Multitasking vs. Arrogance

After watching a few of the videos on this page, the page on attention & multitasking, I had to really sit down and chew over some of the more important points I came away with. When all was finally digested, I realized that the 21st century, based on what these videos put forth, begins with excuses. Let me explain.

The first video I watched was the one on multitasking. In this video, we see several M.I.T. students try to explain their need to "multitask." I quote the work because it is what the students have labeled it. In reality, however, what they are doing is not multitasking; what they are doing is ignoring their more important priorities for brief periods of time while they glut themselves on less important things. The first few seconds of the video shows a student checking her facebook page while instant messaging various other individuals during a lecture. Be aware that these are M.I.T. students.

Basically, there are four excuses given for why students need to "multitask." These can be divided into two plausible excuses and two terrible ones. The first terrible excuse is given by a student who basically claims that if a lecture isn't stimulating enough, he can only "multitask" or fall asleep. My answer to him is to get out of school now, because he doesn't belong there, especially in M.I.T. Higher education isn't a form of entertainment, it is a place to receive higher knowledge and be trained in skills appropriate for whatever job you plan on pursuing. This particular student did look tired, however, so maybe he doesn't get enough sleep to begin with. Perhaps he stays up too late going to parties, which are obviously a higher priority than those boring lectures that put him to sleep.

The second terrible excuse is given by a student who says that professors should just accept that students "multitask," because they are very good at it. I don't have to say much about this excuse, as the arrogance of it pretty much speaks for itself. She's good at updating her facebook status during an important lecture, so her professor should just accept it and move on without worrying if she understands how Milton is characterizing Eve? I guess his job's just not that important.

The first plausible excuse is given by a student who explains that out of an hour-long lecture, one can't hope to glean entirely new or interesting information, and so one should be able to use the moments when nothing's happening to get other things done that need to be done. This excuse is an interesting one, because it is presented as a responsible way to stay on top of things. There are two major problems with this excuse, however. The first is that there is almost definitely going to be new information in every lecture for a given course. A course lasts 15 weeks, for about 3 hours a week (3 credit course, obviously), and so the professor will probably want to push forward with the plan for the course as smoothly as possible. So if the problem is not that the information isn't new, but that the information isn't interesting, then I direct this student to my answer to the first terrible excuse. The second problem with this excuse is that the things it purports need to be done do not in fact need to be done at all. One person does not need to use the internet, text, or i.m. another during a lecture, unless the lecture requires it.

The second plausible excuse is the only one of the four that is actually somewhat excusable. It is given by a student who says that students will need to be able to multitask efficiently in the future in order to carry out their careers. This is where the notion of multitasking sheds my sarcastic quotation marks, because it is an excuse that actually borders on reason; it is a reasonable excuse. It is reasonable because it considers what will have to be done in the future, and not simply the future of these students’ careers, but the future in general. In the future, everyone will most definitely have to know how to multitask and manage their efforts successfully, and this is due to a large extent because of the rise of 21st century technology. It is still an excuse, however, because it is given to excuse these students’ actions of going onto facebook and texting during class. I’m sorry, but I can’t get over this.

Basically, what I’ve come away with is that students in the 21st century are going to be more skilled in stubbornly coming up with excuses to justify their inappropriate actions than in thinking critically, and that this is the battle that we must fight as teachers. The extent to which we must fight this battle will be gruesome; and if  this video on multitasking in M.I.T. didn’t get this message across, then surely the one on students playing video games in Korea did.

I play loads of videogames. I have a PSP, a DS, an Xbox 360, and many older generation consoles, not to mention the emulated games I have on my computer. Given this, I can understand how addicting video games can get at times. The extent to which the kid in the video plays his computer games is not uncommon, really. I’ve seen the same thing happen to people who play mmorpgs such as Warcraft. My brother, in his senior year of highschool, was obsessed with an online game called Runescape. I myself couldn’t get into this game, but he spent probably just as much time playing Runsecape – if not more – than the kid in the video spent playing his computer games. The difference between the kid in the video, however, and my brother, is that my brother eventually realized how the amount of time he spent playing was affecting the rest of his life. The kid in the video, surprisingly, didn’t give an excuse for his behavior; he simply admitted that he couldn’t help it. This is perhaps the worst thing that stands in our way as teachers, because it is basically the same thing as trying to help a heroine-addict (some games can be very addicting). I suppose what teachers and their school systems should strive to do is give students more of a purpose to their schoolwork, a reason for striving to achieve particular goals.

We have to remember that it isn’t the students who we are fighting; it is the various companies who we are fighting against for attention. If students have become addicts to particular venues of media, then the metaphor extends to portray the various companies that produce this media as the dealers. These companies don’t care how students do in school, or in life for that matter; they just want these students to be alive for their next fix. Unfortunately, this is how businesses work, and business is what runs the present age. The man in the video who talks about technology and laziness puts it best when he mentions that, in the current age, we have a bigger menu of diversions, and that we must find a common ground between the digital media and book-based learning. As teachers, we have to become just as fluent, if not more so, in 21st century technologies (the internet, computer programs, phone applications, video games, film, etc., etc., etc.) so that we can use our knowledge and skills in these technologies as weapons to combat student apathy and anxiety towards what they must learn in school. It’s unfortunate, but we must motivate them first. With some hope, if we’re successful, our students will be able to competently motivate themselves.