Growing up digital

1. Running Head: GROWING UP DIGITAL 1
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 Information Age, also known as the Digital age, has dawned; Generation Z,
sometimes called the iGeneration, is immersed in a digitally-integrated world; They live
in a world that will never know a life without smartphones, tablets, or Google. Most of
this generation could navigate a smartphone before they could speak. The future looks
vastly different for this generation than anything we could have imagined forty years
ago. 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.
The children of the Digital Age are the future of our world; one could say they are
the next metamorphosis of humankind. This is simultaneously a terrifying prospect and
an amazing prospect, a dichotomy embodied in a generation that will be making
decisions that will profoundly impact the course of society. There is great benefit to the
changes taking place in our world, in human brains, how people function, interacts and
communicate; likewise, there is also a potential for disaster. The taxing job of
Generation X, who were born before the internet, and Generation Y (millennials), who
were born at the cusp of the Information Age, will be to bridge the gap and to help
Generation Z take full advantage of the beauty of the times they are growing up in; as
well as, help mitigate the possible consequences of an era they are ill-equipped to
navigate without said intervention.
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Changes in the Brain
The first change to look at due to technology in the Digital Age are the changes
taking place in the brain. There is research being done regarding technology’s cause
and effect relationship with changing the brain. The brain is very malleable, especially in
children. Learning occurs when repetition, focus and concentration activate synapses
and new neuron connections grow; scans of brains show that heavy technology use,
activates dendritic activity and changes pathways in the brain. It is a proven fact that
technology does change the brain and this effects how people connect with the world
around them. Jane Healy (2013) in her book Endangered Minds addressed 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 take quite a bit of activation and repetition to convert
those connections, which cannot happen with the fast-paced, multitasking, highly visual
environment. Students are not equipped to sit still and listen for long periods. Healy
(2013) suggests that the education system needs to be reformed to better educate a
population that is coming to them with brains that learn differently than previous
generations. She says that we “must also accept and capitalize on the fact that today's
children come with new skills for a new century” (para 9). Students are prepared to be
constructors of knowledge, rather than passive receivers of information, and need more
hands on, project-based work.
Likewise, Neil postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, gave his
concerns about media’s effects on the brain. He related television (technology) to a
child’s game of peek-a-boo. Postman (2005) said that the television called into being a

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“peek-a-boo world” where events and images just popped in and out of existence
across the screen in rapid succession; 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. Nor is it a good
way to get real information or meaningful content. The situation with technology is so
much more pervasive now than it was when Postman wrote about his concerns. The
current technologies allow people to have this content streaming on multiple devices,
passively taking in information 24 hours a day if desired. People are being inundated
with information from the internet, television, their smart phones and social network
sites.
Being so immersed in technology, 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 or switch between tasks quicker, and make decisions on the fly.
That is how their brains are now 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. They do not take the time to be engaged and process
information so as to achieve real learning, nor do they do not spend the time necessary
to think critically in order to make good decisions. These changes in the brain can
impede their school work, performance on the job, and their ability to create, as well as
maintain, meaningful relationships. This can cause issues and misunderstandings in
multigenerational settings. Many people are just too distracted by all the diversions,
interruptions and digital noise to be quiet and still so they can take time to think deeply.

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Distraction
No one can blame people for being so distracted, they have so many screens,
devices, and technologies vying for one’s attention it is hard not to become distracted.
This becomes a compound problem if one’s brain is wired for distraction. As technology
becomes more and more pervasive, it can become impossible to find the time to
engage in deep thinking and focus. Availability of technology can lead to another issue,
which is that people, especially young people, can become addicted to the distractions.
Matt Richtel (2010) explains why in his article Growing up Digital, Wired for Distraction.
Richtel describes that part of problem is “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 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; distraction is killing our ability to focus and practice self-control. It’s a vicious
cycle, that one must break, or better yet, avoid. Self-control is needed to fuel the

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engagement that leads to academic success. Unfortunately, without intervention, digital
natives are not wired for this self-control.
Without the self-control to stick with a task, multitasking or rapidly switching
between tasks becomes a habit of the mind. The issue with 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 on the phone,
texting, instant messaging, and possibly trying to get their work or their school work
done, all while rapidly switching between tasks, the results are lost threads of thoughts;
these threads that are pruned by glial cells in the brain, due to weak electrochemical
stimulation. 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, while trying to handle
multiple tasks simultaneously, things get lost between the short-term memory and the
long-term 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, is that society has become highly mobile;
so conditioned to immediacy, young adults are more likely to change jobs, spouses,
friends, houses, or where they live posthaste, neglecting deep thought for possible

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ramifications. This is perfectly normal and acceptable to them yet can become another
source of friction with someone of an older generation, either in their family, at school or
at work. There are both pros and cons to mobility. One consequence of a mobile
lifestyle, is danger of doing away with the roots that our ancestors toiled to establish. On
the other hand, as Maggie Jackson talks about the mobility of the young adults coming
up in the information age, a benefit is the ease of taking their work, classes, friends or
family with them wherever they go. This is easily made possible via the internet on
laptops, tablets, smart phones, computers. 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 anywhere in the world that they desire. However, as
Jackson further 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 multiplicity of technological
devices, people often neglect time for the real-life experiences that used to bring people
together; those real-life experiences are what help to build lasting, meaningful

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relationships. The family used to be the main training ground for building meaningful
relationships and working through issues. Now families are fragmented to the point that
even when they are physically together they may still be separated by technology.
These families can be seen all the time in restaurants, everyone still around a table
together, but each with their face in their own devices, sometimes even several at once.
Kids growing up in such a manner, are more likely to move away from their family and
lose those deep connections and support systems all together. Family relationships do
not seem to mean as much for many as they used to. I fear that if people lose the skills
to functions in sustainable face-to-face relationships, that they are in danger of losing
much of their humanity. That ability to bond and build close relationships are an
important part of what make us human.
Public vs Private Information
Another big strain that people 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, and to have one’s voice heard. On the contrary,
it can be a detached, anonymous wasteland, where unspeakable and vile threats await
a person; a place where cyber bullies can attack, abuse and threaten with little chance
of retribution. Decisions need be made about what to share, who to share it with and
how/where to share.
A prevalent problem is how people are more open about their personal lives in
some ways yet closed off in other ways. On one hand, a person might avoid personal
face-to-face relationships, shutting themselves off from family and friends. On the other

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hand, they post very personal information on social media sites, post videos of their
lives, record their thoughts, their triumphs and their mistakes online for the world to see.
This can be very risky. Metaphorically, it’s babies with superpowers, (James, 2009, p.
18) --- they do not really understand the risk and implications of their hyper-
connectedness. Education is needed to teach what is safe to share online, 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; thus, in reiteration, 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 relationships and the information that they share online.
Inadvertently, with all their connectedness online, there is a trend of difficulty being
closely and intimately involved face-to-face with friends and loved ones.
Openness is not necessarily a bad thing; a benefit of this tug of war over public
vs private information is that the current generation of young adults, Millennials, tend to
be extremely collaborative with their openness and cooperative spirit. This can lead to
the achievement of great things; in fact, there has been a lot of great achievements

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already. Social change, in the form of time and energy given freely to open source
programs and coding and bringing people from around the world together to open and
change 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; guiding them in ethics and online
safety, engaging them and channeling their abilities, and use the internet to do great
things.
What We Can do to Help
These are only some of the ways that the internet, new technologies and digital
media are changing the face of our society: the way our brains work and the way we
think and learn; the way we live, interact and relate to one another; the way we
collaborate and share information. There are others. Why does any this matter? This
matters because these things will significantly determine what the future of our society
looks like. The concern is that if society continues on the path, we will be heading into
what Maggie Jackson refers to as the coming dark age; that is an age in our society in

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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). Without these pillars,
the coming generations could lose the ability to make sound decisions, which shape
society. They will be the policy makers, diplomats and leaders in the future. We really do
not want leaders who make split-second decisions and Tweet them out to the world.
Jackson (2009) additionally warns of the dangers that we “…would lose trust, depth and
connection, in our relations and our thought,” (p. 215). Societies cannot be soundly built
without trust, in ourselves and others. Relationships are the glue that bonds us in a safe
relationship with our world, in our communities and societies. We cannot be
hyperconnected and build only shallow, surface, virtual relationships without losing the
trust and depth that intimate, face-to-face relationships offer.
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, look only at the here and now, and look
first 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; a future where members of society are grown to meet specific needs of the
government, are controlled by short-term, immediate needs of self-gratification,

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propaganda, programing, and drug induced happiness and carefreeness. A future in
which we are shut off from the past, and live only for the moment. In Huxley’s future a
person’s role is set at conception, that they follow along through their life. People are
like sheep which are been 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 willingness to give up our control, caving to technology,
that puts us at risk. However, we can help to change this path at any time.
Technology has countless great benefits to offer society and will surely continue
to be a growing part of our lives. One thing that will need to happen is that families need
to model good use of technology and schools will need to develop curriculum designed
to help students navigate these fairly new, rapidly changing issues that the Information
Age has birthed. Similar to the character education and development courses that
schools implemented in the 80’s and 90’s to bridge the knowledge gap exhibited by
latch-key kids, there is a need for developing curriculum to help kids make ethical, safe
and beneficial choices regarding technology and online behavior.
Also, research is showing that delaying heavy technology use the first eight years
of a child’s life, will promote the development and use of critical thinking skills, without
hindering their future technology skills. Many teacher and parents are concerned about
delaying teaching children with and about computers, as they fear it will put kids at a
disadvantage when they reach high school or enter the job market. However, the
research does not coincide with that point of view. Jane Healy (2013) has suggested
that spending more time, at home and school, helping children learn crucial language
and listening skills, is very important during childhood and adolescence; as such would

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help children develop the habits of mind, and the literal brain structure needed to
develop problem solving, critical thinking, and learning skills. Healy further states
(2009):
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).
Healy claims 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
course we are currently on and secure a better future for our children and
grandchildren. This is an amazing time we are living in, but a critical time as well. Right
now, we have the knowledge and the foresight to see what is happening, and still have
ability and time to change the trajectory we are on. However, if we choose to sit back
and do nothing, it could be disastrous for our decedents. The choice is up to each one
of us.

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References
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
Johnson, C. (2014). Growing up digital: How digital culture is changing the way
kids play. Retrieved May 31, 2017, from
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865603829/Growing-up-digital-How-digital-
culture-is-changing-the-way-kids-play.html
Healy, J. (2013). Endangered Minds: Jane Healy. Retrieved June 04, 2017,
From http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/future/creating_the_future
/crfut_healy.cfm
Huxley, A., & Huxley, A. (n.d.). Brave New World ; and, Brave New World Revisited.
New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.
Postman, N. (2005). Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show
business. Penguin USA.
Richtel, M. (2010, November 20). Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction.
Retrieved May 26, 2017, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html?pagewa
nted=all&_r=0