Cognitive Surplus Reflection

I have to admit that upon first learning the definition of cognitive surplus, basically what people do with their time and brainpower outside of sleep and work, I found the concept quite ironically comical.  The notion is that as society has advanced to a point where we do not need to work every hour of every day and have thus created a society based on 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and the other 8 hours are our cognitive surplus.  My life currently features a job where the 40 hour work week is more like 60 or more, a graduate level college course, 4 children one at that age where any moment you are not entertaining her will result in twice that time to clean up the mess she’s made while you try to do something else, etc., etc.  I truly feel like I’m running a cognitive deficit! However, while I might disagree with the quantity of time, there certainly are free choice moments for all of us.

            The author’s focus in the beginning is in how that free time is spent has changed quickly, radically, and for the most part (from the author’s point of view) for the better.  For many years, that free time was dominated by television.  Television and its output only mode were what people devoted their cognitive surplus towards.  Television created a generation of consumers of what was given to them, first from a small group of networks, and later from an ever growing list of channels.  This was a “receive only” medium, where the user had no interaction with or through the medium and very little reaction to those around them.

            The internet changed that, but even that change was gradual.  At first, even the internet was just another source through which people were served information.  Yes, it was more varied and less controlled than previous media outlets such as TV, radio, and major newspapers, but it was still mostly information to consume.  However, the Web 2.0 revolution has made the internet interactive.  An internet user no longer just consumes information, but interacts with and even produces new information.  Making and sharing new products and information is an integral part of the world online.  The internet has thrown off the yoke of those who controlled the information, decided what we wanted and needed to hear, and decided what was of good enough quality for us to receive.  It also has opened up a whole new world for many….that of the contributor.

            The author makes a strong case that the internet has created a huge positive outlet for people’s free time.  Yes, time can be frittered away easily and pointlessly, but many great things have happened using the net with people donating their cognitive surplus towards many positive projects.  While he cites many of these positive cases, he also points to blurred lines it has created between labor and labor-of-love. While there are far more points in the book, I’d prefer to steer my reflection back to education as those same lines (between labor and labor-of-love) are constantly blurred for educators. All educators devote the required hours each week as prescribed by their “job.”  However, many, if not most, educators devote countless more hours thus making up the labor-of-love part.  Many teachers devote much of their cognitive surplus to their students in one way shape or form.

            Shirkey’s book has many more connections to education.  As one of the many people advocating the promotion of technology integration to education, I’ve heard all the lines about how technology is creating a less personable youth.  “Young people can’t even communicate face to face.  They will text someone sitting right next to them.”  “Kids are losing the ability to make personal connections as their friends are all online.”  These sayings could go on and on.  However, Shirkey makes a powerful argument on page 38. 

People concerned about digital media often worry about the decay of face-to-face contact, but in Seoul the most wired (and wireless) place on earth, the effect was just the opposite.  Digital tools were critical to coordinating human contact and real-world activity.  (Shirkey, pg 38)

Online is part of the real-world and interactions there are just are real as interactions face-to-face, and far more real than any interaction anyone ever had with a TV.  Yes, it is different and sometimes hard for those of us who grew up differently to appreciate, but these connections are still real.  It is time to stop minimizing these connections and begin to foster them and participate in them in some fashion if we are going to connect with the young people of today.

            Another interesting thought I had relating the book to education is the connection between older teaching methods and television.  Teaching and learning used to often be done in a “sit and get” format.  The teacher presents the information, the student takes it in and then tries to repeat it back to the teacher keeping it as close as possible to the original message.  This is strikingly similar to TV where a person is supposed to “sit and get” the message.  The only difference is TV wasn’t designed to give the information back to anyone.  As the internet has changed the way people interact with information, it makes more sense why students seem to increasingly struggle with this older method of teaching.  They don’t want to sit and get.  They want to interact with and be part of the information.  They want to talk to others, create, share, and have a part with the information.  I even see this develop in kids as they age.  Younger students, who often are not online as often yet, are less likely to demand these newer activities, but older students (even much older ones as myself) are starting to expect and almost demand a seat at the table rather than just being fed what someone else decides to feed them.

            I thought the story the author chose to close the book with was particularly apt for those of us charged with teaching the newest generation.  Like the little girl, our students will likely be searching for the mouse.  Maybe we can find a way to help kids find learning to be their labor of love and thus deserving of their cognitive surplus.

The Shallows

            “Technology is our servant but also our master.”  This is just one of the many quotes I felt worth writing down from the book What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr.  This powerful statement is supported by numerous examples in the books of the way technology of today and of the past has helped people in many ways, but has also affected people, their culture, and as Carr argues our brains as well.

            Carr does a great job, in my opinion, of mixing cultural history, anecdotes from his own life and the lives of other authors through history, and summaries of brain research.  Again referencing my teaching curriculum, I always had defined technology as “things a culture creates to improve their lives.”  The idea is that technology is a new and better way to do things that will improve life.  Carr proposes that it is not at all about improving, but rather changing.  The technologies while improving one part of our life, may actually impact our brain in a way that is negative. 

            The internet is not the first technology to do this, nor is it the first to come along and while being embraced wildly by many, be cautioned against by others.  The first example from history that Carr uses is the simple alphabet.  Created by the Phoenicians but perfected by the Greeks, the simple alphabet brought writing to the masses.  Literacy no longer lay in the hands of only a few elites schooled in the endlessly complex written languages of the Egyptians and other early civilizations.  In my classroom this was always held up as one of the great legacies of the Greeks and later the Romans.  However, this book showed some of the concerns raised about this new “technology.”  Socrates cautioned that being able to write things down would diminish the ability of people to store information in their mind.  It is ironic, that decreased memory is also the target of many internet antagonists today.

            The second major focus was on the printing press.  This invention again brought a lot more information to a lot more people.  In opened the door of literacy to those who had not been welcomed previously.  However, it also opened doors many would have preferred to remain closed.  The new printing press allowed anyone to publish information even if not completely accurate or accurate at all.  It also allowed previously disallowed forms of literature to be published.  I was very surprised to learn that there was concerns about pornographic writing exploding during this time.  Again it reminds me of concerns voiced about the internet: too much information, little or no control of what was factual, and inappropriate topics.

            The third major change mentioned was the explosion of media in the mid 1900’s.  First radio and later TV changed the way we got our information and what we did for enjoyment and learning.  Carr doesn’t spend as much time on this as the other areas, but does talk about how these changes again affect culture.  Someone else was back in control of the information and could make decisions about what news we go and from what point of view. 

            In the midst of describing these technological breakthroughs, Carr also takes us through the history of brain research.  His key emphasis was on the way the brain has elasticity.  It also discusses how the way the brain is stimulated controls which parts of the brain are growing and developing more connections and how not using parts of the brains causes the reverse.  The main point he makes is that everything affects our brains, so a major technological and cultural phenomenon will certainly impact the way our brain works. 

            I first of all was impressed that while the book took a fairly anti-internet stance towards its conclusion, it for the most part presented the changes that technology causes as neutral.  Carr doesn’t praise or condemn the changes, rather he points out that we must accept that change does occur.  The idea that at one time books were considered to be the polluters of peoples’ minds is almost comical even though it came from one of the most respected philosophers of all time, Socrates.  Carr also points out the many benefits that have come from technology and that those have to be factored in when considering and inventions value to society.  The bottom line is technology changes our brains.

            As a person fully immersed in the educational world, my first thoughts turn to education and what this means for teaching and learning.  My job is to be the technological leader for my school district, so I’ve always considered myself a strong advocate of technology.  I am, and was prior to reading this book, very aware of how technology has changed the brains of our students.  I’ve read and heard on numerous occasions about how this generation is wired differently.  However, I’ve never considered two very important aspects the author brings up. 

While I’ve heard that our students’ brains are wired differently, I’ve never really know what that meant.  Carr’s summary of brain research and how connections are made was very eye-opening for me.  I now feel like I have a better perspective on how this wiring works, and how it can be trained to be wired differently.  The scary part is our students’ brains are going to be wired radically differently depending on how they’ve grown up.  I’ve always learned that their home life can change how they are wired, but never really thought of how their exposure to technology could affect, for both good and bad, their brains as well.  The digital divide takes on a new meaning and new implications as we may not be able to assume that just by providing technology to our students without that we are going to undo years of development.  However, Carr gives us hope with some examples of how the re-wiring can happen pretty rapidly.

            Probably the most provocative part for me in the book as an educator involved the use of memory in school.  The debates over memorization of facts are a constant battle in schools today.  “Why memorize things when you can Google them?” is a statement that often challenges those that require students to commit things to memory.  I found this quote on page 143 a particularly striking:

The Net grants us instant access to a library of information unprecedented in its size and scope, and it makes it easy for us to sort through that library – to find, if not exactly what we were looking for, at least something sufficient for our immediate purposes.  What the Net diminishes is Johnson’s primary kind of knowledge: the ability to know, in depth, a subject for ourselves, to construct within our own minds the rich and idiosyncratic set of connections that give rise to a singular intelligence.  (Carr, pg 143)

This quote strikes at the heart of Carr’s message in my opinion.  While the internet can be a lot of things and can do a lot of things, it cannot and shouldn’t be allowed to replace the human brain.  While the Net can store lots of info and make it available at the blink of an eye, only the human brain is capable of using that information.  When information is  not stored in the human brain, the brain in incapable of making those rich, deep, and meaningful connections.  Most of the critical thinking we are asking our kids to do is not possible if the students have no info in their brains with which to think critically.  While I do not believe that we need to memorize everything, or even a lot of things that students have been asked to memorize over the year, it is still good for kids to learn things for themselves and possess knowledge.

            While I looked at this book through the lens of an educator, I also found parts of it profound for me personally.  I spend much of my day working on a computer, probably more than most people.  I love technology, but I realize I have become a slave to it in some ways.  While staying connected is great, it makes it very hard to disconnect.  Many a time, I’ve had my relaxing times of which there are few interrupted by and email, text, or phone call about some issue at school.  Most of the time I’m in no position to resolve the problem nor do I need to, but it disturbs my relaxation time which is so scarce for a school principal and father of four kids ages 1-10.  I too have felt what the author described, an inability to concentrate on things, easy distractibility, and just a general state of overstimulation.  Like the author I’ve attributed it to age, the stress of my job, or most likely my four children.  I guess I’ve come to believe that there is something to the case Carr makes.

            So where does that leave me?  The author himself doesn’t offer up any answers, as he admits there isn’t an obvious one.  Should I keep pushing technology for our students?  Should I keep doing what I’m doing personally?  Should I make changes in what my kids do?  There is no easy answer, but I think the closest thing to an answer is a simple word….balance.  I’m not sure the author ever says much about that, but balance is the key to so many things and I think it applies very well here.  Yes, I should continue to push staff members to incorporate technology in their lessons.  Students learn from having material presented in a way that is familiar to them and many are familiar with technology.  Those who are not familiar need to learn those skills as they will be expected to function in a technological world.  Advocating for technology in education doesn’t mean we need to eradicate traditional methods of learning.  Yes, I can embrace technology personally and enjoy what it allows me to do.  However, maybe I need to work on disconnecting and being okay with that decision.  Yes, I can allow my kids to embrace technology, however my wife and I can continue to place limits on them that force them to do other things that will develop the other parts of their brains.   This book opened my eyes to the importance of recognizing that yes technology can serve me, but I must be wary that it doesn’t become my master.