Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet asked the great question, what’s in a name? This simple looking question dug deep into a romantic plot that has fascinated people, young and old, for over 4 centuries. So much more was involved than just a name. Ultimately the question became one of choice between life and death. Are you willing to die for the one you love?
Today, what we used to call a cellphone has rapidly changed to mean much much more than a device to talk to someone while out of the home or office. Today, the cellphone is a mobile smartphone, a superphone or more accurately, a computer in our pocket that keeps us connected to information, the internet, friends and family while on the move. We can be online all of the time.
This is the curse or technological gold medal for a society hooked on convenience. We are never free from anyone. There is no down time. We constantly receive messages, data, advertisements, texts or telephone calls without any break.
The good news: we are always connected and can choose when and to whom we reply or get information we need, instantly. The trick is to resist the urge to constantly check for emails and text messages.
The big question is this: can we turn the thing off?
In the Vancouver Sun today, Calvin White recognizes cellphones as a symbol of the computer era of the new Millennium. They allow us to bring everything stored on the home computer with us …including the addiction many have to email and to a computer screen.
The article emphasized high-school students and a number of effects of cellphone-related addictive behaviour such as less and shorter concentration, preoccupation with peer dramas, anxiety, bullying, social discord disguised as communication; the superficiality of knowledge gain; the abbreviation of thinking skills; the decline in writing depth and skill; the substitution of instantness for meaningfulness; false intimacy and in some cases victimization.
The question comes up about what role do schools play in the proliferation and usage of social media? A second question might also be aptly asked, “What role does literature and history play in school and society?
I would suggest that one problem for teachers and parents refers to the speed of the social changes technology has brought and not having enough time to digest it, understand it, manage it and then teach it. Who really knows what this all means and where technology is driving the entire world? Parents tend to be isolated and alienated by social media and all it brings because they haven’t used it and do not know the negatives or the positives.
A second problem for teachers and parents is a philosophical one. What is the purpose of an education? What are governments doing and how do they see the educational process?
More and more, it appears to me that the purpose of public education is vocational rather than educational in the context of promoting deep thought about society, history or an understanding of the complexities of life. Instead, the goal is employment. What jobs are available for today’s youth and how best can young people be ‘educated’ to fill the tax paying vacancies provided by industry and government.
More and more educational institutions including universities and colleges have become degree/diploma dispensing machines in which you insert the necessary dues and fees at the top and they pump out more or less qualified workers for specific jobs at the bottom.
For example, neither the teachers nor the students taste the timeless fruit of Shakespeare’s poetic interpretations of history and human nature because they are in such a hurry to teach the basics – Math, English and computer skills.
There is no question there is a great deal to learn as technology in many ways complicates the process rather than simplifies it. And, of course, the parents and students have to buy expensive high-speed up-to-date computers along with the pocket devices that support a commercially successful industry that profits immensely from the compulsive addictions to its proprietary software and hardware.
The advertisers relentlessly tell us we need the technology and cannot live without it. In many respects, Facebook and the Internet have devolved to selling merchandise and services rather than opening a useful and credible link to the accumulation of knowledge, promoting thought and understanding – tools that lead to harmony and respect in the world rather than crime and hatred.
Susan Jacoby in her book The American Age of American Unreason (2009), lamented that much of history previously recorded by extensive letter writing has already been lost by condensing the rich details of feelings, life’s experiences, reflections and interpretations of the world down to 40 word twitter messages and two sentence emails.
Clearly, effective communication is not possible without clarity of thought, an open mind, and the tolerance and acceptance of others that education and knowledge can and should bring.
