The irony of the lone newspaper outside the door when there is so much information power in the devices in the room.
Earlier in the year, Gary Turk’s video “Look Up” went viral.
In the video, Turk poetically pointed out that our rapt attention to our digital devices instead of one another is killing our relationships. For many it was easy to watch the video and hit “like” (oh, the irony).
Jaime Franchi wrote a brilliant response to Turk “In Defense of Social Media” which echoed my main reaction to Turk.
Since then, I have been paying attention to how the people I spend time with interact with one another and their devices. It’s only the first morning of the ADE Global Institute, but already I am so encouraged by the interactions among the 400 or so ADEs here.
The ADEs gathered at this event are some of the most connected people on earth. We can simultaneously look at phones, iPads, MacBooks, and a host of other networked devices, but looking around at dinner last night, nobody was glued to a device. There were warming greetings of old friends, conversation, laughter, and the tweeting of whistles (middle school teachers…..)
The devices are simply not the problem. The ADEs at this event use their devices to keep in touch, to communicate, to make the world a better place. Without the connectivity of these devices, we would not be able to greet one another in person with the same warm familiarity. Without the connectivity of these devices, we could not collaborate across languages, time zones, continents.
Rather than ranting about social media and phones, perhaps we should focus our time encouraging our students to harness the devices and to feel wonder at the power of the connections devices bring?
What do you think? Did you notice?