Electronic Interaction Is Making Americans Less
Literate
What is the Impact of Cyberlife?, 2008
Jeremy , "Virtual Companionship," , October 11, 2006. Reproduced byRifkin International Herald Tribune
permission of the author.
is the author of Jeremy Rifkin The Age of Access and many other books about the impact of scientific,
technological, and cultural changes on the economy, society, and the environment.
People all over the world are preoccupied with developing new technologies for communicating with one
another, but while people are communicating more, they seem to be having more trouble expressing
themselves. Furthermore, future generations seem doomed to lose emotional attachments with their
fellow human beings. To help with this problem, researchers are trying to develop computerized virtual
characters who can recognize human emotions and respond accordingly. Such technological
pretensions are both sad and frightening.
Over the past 20 years or so [since 1986], we have been preoccupied with developing new ways of
communicating with each other. Our cellphones, computers, Blackberries, text messaging, e-mail and the
Internet connect 25 percent of the human race in a speed-of-light global village.
At the same time that we are connecting the central nervous system of our species in an electronic embrace, the
human vocabulary is plummeting all over the world, making it more difficult to express ourselves. It appears that
we are all communicating more, but saying less.
Declining Literacy, Growing Loneliness
According to a national survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Education [DOE], English literacy among
college graduates has declined dramatically in the past 10 years [since 1996]. Only 31 percent of college
graduates today are proficient in English literacy, compared with 40 percent just a decade ago. Grover J.
Whitehurst, the director of the DOE Institute responsible for overseeing the National Assessment of Adult
Literacy, said that he believes that literacy is declining as a result of the increase in television viewing and surfing
the Internet.
Worse, it seems the more connected we are in our electronic landscapes, the lonelier we find ourselves. A study
by the Kaiser Family Fund showed that American children now spend an average of 6.5 hours per day watching
television, surfing the Internet, text messaging and playing with video games and other electronic media. More
worrisome, the study found that most children interact with electronic media alone.
Our children are losing the emotional attachments that come with face-to-face participation with their fellow
human beings. Nor are American youngsters an anomaly. Children in other high-tech countries are following
close on the heels of their American peers. This new condition can be described as the "high-tech blues."
Virtual High-Tech Blues
Are future generations to be forever lonely? No, say the technological optimists. Engineers at some of the
leading technology cent ...
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Electronic Interaction Is Making Americans LessLiterateWha.docx
1. Electronic Interaction Is Making Americans Less
Literate
What is the Impact of Cyberlife?, 2008
Jeremy , "Virtual Companionship," , October 11, 2006.
Reproduced byRifkin International Herald Tribune
permission of the author.
is the author of Jeremy Rifkin The Age of Access and many
other books about the impact of scientific,
technological, and cultural changes on the economy, society,
and the environment.
People all over the world are preoccupied with developing new
technologies for communicating with one
another, but while people are communicating more, they seem
to be having more trouble expressing
themselves. Furthermore, future generations seem doomed to
lose emotional attachments with their
fellow human beings. To help with this problem, researchers are
trying to develop computerized virtual
characters who can recognize human emotions and respond
accordingly. Such technological
pretensions are both sad and frightening.
Over the past 20 years or so [since 1986], we have been
preoccupied with developing new ways of
communicating with each other. Our cellphones, computers,
Blackberries, text messaging, e-mail and the
Internet connect 25 percent of the human race in a speed-of-
light global village.
At the same time that we are connecting the central nervous
2. system of our species in an electronic embrace, the
human vocabulary is plummeting all over the world, making it
more difficult to express ourselves. It appears that
we are all communicating more, but saying less.
Declining Literacy, Growing Loneliness
According to a national survey conducted by the U.S.
Department of Education [DOE], English literacy among
college graduates has declined dramatically in the past 10 years
[since 1996]. Only 31 percent of college
graduates today are proficient in English literacy, compared
with 40 percent just a decade ago. Grover J.
Whitehurst, the director of the DOE Institute responsible for
overseeing the National Assessment of Adult
Literacy, said that he believes that literacy is declining as a
result of the increase in television viewing and surfing
the Internet.
Worse, it seems the more connected we are in our electronic
landscapes, the lonelier we find ourselves. A study
by the Kaiser Family Fund showed that American children now
spend an average of 6.5 hours per day watching
television, surfing the Internet, text messaging and playing with
video games and other electronic media. More
worrisome, the study found that most children interact with
electronic media alone.
Our children are losing the emotional attachments that come
with face-to-face participation with their fellow
human beings. Nor are American youngsters an anomaly.
Children in other high-tech countries are following
close on the heels of their American peers. This new condition
can be described as the "high-tech blues."
Virtual High-Tech Blues
3. Are future generations to be forever lonely? No, say the
technological optimists. Engineers at some of the
leading technology centers are feverishly working on the next
generation of technological marvels to address our
lonesome high-tech existence. The field is called "affective
computing" and the goal is to create technology that
can express emotion, interpret and respond to the emotions of
their human handlers, and even establish a sense
of intimacy with their human companions. Built-in cameras
allow the computers to detect even subtle changes in
facial expressions, which are then processed in real time,
allowing the computer to recognize the emotional state
of the person.
A growing number of young people find themselves enmeshed
in virtual worlds where make-believe
substitutes for real-life experience.
Rosalind Picard, one of the pioneer researchers in the field of
"affective computing," reports on a study done at
the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] MIT Media Lab. A
computerized virtual person named "Laura" plays
the role of an exercise adviser, helping real-life subjects. Laura
is capable of conversing and is able to use hand
gestures, eye-gaze behavior, posture shifts, head-nods and facial
expressions. Laura, like any good exercise
trainer, provides feedback on their performance, helps them
improve on their regimen, and gives empathetic
verbal and facial feedback.
The reactions of the subjects are revealing. Compared with
subjects interacting with a "non-relational" computer
interface, a number of the subjects—but not all—working with
4. Laura reported an emotional rapport similar with
what one might expect with a real-life trainer.
Other experiments conducted at Stanford University report
similarly positive results with empathetic embodied
computer agents interacting with subjects, leading researchers
to conclude that "embodied computer agents are
indeed social actors in the truest sense of the word 'social,'
capable of forming relationships with users
comparable to those found in the world of human-human
interactions."
It's hard to know whether to laugh off such technological
pretensions as sadly pathological or whether to be truly
frightened. There is no doubt that a growing number of young
people find themselves enmeshed in virtual worlds
where make believe subtitutes for real-life experience. With
"affective computing" looming on the horizon, the
truly lonely can look forward to interacting with silicon
companions, programmed to empathize and even care.
Progress? Surely we can do better.
Further Readings
Books
Thor Alexander, ed. . Hingham, MA: Charles River Media,
2005.Massively Multiplayer Game Development 2
Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, and Katherine E.
Buckley Violent Video Game Effects on Children
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.and Adolescents:
Theory, Research, and Public Policy
Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck, eds. . New York:The
State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds
5. New York University Press, 2006.
Richard A. Bartle . Indianapolis, IN: New Riders Publishing,
2004.Designing Virtual Worlds
John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade .Got Game: How the Gamer
Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004.
David Bell, Brian D. Loader, Nicholas Pleace and Douglas
Schuler, eds. .Cyberculture: The Key Concepts
New York: Routledge, 2004.
Brenda Brathwaite . Boston, MA: Charles River Media,
2007.Sex in Video Games
Paul Carr and Graham Pond . New York: St. Martin's Press,The
Unofficial Tourists' Guide to Second Life
2007.
Edward Castronova . New York: PalgraveExodus to the Virtual
World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality
Macmillan, 2007.
Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby Smartbomb: The Quest for
Art, Entertainment, and Big Bucks in the
. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2005.Videogame
Revolution
Robbie Cooper, Julian Dibbell, and Tracy Spaight . London,
U.K.: ChrisAlter Ego: Avatars and Their Creators
Boot, 2007.
Julian Dibbell . New York:Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day
6. Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot
Basic Books, 2006.
James Paul Gee . New York: PalgraveWhat Video Games Have
to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
Macmillan, 2003.
Henry Jenkins . New York: New York UniversityFans,
Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
Press, 2006.
Steven Johnson Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's
Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us
. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005.Smarter
R. V. Kelly II Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Games: The People, the Addiction and the Playing
. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004.Experience
Brad King and John Borland Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise
of Computer Game Culture from Geek to
. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003.Chic
Raph Koster . Scottsdale, AZ: Paraglyph Press, 2005.A Theory
of Fun for Game Design
David Kushner . NewMasters of Doom: How Two Guys Created
an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
York: Random House, 2003.
Marc Prensky "Don't Bother Me Mom, I'm Learning!": How
Computer and Video Games Are Preparing Your
. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House, 2006.Kids for Twenty-First
Century Success and How You Can Help
Joost Raessens and Jeffrey Goldstein, eds. . Cambridge, MA:
7. MITHandbook of Computer Game Studies
Press, 2005.
Michael Rymaszewski, et al. . Indianapolis, IN: Wiley
Publishing, 2007.Second Life: The Official Guide
Ralph Schroeder and Ann-Sofie Axelsson, eds. Avatars at Work
and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in
. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2006.Shared Virtual
Environments
David Williamson Shaffer . New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2006.How Computer Games Help Children Learn
John Suler , revised version, 2007. The Psychology of
Cyberspace www-usr.rider.edu/
~suler/psycyber/psycyber.html.
Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, eds. . New York:
Routledge, 2003.The Video Game Theory Reader
Periodicals
Susan Arendt "Doctor Urges AMA to Recognize Game
Addiction as a Disorder," , June 14, 2007.Wired
http://www-usr.rider.edu/
Alicia Ault "Turn On, Tune Out, Get Well?" , October 4,
2005.Washington Post
Jack Balkin "Virtual Liberty: Freedom to Design and Freedom
to Play in Virtual Worlds," ,Virginia Law Review
2005.
Celeste Biever "The Irresistible Rise of Cybersex: From Full-on
8. Encounters to Online Dating with a Twist,
Simulated Sex is on the Up in Mainstream Gaming," , June 17,
2006.New Scientist
Kyle Brazzel "Multiplayer Mania: In Some Circles, Tragic
Headlines Have Sparked Alarms About 'Addiction' to
Online Video Games," , March 28, 2007.Arkansas Democrat-
Gazette
Leslie Brody "Can You Be a Video-Game 'Addict'?" , August
19, 2006.Seattle Times
John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas "You Play World of
Warcraft? You're Hired!" , April 1, 2006.Wired
Business Wire "Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet
Users Will Have a 'Second Life' in the Virtual
World by the End of 2011," April 24, 2007.
Edward Castronova "On Virtual Economies," , December
2003.Game Studies
Marcus D. Childress and Ray Braswell "Using Massively
Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games for Online
Learning," , August 2006.Distance Education
Current Events "Living a Second Life: Virtual Worlds Create
New Reality," January 22, 2007.
Sara de Freitas and Mark Griffiths "Online Gaming as an
Educational Tool in Learning and Training," British
, June 2007.Journal of Educational Technology
Julian Dibbell "The Unreal Estate Boom," , January 1,
2003.Wired
9. Economist "A Model Economy," January 22, 2005.
Economist "Breeding Evil? The Real Impact of Video Games,"
August 6, 2005.
Anthony Faiola "When Escape Seems Just a Mouse-Click Away:
Stress-Driven Addiction to Online Games
Spikes in South Korea," , May 27, 2006.Washington Post
Allison Fass "Sex, Pranks, and Reality," , February 7,
2007.Forbes
Alison George "Striking Out for the New Territory," , October
21, 2006.New Scientist
Mark D. Griffiths, Mark N. O. Davies, and Darren Chappell
"Breaking the Stereotype: The Case of Online
Gaming," , November 2003.CyberPsychology & Behavior
Cathy Lynn Grossman "Net Faithful Find Second Life," , April
2, 2007.USA Today
Paul Ryan Hiebert "Games for People Who Want to Change the
World," ,Canadian Dimension
November-December 2006.
Becky Hogge "Virtually the Same as Normal: Many Are Turning
to Second Life Just as It Starts to Mirror the
Real World," , October 30, 2006.New Statesman
Moon Ihlwan "South Korea: Video Games' Crazed Capital," ,
March 26, 2007.Business Week
James D. Ivory "Still a Man's Game: Gender Representation in
Online Reviews of Video Games," Mass
, Winter 2006.Communication and Society
10. David R. Johnson "How Online Games May Change the Law
and Legally Significant Institutions," New York
, 2004-2005.Law School Review
F. Gregory Lastowka and Dan Hunter "The Laws of the Virtual
Worlds," University of Pennsylvania Law
School Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series,
May 2003.
Carrie Levine "Schools, Libraries Finding Second Life in
Second Life: Groups Test Waters of Online
'Metaverse'," , February 10, 2007.Charlotte Observer
Steven Levy, et al. "Living a Virtual Life," , September 18,
2006.Newsweek
David Lipke "Big Game Hunters," , February 12, 2007.Daily
News Record
Regina Lynn "Second Life Gets Sexier," , August 25,
2006.Wired
Michel Marriott "We Have to Operate, but Let's Play First," ,
February 24, 2005.New York Times
PC Advisor Staff "Three Minutes With: Second Life Exec," ,
April 21, 2007.PC World
lvars Peterson "Games Theory: Online Play Can Help
Researchers Tackle Tough Computational Problems,"
, March 17, 2007.Science News
11. Jonathan Rauch "Sex, Lies, and Video Games," , November
2006.Atlantic Monthly
Cynthia Reynolds "Videogame Widows," , January 16,
2006.Maclean's
Bonnie Ruberg "Sex in Games: It's a Turn-On," , June 13,
2006.Wired
Richard Siklos "A Virtual World but Real Money," , October
19, 2006.New York Times
Mike Snider "Video Games Actually Can Be Good for You," ,
September 27, 2005.USA Today
Joel Stein "My So-Called Second Life," , December 16,
2006.Time
Kurt Squire and Constance Steinkuehler "Meet the Gamers:
They Research, Teach, Learn, and Collaborate.
So Far, Without Libraries," , April 2005.Library Journal
Chris Suellentrop "Playing with Our Minds," , Summer
2006.Wilson Quarterly
Aimee Tompkins "The Psychological Effects of Violent Media
on Children," , December 14,AllPsych Journal
2003.
Monica T. Whitty "Pushing the Wrong Buttons: Men's and
Women's Attitudes Toward Online and Offline
Infidelity," , December 2003.CyberPsychology and Behavior
Dmitri Williams "Excessive Online Gaming," , August 18,
2006.Washington Post
12. Dmitri Williams "Groups and Goblins: The Social and Civic
Impact of an Online Game," Journal of
, December 2006.Broadcasting & Electronic Media
Dmitri Williams and Marko Skoric "lnternet Fantasy Violence:
A Test of Aggression in an Online Game,"
, June 2005.Communication Monographs
Wylie Wong "Gaming in Education," , May-June 2007.EdTech
Nick Yee "The Labor of Fun," , January 2006.Games and
Culture
Internet Resources
Andrea Lynn "No Strong Link Seen Between Violent Video
Games and Aggression," ,www.physorg.com
August 11, 2005.
Grace Wong "Educators Explore 'Second Life' Online," ,
November 14, 2006.www.cnn.com
Web Sites
The Daedalus Project Web site: The Daedalus Project is an
ongoing study ofwww.nickyee.com/daedalus.
http://www.physorg.com
http://www.cnn.com
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus
the psychology of more than 40,000 MMORPG players directed
by Stanford University researcher Nick Yee,
an expert on online games and immersive virtual reality. An
extensive library of Yee's reports on the results of
his research and a lexicon of MMORPG terms and abbreviations
are available at this site.
13. GameDev.net Web site: GameDev.net claims to be the leading
online community forwww.gamedev.net.
game developers of all levels, from beginners to industry
veterans. According to its published numbers, over
350,000 developers from around the world take advantage of the
frequently updated developer news,
thousands of articles and tutorials, and active forums on its Web
site.
MMOGChart.com Web site: This Web site provides an
ongoing, unbiased analysis ofwww.mmogchart.com.
the numbers of people participating in MMOGs. Site author
Bruce Sterling Woodcock is an independent
MMOG consultant who has been active with MUDs and a
variety of other online communities since the early
1990s. The Web site provides detailed reports and charts that
describe and illustrate Woodcock's research
into MMOG subscription numbers and growth rates worldwide.
Terra Nova Web site: Terra Nova is a Web log that offers news
and manyhttp://terranova.blogs.com.
contributors' opinions regarding the social, economic, legal,
psychological, and political aspects of virtual
worlds.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2008 Greenhaven Press, a part of
Gale, Cengage Learning.
Source Citation:
Rifkin, Jeremy. "Electronic Interaction Is Making Americans
Less Literate." International
(11 Oct. 2006). Rpt. in Ed. AndreaHerald Tribune What is the
Impact of Cyberlife?
Demott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Gale
14. Opposing Viewpoints In
. Web. 4 Aug. 2011.Context
Document URL
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/Viewpoi
ntsDetailsWindow?di
splayGroupName=Viewpoints&disableHighlighting=false&prod
Id=OVIC&acti
on=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ
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de=view&userGroupName=lincclin_lcc&jsid=97a0e8169c39cea
7416d9723a65d49e4
GALE|EJ3010474211Gale Document Number:
http://www.gamedev.net
http://www.mmogchart.com
http://terranova.blogs.com
1.
2.
3.
Children Are Technologically Skilled
Techology and Society, 2007
Susan , "Has Technology Made Kids Smarter? Education and
the Tech-Savvy Child," Smith Nash XplanaZine
(Online Learning), June 2, 2006. www.xplanazine.com.
Reproduced by permission of the author.
"Tech-savvy kids are adept at managing large amounts of data
15. with technology ... [and] teaching
themselves how to solve problems in an interactive
environment."
In the following viewpoint, argues that children of the
Information Age areSusan Smith Nash
technologically gifted. This interaction with technology and
vast amounts of data has made young people
adept at manipulating and managing information. In addition,
being part of new communications
networks has aided children in developing useful learning and
research skills. is aSusan Smith Nash
contributing writer for , a Web-based magazine, and the
associate dean of liberal arts atXplanaZine
Excelsior College in Albany, New York.
As you read, consider the following questions:
What instructional benefits do modern video games have,
according to Nash?
In the author's view, what do tech-savvy children do with
information that is not immediately relevant to their
lives?
What failures does Nash attribute to the Baby Boomer
generation that are not shared by their modern,
tech-savvy children?
I had an interesting conversation with my son about e-learning
and social networking. He described the way the
Internet makes one think and behave differently than in times
past.
"We're smarter than your generation, Mom," he said. "We've
moved beyond that. We evolved."
16. Could he be right? It occurs to me that Boomer and Gen-X
parents do not quite realize that the Internet,
watching media (including films and television), and playing
video games are not the same passive activities that
they were during or Colecovision days. Video games can be
massively multi-player, soLeave It to Beaver, Pong
playing them requires a great deal of skill, and communication
ability. When they download and edit movies and
music, play games, and communicate with friends, tech-savvy
kids are problem-solving, recognizing patterns,
increasing hand-eye coordination, cataloguing events,
determining cause-effect relationships, predicting
sequences, and more.
Further, as they download music and film, they develop extreme
film and music literacy. Granted, it's not in a
form that is easily tested, and the knowledge gained here won't
make anyone a in the local No Childwunderkind
Left Behind test battery. Nevertheless, they do know how to get
the information. The trick is to turn it into
knowledge, and knowledge that can be used.
Amazing Skills of Tech-Savvy Children
This brings me back to the original question. Are kids today
smarter than my generation when we were kids?
1.
2.
3.
17. 4.
5.
Part of me agrees, for the following reasons:
Tech-savvy kids are adept at managing large amounts of data
with technology. They are also used to
teaching themselves how to solve problems in an interactive
environment. As James Paul Gee has
described in his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us
about Teaching and Learning (2004), when
playing a video game, the average child learns quickly how to
do effective task analysis in a "real-time"
setting and to obtain the necessary information which is
available on-demand in order to achieve the goal.
This is a perfect example of situated, outcomes-oriented
learning, and children of this generation are
extremely skilled at it by age 6 or 7, depending on how long
they've been playing video games.
Today's generation of youth are exposed to vast quantities of
information, and they learn to manage,
classify, use, and dismiss what is not useful to them. While this
is an excellent skill it also may result in
distressingly extensive lacunae; that is to say, gigantic gaps in
knowledge. If the information is not
immediately applicable and relevant to one's life, it is ignored
or dismissed. The positive aspect of this
approach is that the average tech-savvy kid will have
encyclopedic knowledge in areas that interest him or
her. This might include audio files, "cheats" for games, movies
on DVD. On the other hand, he or she may
know little or nothing about world geography.
With the new social networking sites, tech-savvy kids are
18. becoming adept at social development learning,
which has been described by [developmental psychologist Lev]
Vygotsky and others. According to this
theory, people learn through social interaction, and it does not
matter whether or not it is face-to-face or
virtual. It follows, then, that kids who spend hours instant-
messaging or interacting with social networking
spaces such as myspace.com, livejournal.com, xanga.com and
others, will have experienced an accelerated
pace of learning.
Comfort with searching and finding information that helps them
achieve their objectives in a short period of
time is something to marvel at when seeing it in action. Teen-
agers are creating web-based businesses of all
sorts, and have been extremely effective at generating traffic
and revenues. They are also adept at using the
internet to solve logistical problems, and they use Mapquest,
google-earth, UPS tracking, US Postal service
(create your own stamps, etc.) with great success.
Image manipulation is not only easy for tech-savvy kids, it is
also accompanied by the awareness that each
digital image is manipulated, resulting in a worldview that does
not necessarily trust appearances.
Comparing Generations
When one considers how kids have been spending their free
time with information technology, it is no wonder
that they are bored by school. You don't have to be an "Indigo
Child" [especially gifted or advanced children] to
find a 50-minute traditional class where students sit dutifully in
hard chairs behind desks, listening to the teacher,
taking notes, then taking tests, to be utterly stultifying. It is
enough to convince a parent that homeschool or
19. "unschooling" [self-directed learning philosophy] could actually
be better than a structured classroom experience.
Thinking about my son's words, I try to imagine how the current
generation of teen-agers might view their
Generation X and Baby Boomer parents. The words
"narcissistic" and "self-absorbed" occur to me immediately,
as I think of the high divorce rates, the "me generation," the
"yuppies," and bizarre custody battles in which more
concern was given to the family cat and rights to the time-share
than to the kids. I do believe that he has a point.
Boomer generations can be seen as resisting the notion that
everything is always in flux, and that nothing is
permanent; thus one can never be smug or complacent. A failure
to embrace the notion of constant technological
change and upgrades sets up internal resistance to new ideas
and structures. I can see how this could lead to a
failure to communicate in any meaningful way about process
and procedures.
While a great deal of effort is expended in creating online
courses and education programs that will appeal to
adults, operating under the assumption that the adult learner
needs to have the course content presented in a
certain way for learning to take place, perhaps it is not too far-
fetched to say that the same principles apply to
1.
2.
3.
tech-savvy kids.
20. The specific activities required in the lessons will be different,
and the way the material is used will vary.
However, the following three learning outcomes can
accommodate both generations. Upon successful
completion of the course, the student should be able to
Make connections between unrelated and/or related items and to
support the connections with a rationale
based on close analysis of the items;
Solve problems using the material and concepts presented in the
learning module;
Engage in metacognitive tasks and develop skills such as
generalization, classification, and abstraction that
can transfer from one course to another.
In the meantime, it probably would not be a bad idea to start
putting a renewed emphasis on ethics and ethical
behavior. After all, this generation and the one after it will be
taking care of us one day.
Further Readings
Books
Ronald Bailey . Amherst, NY:Liberation Biology: The
Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution
Prometheus, 2005.
Maria Bakardjieva . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005.Internet
Society: The Internet in Everyday Life
David M. Berube . Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005.Nano-Hype:
The Truth Behind the Nanotechnology Buzz
21. Amy Sue Bix Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs? America's
Debate over Technological Unemployment,
. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.1929-1981
John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid . Boston: Harvard Business
School Press,The Social Life of Information
2002.
Benjamin M. Compaine, ed. Cambridge, MA: MITThe Digital
Divide: Facing a Crisis or Creating a Myth?
Press, 2001.
Larry Cuban . Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityOversold and
Underused: Computers in the Classroom
Press, 2003.
Jan A. G. M. van Dijk . Thousand Oaks, CA:The Deepening
Divide: Inequality in the Information Society
Sage, 2005.
Editors of Scientific American . New York: Warner,
2002.Understanding Nanotechnology
Francis Fukuyama . New York:Our Posthuman Future:
Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002.
Joel Garreau Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of
Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It
. New York: Doubleday, 2005.Means to Be Human
Andrea R. Gooden Computers in the Classroom: How Teachers
and Students Are Using Technology to
. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.Transform Learning
Philip E. N. Howard and Steve Jones, eds. . Thousand Oaks,
22. CA:Society Online: The Internet in Context
Sage, 2004.
James Hughes Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must
Respond to the Redesigned Human of the
. Cambridge, MA: Westview, 2004.Future
Institute of Medicine . Washington, DC: NationalStem Cells and
the Future of Regenerative Medicine
Academy Press, 2002.
Leon R. Kass . Washington, DC: AEILife, Liberty, and the
Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics
Press, 2004.
Ray Kurzweil . New York:The Age of Spiritual Machines: When
Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
Penguin, 2000.
Ray Kurzweil . New York: Viking, 2005.The Singularity Is
Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
Jane Maienschein . Cambridge, MA: HarvardWhose View of
Life? Embryos, Cloning, and Stem Cells
University Press, 2003.
Maxwell J. Mehlman . Bloomington: IndianaWondergenes:
Genetic Enhancement and the Future of Society
University Press, 2003.
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Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale.
Source Citation:
Nash, Susan Smith. "Children Are Technologically Skilled." .
Ed.Techology and Society
David Haugen and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press,
2007. Opposing
Viewpoints. . Web. 4 Aug. 2011.Gale Opposing Viewpoints In
Context
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