Larry Rosen's presentation on the effects of technology in an increasingly technological society was fascinating. He has conducted numerous studies on how technology effects how we learn, process media, communicate, sleep, feel, and who we are. A few of the things I felt he and his studies communicated clearly was that our increasing use of technology encourages us to task switch regularly. (I would like to note that I opened a tab after this sentence because I got bored.) Our constant need to task shift can impede our ability to efficiently complete time consuming tasks-- I'm now surfing youtube videos. While I agree with some of Rosen's points, I felt that some of his studies didn't necessarily support the claims he was making.
I got the impression that Rosen was a dedicated and well trained psychologist, but also that he contained a bit of a negative bias for technology's grip on our lifestyle. I felt that his bias sometimes led him to draw conclusions that weren't necessarily available in his evidence. Unfortunately I don't have his studies in front of me, so I feel a little uncomfortable making such a strong criticism, but I'll talk about his presentation as I can recall it.
The first thing I remember feeling that he misrepresented was his brief section on values. He didn't cover this extensively but he mentioned that our generation has adopted a different value system because of our technology usage. The one value I clearly remember is that unlike our previous generations, we would like to return home after college. I found it strange that he both left the impression that this change was a result of technology, and that it was a value he found uncomfortable. Although he didn't present the data that he used to draw these conclusions, I find it difficult to believe that our technology usage is the cause of our changing values-- especially this one. I would be inclined to think that we want to move back in with our parents because the economy is awful and it's hard to find a well paying job.
While he might have been a little bit off on the values claims it wasn't the focus of his research so I'll let it slide, but when he presented his experiment on our attention span and studying, he seemingly reached for the claim that more technology usage results in a lower GPA. Rosen was careful in how he phrased it, stating that the only correlation between GPA and the study was that students who interrupted their studying by using technology had lower GPAs on average. While this is a true claim in and of itself, I feel that his presentation was geared toward leading us to the conclusion that technology makes us task switch and task switching means a lower GPA!!! More technology = unsuccessful and stupid!? While I felt like this linear thought process was implied in his presentation, I did not feel it was entirely supported.
Rosen showed no data as to whether or not the kids who did get distracted surfing the web use technology any more or less then his most focused participants. Many of his focused participants could have been his biggest technology users, but because of other factors in their home life, had been taught how to study effectively. Given how he presented the study, I got the impression he gather data from the home without taking in some of the most crucial variables of home life. I'm sure the kids who knew how to study effectively also had parents around with the time to show them how. I wouldn't be surprised if the kids with lower GPAs on average came from more stressful household environments and maybe had parents who had to work nights or were just plain inattentive.
I may be on to something, or I might just be blinded by my bias, poor memory and lack of information. I wish I could look more closely at the work he did, but I certainly couldn't focus long enough to read his book. Overall I think the research he is doing is good and important but he should make his personal feelings less apparent in his analysis of the data collected.
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