Just a Touch Away From Reality

The current era has made each waking hour a productivity race against the clock. Life is supposed to be a marathon so why does it no longer feel like it? Time flies.“The average American spends an equivalent of 44 years…[or precisely] 382,652 hours and 44 minutes” on screens "over the average adult lifespan of 60.7 years" (VisionDirect 3). All that time used to be for going out with friends, having meals with family, or maintaining genuine relationships with one another. Now it has been sucked into the devices that continue to make instantaneous around-the-clock networking possible. Technology has become intertwined with our lifestyles. Every job or career relies on technology now. Heavy reliance on gadgets makes people see the benefits but blind to the costs because there is no consumer warning about how it negatively impacts us. Instead of reading expressions, people have become accustomed to reading text which sabotages physical communication: the function that sets humans apart from all other life forms.?

?????We use devices for work, recreation, travel, and education at the expense of our sense of humanity. Senior data scientist Christine Aylett wrote an essay sharing psychiatrist Robert Waldinger's findings from "a 75 year study on adult development conducted by researchers at Harvard University. They found that the most important contributing factor to happiness was healthy, genuine relationships. Those who were more socially connected were happier and healthier. [The] social interactions through technology tend to be superficial, isolating, and less genuine than face-to-face interactions. [They can eventually become] detrimental to our well-being and overall happiness."(Aylett 4). In addition, Michigan State University’s social media and neuroscience lab conducted three studies that all “[demonstrate] that...problematic [social media] users become more risk averse after experiencing negative decision outcomes ”(SMN Lab 7). The unhealthy tendency to avoid risk hinders learning, innovation, and social engagement. These are all the ingredients that develop functional humans able to traverse a world full of risks. Higher-order thinking is also affected by being behind screens most of the time. "Our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined...according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles." (Wolpert 1). All these findings indicate the cost of our dependence on tech. Drinking too much water can kill. Sleeping too much can deteriorate health. Too much technology extremely constrains our time and thus our life span. Digital networking, as the primary form of contact, has started to hinder the ability to be socially engaged. But it has also made education more accessible than it has ever been. Employing this technological property to integrate the current education system with courses about how technology affects human social psychology can enable people to understand the dark side of tech. Generating a curriculum that includes human-technology interaction (HTI) coursework will allow future generations consciously choose how they will allocate their time and attention in a social environment shrouded with distractions.?

?????Living as a student almost my entire life has taught me that the emerging generation has horrible attention spans. I have had several moments where I missed vital knowledge in class that cost my grade. Microsoft Canada’s consumer insight lead, Alyson Gausby, commented that "[she] would have thought spending more time online or with media in general would heighten one’s ability to filter out distractions. [But that is] not the case”(Microsoft 2). Everyone carries pocket-sized social environments engineered to catch and maintain attention. With so much information taking up mental space, most may think they are being productive when they are just busy. Computer scientist, Cal Newport, brought out in his book Deep Work that "it’s important to focus intensely on the task at hand while avoiding [distractions] because [that] is the only way to isolate [relevant neural circuits] enough to trigger useful myelination. [Basically], if you’re trying to learn a complex new skill...in a state of low concentration(perhaps you have your Facebook feed open), you’re firing too many circuits simultaneously [to isolate] the group of neurons [you want] to strengthen”(Newport 37). Being constantly overloaded with information only makes life more strenuous. As a student, maintaining harmony between social life, a part-time job, and academic pressure is already hard. Professional life is even more difficult because it demands strong communication and efficient learning skills to produce. Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, brought out that we are in a world where computing power is “almost limitless, where the true scarce commodity is…human attention” (Microsoft 3). That begs the question; Is anyone truly performing at their best? Technology may improve our lives because it makes tasks efficient and effortless. Advances in the industry have allowed people to do more than what used to be possible. Unfortunately, we are unaware of the technological infrastructures that dictate our days down to the second.

?????As a student, I have had time to research the technology behind business intelligence. Data visualization, customer data analysis, and data management are a few computing systems that go into the marketing that allows Big tech to profit off attention. Businesses incentivize their product design by sales metrics, not ethics. Microsoft’s attention span research was not for providing individuals with information about the downsides of the highly digitalized world. It was to improve their marketing team in grabbing attention, embedding calls to action, being interactive, sending sequential messaging, and building cohesive, immersive experiences across screens (Microsoft 4). Those “cookies” that websites ask you to allow are text files that keep track of your activity on computer systems. Corporations collect that data to update algorithms to learn your habits. That is how people become exposed to content they regularly interact with and are kept engaged. This relationship between advertising and technology is one of the main culprits behind deteriorating social skills. Patrica Greenfield, the Children Digital Media Center director of Los Angeles, conducted a study that evaluated a control group to another group of students in a camp that restricted the use of electronic devices to compare their abilities to read human emotions. “The implications of the research [was] that people need more face-to-face interaction, and that even when people use digital media for social interaction, they’re spending less time developing social skills and learning to read nonverbal cues.”(Wolpert 14). Psychologists from the birthplace of the internet recognize that technology is costing humans their social aptitudes. As a society, we must be responsible for the well-being of the common good. Learning about the impact of technology on a social-psychological level can aid the preservation of social intelligence. Battling this toxic side effect of the modern age starts by fighting fire with fire. Technology has put humans in a socially disadvantaged and educationally superior position. So, implementing HTI coursework from elementary to high school may not be such a tall order given how flexible life has become with computers.?

?????These days, resource centers lay in the palm of our hands. If someone does not own a desktop or laptop computer, an iPad with a keyboard will do. If that is not possible to obtain either, a smartphone does just fine. I have completed essays, slide presentations, and research on my phone. It may not be the best, but it is astonishing how much power we have sitting in our pockets. The rising popularity of MOOCs (Massive-open-online-courses) has inspired my proposal of integrating HTI classes into the existing education system. Companies like Google and Amazon have designed professional certificate courses that prepare people for high-level jobs in the tech industry. MOOCs have opened opportunities for people in data science, web development, and software engineering. Platforms such as Coursera even offer graduate-level courses from universities like Stanford at affordable prices just a few clicks away. Some may argue that HTI may displace time for learning about foundational subjects. But society has had to understand technology and do their homework since the 70s. Opposing views may mention the issue of funding that can arise due to equipment requirements because some schools can not afford the latest hardware. The solution lies in developing software that aids educators in teaching their students about both sides of the tech coin. That route can be cost-effective, accessible, and adaptable. If all else fails, documentation of the course in textbook volumes can enable lesson plans without technology. Regardless, software tends to be the better option. It would be one-time purchase access rather than bulk orders of books. In addition, that would allow current educators to conduct HTI. That would save school districts money on recruitment. Initiating several benefits for emerging generations can take a click of a download button. So how would HTI help preserve physical interactions?

?????HTI would be a course that studies human-technology interactions through communication, presentation, and critical thinking exercises from a social-psychological perspective. Instructors would not have to dedicate too much time to training meetings since it would be similar to software such as Google Classroom or Canvas. At the elementary level, students would have interactive sections introducing HTI topics at the appropriate learning curve. Simple interactive videos, take-home assignments, and assigned periods away from devices as homework would encourage good tech habits. Then the course would move into a seminar approach as they become more advanced. Communication, presentation, and research exercises would become the bulk of their assignments at the middle school level. These would coincide with English courses nicely since students start writing essays and reports around grade seven. When they reach high school, HTI becomes more nuanced because students can choose some of their courses. Their HTI education would satisfy ranges of interest from computer science, physics, and literature. For example, if students take biology or psychology, there would be HTI exercises specific to those class syllabi. Rather than having HTI as a standalone course, the coursework would be threaded through the curriculum.?

?????This may be a possible future of education moving forward. Now it is time to understand our responsibility as individuals and citizens of society. As Uncle Ben said, “With great power, comes great responsibility”. The tools at our fingertips maximize what humans are capable of. It allows us to continue pushing the envelope further by the day. Learning about how the digital age has changed life for the better and worse enables everyone to see the whole picture of what is happening around us. The choice to decide how we live still exists. We can be checked out of reality or cultivate a better one. Either outcome is just a touch away.

????? Works Cited

Aylett, Christine. “The Impact of Technology on Social Interactions.” LinkedIn, Christine Aylett, 3 Jan. 2018, https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/impact-technology-social-interactions-christine-aylett/.?

Direct, Vision. “How Much Time Do We Spend Looking at Screens?” Visiondirect.co.uk, Visiondirect, 11 Oct. 2022, https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/blog/research-reveals-screen-time-habits/.?

Gausby, Alyson. “Microsoft Attention Spans Research Report.” Scribd, Microsoft Canada, 2015, https://www.scribd.com/document/265348695/Microsoft-Attention-Spans-Research-Report.

Meshi, Dar, and Ezgi Ulusoy. “Psychology of Addictive Behaviors - Smnlab.msu.edu.” Social Media and Neuroscience Lab, Michigan State University, 30 Jan. 2020, https://smnlab.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Meshi_2020_PsychAddictBehav.pdf.?

Newport, Cal. Deep Work. Grand Central Publishing, 16 Jan. 2021.?

Wolpert, Stuart. “In Our Digital World, Are Young People Losing the Ability to Read Emotions?” UCLA, UCLA, 12 Mar. 2018, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/in-our-digital-world-are-young-people-losing-the-ability-to-read-emotions.

Wolpert, Stuart. “Is Technology Producing a Decline in Critical Thinking and Analysis?” UCLA, UCLA, 9 May 2019, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127.?