Turkle and Wesch, Symptoms of the Digital Age

As I read Turkle's "The Flight from Conversation" I couldn't help but compare it to a situation I came across in my basement a few years ago.  My children's computers are placed side by side on a long desk, and they were each sitting quietly at their computers with their eyes glued to the screen.  When I came up behind them and asked what they were doing, they said they were playing together.  Upon further questioning, they told be that their characters were playing together in some seemingly virtual world.  I was blown away as in the old days we used to "play together" by going outside and kicking a ball around and today kids "play together" in virtual worlds where they interact through electronic devices, never touching, actually talking or making eye contact.  I think this is a concrete example of Turkle's "alone together" where my children were expecting "more from technology and less from each other."  This is the new reality of how people are interacting more and more through their devices and less and less in person.  

Once again I think the main message Turkle and Wesch have for us is that our students have changed due to the avilability of information in the digital age.  They way they communicate and interact has changed.  Because of that their priorities have changed.  Who is to say whether these changes good or bad?  At this point these changes are here to stay.  The bottom line is that we have to adapt as teachers to the new technologies and the changes they have wrought in our students.  

Before the digital age there was nothing to distract students.  The only way to get any information was through books or their professors at school.  For many students professors and teachers were a whole lot more exciting to watch and listen to than reading a book.  Along comes computers and smartphones and suddenly students can get whatever information they want exactly when they want it.  Suddenly listening to a professor passing along the information the professor wants to pass along, when they want to pass it along, isn't so interesting or convienient by comparison. 

Now students have the unprecedented opportunity of actually taking the information and doing something with it.  Being able to do something with the information and pass it on to other people, possibly lots of other people, makes it very significant to the students.    This is now the hook, getting them to do something with the information, and actually process it.  It is this, that gives us as educators the opportunity of setting up a situation for much deeper longer lasting meaningful learning.  Wesch definitely sees the necessity of adopting new teaching strategies to take advantage of this fact.