As I sit down to write this post and start to organize my thoughts, I realize a few glaring details.
1. The tv is on and in full view.
2. YouTube is sharing screen space with my blog page and is streaming a music video. This is what I am listening to right now: Kenny Chesney- Pirate Flag :)
3. My phone keeps flashing text messages and Facebook alerts.
What does all of this add up to?
Well....I must be part of that illusive group of tech savy people that I am reading about for class.
Which leads me to my next thought: Why do I need to read about something that I should presumably know all about? Because, while I, and likely those of you reading this blog, know that we mutitask at almost every level of our lives, we don't take the time to sit down and actually analyze why we operate this way. We just do it. We were raised in a generation that had computer class in elementary school and we had cell phones by the time we hit high school. We have always been around technology and don't know any other way.
Within Larry Rosen's Rewired, he found that children that have grown up in this generation of constant contact with technology "achieve higher grades in school, create tech business before they even graduate from high school, and apply to and enter college at unprecedented rates" (2). Though parents of this generation's children worry about whether or not their children have enough socializing skills, they should really realize that you can't compare today's generation to our parent's generation. They were raised in a completely different world. The children of this generation can socialize just as well as their parents did/do, but they just do it in a different way. The sooner that people realize that and move on to ways that can help incorporate that heightened technological ability within this generation and the generations to follow, the better that the children of those generations will be able to collaborate within the classroom and the world outside of the classroom alongside people from all age groups and generations.
Very interesting point, Lauren. I wonder though, are there people in your age group that can't or don't multitask well? I'm always interested if it is indeed a generational thing. Because I do know some people that would be part of the i-generation that don't know technology very well...and are not interested. Just curious what you and your classmates think.
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