital to you and me as individuals” (page 1) and further “…a massive shift is taking place in the way we direct, fail to direct, fragment, or time-share our attention in conversations, classrooms, and while walking down the street… we need to explore and understand how to train attention now, so that we, not our devices, control the shape of this alteration in the future” (page 14).
That has been one of my biggest “aha” moments from this class, but I also think differently about openness of information on the internet. Not just our personal information that we decide to share or not to share, but open access to information. Dr. Pazurek talks about this during our class, asking us to consider how would we research scholarly articles without access through University libraries? Rheingold mentions “the Web’s invention (which its creator refused to patent and insisted on giving to the public domain)” (page 20) which reminds me of another historical moment when Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine but refused to patent it. “When asked who owned the patent ‘Well, the people, I would say,’ said Salk”. Should the same hold true for open access to information on the internet — is it right to be locked behind a paywall, or should the people own it?
My learning from this course impacts my views on other aspects of technology as well, including:
Algorithms — which I consider every time I am online now.
Digital privacy — especially those videos we love to laugh or shake our heads at, but at whose expense?
Online activists — most notably then 9 year-old Zianna Oliphant who brought the world to tears speaking to the Charlotte City Council meeting in 2016, and who shares on Twitter “one speech can change the mindset of millions, never doubt the young”.
Connection — unprecedented opportunities to link people around the world, such as CNA making the unlikely connection between ESL students in Brazil with senior citizens in the US
The World Wide Web is a wild, wacky, wondrous place — how will we choose to use it?
Additional Resource:
Rheingold, H., & Weeks, A. (2012). Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge; Massachusetts; London; England: The MIT Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctt7ztdvb
