Final paper for Big Thinkers in Ed tech "The Benefits and Consequences of Growing Up in a Digital World"

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The Benefits and Consequences of Growing Up in a Digital World
Michelle L Dyer
Western Oregon University

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The Benefits and Consequences of Growing Up in a Digital World
The Digital age is here. The generation growing up right now, Generation Z, are
growing up in a completely digitally integrated world. They will never know a world
without smartphones, tablets, or google. Many of them learned to use devices, game
consoles and computers while they were still teething. Most can navigate a smartphone
before they can speak. These children of the digital age are the future of our world; you
could say they are the evolution of our species. Some say this is a terrifying prospect
and some say it is an amazing prospect. In truth, it is both.
There is great benefit to the changes taking place in our world, in human brains,
the way they function interacts and communicate; there is great risk of consequences
as well. It is the job of Generation X, as the last generation to know the print and the
television age, and Generation Y (millennials), who were born at the cusp of the
information age, to bridge the gap and to help Generation Z take full advantage of the
beauty of the times they are growing up in and to help mitigate the possible
consequences.
This is a look at some of the changes that are taking place in our society, due to
rapidly changing and evolving technology; its effect on people and how they function,
operate and communicate; the benefits and consequences, and what we might be able
to do to make the most of these changes.
Changes in the Brain
The first major change is in the brain. There has been a lot of research done, by
Jane Healy and others, into how technology is changing the brain. The brain is very
malleable, especially in children. Learning occurs when repetition, focus and

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concentration activate the synapse and new neuron connections grow. Scans of brains
show that where those connections are occurring, and what parts of the brains are
being activated is changed by heavy technology use.
It is a proven fact that technology does change the brain, how the connections
are wired, what areas are active, and this effects how people connect with the world
around them. Jane Healy (2013) in her book Endangered Minds talks about how “Fast-
paced lifestyles, coupled with heavy media diets of visual immediacy, beget brains
misfitted to traditional modes of academic learning.” (para 1) The neurons involved in
learning and making memories takes quite a bit of activation and repetition to activate
those connections, and that just cannot happen with the fast-paced, multitasking, highly
visual environment.
Neil postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death related television
(technology) to a child’s game of peek-a-boo. Postman (2005) said that the television
called into being a peek-a-boo world where events and images just popped in and out of
existence across the screen in rapid succession and we have become accustomed to
passively viewing the world and world events in this manner. (p. 77) This is highly
entertaining, like a child’s game, but not a great way to build one’s view of the world, or
to get real information or meaningful content. The situation is so much worse now than it
was when Postman wrote about his concerns; with the current technologies people are
getting this content streaming on multiple devices, passively taking in information 24
hours a day if they want to.
The majority of young adults and children growing up in the information age are
very tech savvy. The benefit is that they tend to think quicker, multitask better, switch

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gears quicker, and make decisions on the fly. That is how their brains are now being
wired. The draw back can be that they have a hard time staying on task and focusing.
They may not have the patience to invest the time necessary in deep thought,
engagement and processing to achieve real learning, critical thinking and good decision
making. These changes in the brain can impede their school work, their performance on
the job, and their ability to create and maintain meaningful relationships. This can cause
issues and misunderstandings in multigenerational settings. Many are always just too
distracted by all the diversions, interruptions and digital noise around them to be quiet
and still, to think.
Distraction
Who can blame them though? With so many screens, devices, and technologies
vying for one’s attention, it is hard not to become distracted, especially if your wired for
it, but even if you are not. However, as technology becomes more and more pervasive,
it can become impossible to find the time to engage in deep thinking and focus.
Another issue is that people, especially young people get almost addicted to the
distractions. Matt Richtel (2010) explains why in his article Growing up Digital, Wired for
Distraction, he explains that part of problem is “Their brains are rewarded not for staying
on task but for jumping to the next thing,” according to Michael Rich, an associate
professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and
Child Health in Boston. (para.7). This chemical reward, similar the reward we get when
we exercise, laugh or have sex, can make it even more tempting to give in to the
distractions. It can be difficult for people to step back from the multitasking and the

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devices and to spend time in activities that require focus, concentration and critical
thinking skills.
Maggie Jackson (2009), in her book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the
Coming Dark Age, points out the dangers of habitual multitasking, she says, “Without
the powers of focus, awareness, and judgement that fuel self-control, we cannot fend off
distractions, set goals, manage a complex, changing environment, and ultimately shape
the trajectory of our lives.” (p. 233) Focus and self-control are needed to avert
distraction, and distraction is killing our ability to focus and practice self-control; Self-
control which is needed to fuel the engagement which leads to academic success.
Another big problem of distraction and multitasking is that a lot of thoughts, ideas
and tasks get lost in the process. The human mind can only hold 3 or 4 thoughts at a
time. When people are reading or watching tv, talking to a friend on the phone, texting,
instant messaging, and possibly trying to get their work or their school work done,
rapidly switching between tasks, we have lost threads of thoughts, withering away and
dying. Jackson (2009) said, “Depending too heavily on multitasking to navigate a
complex environment and on technology as our guide carries a final risk: the derailing of
the painstaking work of adding to our storehouse of knowledge. That’s because
anything that we want to learn must be entered into our long-term memory stores,
cognitive work that can take days and even months to accomplish.” (p. 93) We are
choosing quantity of information over quality. We cannot learn or achieve in this
environment. When we switch rapidly from one thing to the next, and try to handle
multiple tasks at once, things get lost between the short-term memory and the long-term

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memory. The fear is that we may well lose the ability to really use the storehouse of our
long-term memory.
Mobile Lifestyle
Another side effect of the digital age where everyone you know can be taken with
you in your pocket on your smartphone is that society has become highly mobile;
therefore young adults more likely to change jobs, spouses, friends, houses, or where
they live very quickly, and without giving it a lot of thought. This is perfectly normal and
acceptable to them, and is
another thing that can cause friction in their interactions with someone of an
older generation, either in their family, at school or at work.
This mobile lifestyle they have is in danger of doing away with the roots that our
ancestors had. Maggie Jackson talks about the mobility of the young adults coming up
in the information age. The benefit is that they can take their work, classes, friends or
family with them wherever they go, via the internet on laptops, tablets, smart phones,
computers, often doing several at once.
They are not bound by a location. They are not locked into a home base. Their
world is mobile. One consequence is that they are always highly connected, and yet so
detached and removed from people and places in the physical world around them.
Jackson (2009) says, “Detachment is the cost of our wondrous, liberating mobility, the
price we pay for living untethered.” (p.120) These are amazing times that we live in; it is
fantastic that the world has shrunk so far because of technology that a person may have
classmates or colleagues all over the world. People have the freedom to live and work

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anywhere in the world that they desire. But as Jackson stated, that freedom comes at a
cost.
It is hard to say if that cost is high or low. It is only in retrospect that we will be
able to tell how that detachment will affect the future of our society. There is, after all, a
fine line “between rich relations and meaningless hyper- connectedness, between
abundance and chaos.” (Jackson, 2009, p. 37) and many young adults struggle with
how to balance this every day. Our society is so busy with their multiple technologies,
that they don’t take the time for the real-life experiences that used to bring people
together, and help to build lasting, meaningful relationships.
The family used to be the main training ground for how to build relationships and
work through issues. Now families are fragmented. Maybe physically together, but
separated by technology. Everyone on their own screens, often several at once. And
once the kids grow up, they are very likely to move far from family and lose those deep
connections and support systems all together. Those relationships do not seem to mean
as much for many as they used to. I fear, if we lose the ability and skills to functions in
sustainable relationships, that we are in danger of losing much of our humanity, much of
the closeness and bonding that make us human.
Public vs Private Information
Another big strain that we face in the information age is the daily decisions
between public and private information. The internet, with the help of new media
technologies, can be a great place to share with the world; to collaborate, to learn civic
engagement, democratic participation, to have one’s voice heard. It can also be a

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detached, anonymous wasteland, where unspeakable and vile threats await a person,
where cyber bullies can attack, abuse and threaten with little chance of retribution.
The decisions must be made about what to share, who to share it with and
how/where to share. People growing up now are more open about their personal lives in
some ways and closed off in others. They will post very personal details on their social
media. They will post videos of their lives, and their thoughts, and their triumphs and
mistakes online for the world to see, this can be very risky. They are like babies with
superpowers, (James, 2009, p. 18) they do not really understand the risk and
implications of their hyperconnectedness. They need to be taught what is safe to share
online, and what is not, and why.
This is part of the reason why, according to Carrie James (2009), in Young
People, Ethics and Digital Media, the Ad Council created the “Think before You Post”
videos, “to make teen girls aware of the potential dangers of sharing and posting
personal information online and of communicating with unfamiliar people to help reduce
their risk of sexual victimization and abduction” (p. 4) Posting personal information puts
them at risk, and they do not realize the very real danger. More education programs
need to be developed to inform and educate people of the dangers of oversharing.
Many people, especially young people, have not developed the critical thinking
skills to look beyond the fact that it is “just online” and see the possible real-world
consequences for their online line relationships and the information that they share
online. However, for all their connectedness online, they have more difficulty being
closely and intimately involved with friends and loved ones in person, face-to-face.

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Openness is not necessarily a bad thing though. The benefit of this tug of war
over public vs private information online is that the current generation of young adults,
Millennials, tend to be extremely collaborative. With their openness and cooperative
spirit can achieve great things; in fact, they have already achieved many great things,
brought about social change, given freely of their time and energy to open source
programs and coding, brought people from around the world together to change lives
and open minds.
Carrie James (2009) also talks about an online group out of New York called
Global Kids, which is an online Leadership program where youth learn to:
simultaneously build technical, new media literacy, leadership, and civic
engagement skills. Youth participants engage in online dialogues about civic
issues, regularly post comments on a blog, learn to design educational
games and digital films, and play an active role in Teen Second
Life, including its youth summer camp, which brings them together
online to educate one another about global issues, such as child sex
trafficking. (p.2)
Forums like that are great training grounds for youth, to guide them in ethics and safety
online, to engage them so that they learn to channel their abilities and use the online to
do great things.
What We Can do to Help
These are only four of the ways new technologies and digital media are changing
the face of our society; the way our brains work, the way we think, the way we live, the

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way we interact and relate to one another, the way we collaborate. There are others.
Why does any this matter? These four will significantly determine what the future of our
society looks like. The concern is that if society continues on the path we are currently
on the will be heading into what Maggie Jackson refers to as the coming dark age; an
age in our society in which we forget the lessons from past, where we come from, who
we are, and the storehouse of knowledge that we have built-up over time. Jackson
(2009) claims that if we continue to be “Smitten with the virtual, split-split and nomadic,
we are corroding the pillars for our attention: Focus, judgment and awareness.” (p. 215)
Jackson (2009) warns of the dangers of this happening, that we “would lose trust, depth
and connection, in our relations and our thought.” (p. 215) We cannot be
hyperconnected and build only shallow, surface, virtual relationships without losing the
trust and depth that intimate, face-to-face relationships bring.
Jackson (2009) asks “Can a society without deep focus preserve and learn from
its past? Does a culture of distraction evolve to meet the needs of its future?” (p. 215) If
we lose the ability for deep thought and focus, and look only at the here and now, and
look only for instant gratification, how can we continue to evolve as a society to change
the trajectory that we are on.
Jackson (2009) says, “These [questions] surely are the litmus tests of a new dark
age and the challenges we look perilously at risk of failing.” (p. 215) The fear that
Jackson eludes to could be a fear that we will end up in the future that Aldous Huxley
envisioned; one where members of society are grown to meet specific needs of the
government, are controlled by short-term, immediate needs of self-gratification,
propaganda, programing, and drug induced happiness and carefreeness. A future in

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which we are shut off from the past, and live only for the moment. A future in which a
person’s role is set at conception in the tube, and they follow along through their life, like
sheep led from the cradle to the grave, living only to serve the ruling class in the role
that was selected for them. It is not technology that is leading us down the path to this
future, it is our giving up our control to technology that puts us at risk. We can help to
change this path at any time.
We have no hope or desire of slowing down the use of technology. Technology
can benefit students and society, and it surely will continue to be a growing part of our
lives. One thing that will need to happen, is that schools will need to develop curriculum
designed to help students navigate these fairly new, rapidly changing issues that
technology brings about. Much like schools designed character education and
development courses to help bridge the gap in knowledge that so many of the latch-key
kids of the 80’s and 90’s were not getting at home; so we now need to develop
curriculum to help kids make ethical, safe and beneficial choices about how they use
technology and their online behavior.
Also, research is showing that if we can delay heavy technology use until a child
is around 8 years old, the child will have a chance to develop those critical thinking
skills, without their future technology skills being hampered. Many teacher and parents
are concerned about delaying teaching children with and about computers, as they fear
it will put them at a disadvantage when they reach high school or enter the job market,
but the research does not coincide with that.
Jane Healy (2013) has suggested that spending more time, at home and at
school, helping children learn crucial language and listening skills, is very important

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during childhood and adolescence to help children develop the habits of mind, and the
literal brain structure needed to develop problem solving, critical thinking, and learning
skills. Healy (2009) say, “I would suggest that every home and every school institute a
"curriculum" for listening and following sequential directions, as well as emphasizing the
use of language to talk through problems, to plan behavior, and to reason analytically
about such concepts as cause and effect. Deficits in these fundamental "habits of mind"
cause not only academic but also social problems” (para. 5). And Healy points out that
this is going to require children AND the adults in their lives to spend some time not
focused on tv or computer screens; they need together, time away from technology. She
feels that it is our responsibility to do so. Healy (2013) says, “We have a responsibility to
children -- all children -- to demonstrate the habits of mental discipline and attention
necessary to reflect on, utilize, and apply the information they learn.” (para. 6) Children
model the behavior that they see around them. We have an obligation to model
responsible technology use. This one seemingly small act can help change the
trajectory we are currently on, and secure a better future for our children and
grandchildren.

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References
Cerra, A. J. C. (2011). Identity Shift. Hoboken: Wiley. Retrieved from
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wou/detail.action?docID=818145
Jackson, M. (2009). Distracted: the erosion of attention and the coming
Dark Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books
James, C. (2009). Young people, ethics, and the new digital media:
a synthesis from the GoodPlay project. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved
from https://dmlcentral.net/wp-content/uploads/files/young_people_ethics_
and_new_digital_media1.pdf
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kids play. Retrieved May 31, 2017, from
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865603829/Growing-up-digital-How-digital-
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From http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/future/creating_the_future
/crfut_healy.cfm
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Retrieved May 26, 2017, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?pagewa
nted=all&_r=0