I note that, since the recent IATEFL conference in Brighton, there’s a renewed interest in Postman and his views on technology. Someone even seems to have created a Twitter account specifically to regale us with his views on the transistor radio, the hit parade, cyberspace and more. But the point about Postman (aside from the creepy smile) is that he ceased to be relevant a while ago. Postman lived before Web 2.0, before the technology became more useful more creative, more productive and more social.
He may have had some relevance in the 1990s, but I can’t see what he has to do with the realities of 2011. When I see someone posting a link to a video of Postman warning of the perils of ‘cyberspace’, I simply have an image of my dad telling me how destructive those mop-haired so-called pop stars in the ‘hit parade’ were going to be on my life and my education. And yet somehow I survived…
So let’s examine the video that everyone thinks is so very clever…
[ you'll find it as part of this lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uglSCuG31P4 ]
[ Mr Postman wants you to buy his outdated ideas... ]
In his video he relates how he went to buy a car and was informed that he would have to buy a car with cruise control and electric windows. He then labours his famous question, “What is the problem that this technology solves?’ And we all laugh and nod our heads sagely and begin to question the value of these things. But then we’re middle-class people….
Let’s take cruise control. If you’re a middle-class academic you probably drive a pleasant half hour every day to the office where you think clever thoughts about technology. Perhaps you drive the kids to school on the way. Your poor clutch foot doesn’t have time to get tired, even if you’re driving in heavy traffic and changing gear often.
But let’s imagine you’re a long-distance trucker in Australia…
You’re probably paid a lot less than Mr. Postman, you have deadlines to meet, and you can’t afford to take a ‘clutch break’ every half hour over an agreeable latte with your clever academic chums. No, to earn your minimum wage you have to keep driving to the extent the law allows. So what’s the point of keeping your foot on the clutch for all that time? It’s tiring, causes muscular strain right through the leg, and when you’re old you’ll be in constant pain while Postman reminds you how useless it would have been to have cruise control.
And let’s examine the electric windows argument more closely. Again, Postman doesn’t see the point of electric windows, because he’s never had a problem with winding them up. You would have thought an academic could easily have envisaged the following scenario…
It’s a cold, slightly rainy day and you give a colleague a lift. The colleague winds the passenger window down a bit, because he wants to smoke. When he gets out at work, he leaves the window open. And you’re driving off, but the rain gets heavier and it starts to come in through the window. And oh, but it’s cold. You lean over to try to wind the window up, but it’s a bit far to reach easily. But, damn – it’s cold and wet. The road ahead is clear so you take a chance, lean over a little more to wind the window up, taking your eyes off the road for three seconds.
Just enough to knock down the child who is chasing his ball into the road. Now, you see, that wouldn’t happen if you had electric windows. So there’s another problem solved.
This probably sounds glib, but it’s not. The fact that Postman couldn’t put himself in the head of someone having to drive hundreds of miles to earn a living, the fact that he couldn’t envisage a situation in which electric windows might save a life – well, to me it shows a man out of touch with reality, safe in his tidy little academic world, and playing for laughs because it allows the ‘principled tech use evaluators’ a crutch with which to purvey their ill-informed tosh.
It reminds me of a comment over on the dogme group a while back, about the benefits of washing machines when they use so much water and detergent. I’d rather ask generations of people forced to wash by hand than listen to Mr. Postman. They would seem more reliable as evaluators of the utility of such things.
I agree, Gavin. I never use cruise control on short runs, but when I am touring Europe, especially on the French motorway system, I set cruise control to 80mph and just point my car in the right direction. I also use it on all roads where there are traffic spy cameras (I have been caught twice in another car that did not have cruise control). Electric windows are great. Not only can I control the passenger side but I can also control the rear windows. In the current hot spell that we are experiencing in the UK I drive our dog to local shady woodland for his daily walks. He is not very good at opening the rear windows himself, but I can wind them down a couple of inches from the driver’s seat. And, yes, I have air conditioning and satnav in my car too. My satnav device has taken me safely to hundreds of destinations all over the UK and Continental Europe – but I still have maps in my car just in case…
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:18 am
Graham,
Thanks for your comment. I don’t think Postman’s question was at all rigorous – technology doesn’t have to be invented to solve problems – it can be invented to improve things, to make life easier, more enjoyable, more fun, more productive. There are many reasons.
Those who use this example question seem to think it doesn’t apply to them. You might as well ask the same question about the Internet – which all of the Postman fans use with such ease and joy. What was the problem that the Internet solved?
Was it one of research (which we could do before in libraries)?
Was it one of communication (which we could do before on the phone or by letter)?
Was it one of access to news (which we could do before with papers and the tv)?
If they applied the same standards to their own work and leisure life, then they wouldn’t be using the Internet at all – because it really didn’t solve any pressing problems. What it did was make some things easier, quicker and (sometimes) more enjoyable and productive…
Gavin
[Reply]
Gavin, you are a master writter, and I loved reading this as well as many other entries. Sorry, if I’ve swamped your comment here with a long reply, but I hope it serves us all to better discern Postman’s relevance today.
I feel you were a bit unfair addressing Postman’s contribution. You explored what seem to me, “off-topic” examples, so I’ve chosen to employ “off-topic” quotes to frame my response.
——————
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
-Pablo Picasso
——————
We live in an international “consumption-oriented” culture thanks drives most of its citizens to take part in that consumption and production, and whereas there were millions of cultures and artists before, now there are billions of workers…
What are we consuming and producing? The earth… and yet we see the Earth as outside, as external as Nature… and not a part of us.
Postman says:
“Physical reality seems to recede in proportion as man’s symbolic activity advances. Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself. He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artisitic forms, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of an an artificial medium”.
——————-
“Time is the best teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all of its students.” Robin Williams
——————-
I’ve only read “Amusing Ourselves to Death”, but many of the ideas really hit home for me and I don’t view them as outdated. I view that as even more pertinent now than the pre-web age.
If I may so humbly sum up Monsieur Postman, his main drive was abstraction from the natural environment, and media mediums that were “hot” or “cold” and hence demanded more or less of the participants’ own mental resources (hot not requiring much— TV).
Here’s a quote of his own, which I find very important today, though fewer and fewer even question it, though at least Robin Williams can joke about it:
“The clock is a piece of powerful machinery whose ‘product’ is seconds and minutes. In manufacturing such a product, the clock has the effect of disassociating time from human events and thus nourishes the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences. Moment to moment, it turns out, is not God’s conception, or nature’s. It is man conversing with himself about and through a piece of machinery he has created. Post 11… clock 14th Century made us into time keepers, then time savers, and now time servers.”
————
So, as a teacher, I believe postman is important. Real learning is about activating your own mind, and not 1/2 activating by passively soaking up info à la Freire deposit banking approach. This is what I’ve seen Jeremy Harmer refer to as “owning” the langauge… when after enough repetition it becomes active enough to feel natural and “part of me”.
I spent three years in China learning chinese. 10 hours of classroom. No online study tools. No electronic translators. Instead I dove in with hundreds of hours of jokes and questions and activation exploration in the target language. I speak chinese well now, and that is something I’m proud of. Not an easy task, and especially when it’s approached in a passive, abstract, non-engaged way.
I think Mr. Postman would agree, and finally, I think that mlearning, elearning and computers definitely have their place in education, but they should never be more than a tool. We need to keep education focused on people and activating their minds.
Cheers, brad
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:44 am
Brad,
Thanks for taking the time to answer in such detail. I actually chose that video because I saw it used in an otherwise excellent ELT plenary recently. The thing that struck me about that talk was that Postman was followed by Sugata Mitra, and it seemed to sum up the ‘selective’ way that ALL of us look at our work.
On the one hand we have Postman decrying technology, on the other we have Mitra clearly showing that the motivational aspect of technology (coupled with social use – which is something that Postman never really lived to see) can lead – in the case of Mitra’s experiments – to groups of learners constructing knowledge together. In Mitra’s experiments the kids came away with a pretty good English vocabulary from the ‘hole in the wall’ experiment. It would be difficult to argue that the technology played a small part in that, at the very least from a motivation angle, and from the social learning angle.
So, on the one hand we have Postman wailing about the destruction of society due to technology, and fixating on communication and the social side, and on the other we have Mitra quite clearly demonstrating (fifteen years later) that social computing can provide the motivation for groups of people to construct knowledge together. I know which one I take more seriously…
I also read ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’, but for me, a more recent and relevant work is ‘Everything Bad is Good for You’ – we have to examine technology in the light of where we are today, not in where Postman was twenty years ago. We’ve moved on.
If you read ‘Everything Bad is Good for You’, you’ll find that TV these days (and I’m not a huge user) is very much a ‘cold’ medium compared to the rather undemanding ‘hot’ TV of the time when Postman was writing. Compare, say, the plot and complexity of an episode of Starsky and Hutch with an episode of The Wire or Lost to see just how that complexity reveals itself in modern television.
I’m not sure about the clock thing, to be honest. Clock may have disadvantages, and may turn us into servants of time, but I have to conclude that they may just have saved a few lives over time, and performed other useful functions.
I speak Catalan pretty well, or so they tell me. I learnt it from the TV, by watching soap operas and the news every day. No method is inherently better than any other, there are so many other factors to consider. I suspect I could have learned Catalan by retiring to a village in the Pyrenees, but I didn’t – I learnt it from technology, and it worked. I find that I am still able to function with normal human beings, and to have conversations with them without imagining them as TV screens!
While I was writing this, someone posted the following on Postman to my Facebook page:
“In his book, ‘Informing Ourselves to Death’ he appears to conclude that people were better off in the Middle ages were knowledge was controlled by religion in a benevolent way. As we know, this access to knowledge did not extend past the wealthy to women, the poor etc etc.” [ referenced from the Wikipedia entry on Postman ]
Anyway, let’s continue exploring…
Gavin
[Reply]
Brad Patterson Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I’m interested by “Everything Bad is Good for You” but just too busy working on the computer everyday… LOL. No seriously, I’ll check it out right after I finish reading @tarabanwell ‘s book.
How did you learn to speak Catalan while watching TV? Did you parrot what you were watching? I find it hard to develop very good oral skills without some form of expression. This was the major issue with my chinese students— years of students, minutes of spoken english, so of course they’d accumulated language, but they didn’t “own” it.
I think the core issue at hand here is “priority”.
In any of my comments I’m seeing humanity as a part of the Earth, and not as something separate. That’s the prior to any of my thoughts once I start RE-flecting. May seem like I’m off on a tangent, but it’s because I think this is the angle of Postman’s overall direction= awareness, balance, and relying on our intelligence instead of our extertelligence (where inter and exter mean “inner” and “outer”, and lligence (leggere in italian) means to read— hence read ourselves, read the outside world).
I guess I’m a bit “back-to-the-woods” and I find Postman’s philosophy naysaying technological “convenience” and “speed” and “comfort” for a more sustainable way of life. By the way, 方便 and 舒服 are two of the most “over-used” words in chinese— convenience and comfort.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Brad,
I had a basis in similar languages (French, Spanish, a little Portuguese), so I had a head start. Much of the grammar of Catalan is similar to that of Spanish, though it does have a couple of structures from French. Some areas (pronouns, as one example) are much more complicated in Catalan than in, say, Spanish. There’s a fairly wide field of vocabulary differences…
What I did, on arrival, was spend the first two years watching a soap opera, the news, etc. After two years, more or less, I went to bed speaking Spanish, and turned on the Catalan the following morning. I found myself quite fluent, and very comfortable speaking it. I think now my Catalan is way better than my Spanish. I do, of course, have the other great advantage of living in Catalonia…
I met a guy in Turkey once who had learnt all his English from Noel Coward recordings on vinyl. He was pretty fluent and comfortable in English. And he had an amazing accent, too
I’ve not got a problem with “back-to-the-woods” at all. I do have a problem with people seizing on ‘icons’ for specific purposes (ISP) when they clearly are largely irrelevant in terms of their knowledge of technology in 2011, and clearly cannot empathise with ordinary people.
Far from being “off-topic” examples, I’ve seen the car example used in talks, blog entries, online courses and the rest as a principled and humorous examination of our over-reliance on technology – and that’s why I chose to base this blog post on it
For me all it demonstrates is how out of touch the academic thoughts of people like Postman are. He may have had some good thoughts back in the eigthies, but I’ve yet to see him say anything on technology that doesn’t reek with agenda, and whiff slightly of a man out of touch with the common person – and the things that technologies have done to improve his/her lot.
In answer to the question “What was the problem that online environments such as Second Life were invented to solve?” I might point him to various studies on how virtual worlds have helped people with autism develop social skills which have spilled out into their daily interactions.
In answer to the question “What was the problem that virtual learning environments were invented to solve?” I might direct him to an online friend who is quadriplegic and received his degree from a forward-thinking Canadian university in the nineties which allowed him to pursue his studies entirely from home.
Postman’s question is a mountainous nonsense, and always will be…
Gavin
Regarding the problem solving point:
You don’t have to be sick to get better.
This morning I’ll be talking to my parents via Skype. In the past I could do it by phone, yes, but it’s nice to their faces.
Richard
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:46 am
Richard,
Yes – good point! Skype is an example of something that didn’t really solve a problem, yet enhanced an already-existing technology. There are many people around the world who have benefited from video conferencing affordances, not least of which are people with life-threatening medical conditions who have been diagnosed via video link and lived to tell the tale. It’s also good for distant grandparents, etc.
Sure, we could have lived without it – some couldn’t…
Gavin
[Reply]
I’m fairly certain people had similar reservations about fire – and the problems that solves are flaming obvious.
[Reply]
Brad Patterson Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:43 pm
I like the metaphor, Mark. It’s catchy.
And yet, at the same time, is something “good” because it “solves a problem”? Guns solve problems. Dynamite solves problems. Fire is that small spark that gives them purpose, as it is the spark for certain surgery techniques that save lives. A double-edge sword, no?
I’m interested not as much as “good” and “bad”, but what I would call healthy balance. Neil Postman called for a balance of awareness, in the same vein of “Fareinheit 451″ or Brave New World, or even Avatar if we need newer versions of challenge to modern culture.
So, for me the balance we’re seeking is how to interact with technology. I believe it can be a good tool, but becoming to dependent on tools for me is not far from becoming dependent on crutches. I’d like to find more balance and awareness in education, and with that, the right use of technology should be obvious.
[Reply]
I’ve enjoyed everyone’s contributions here. I’d like to add a few thoughts of my own since I might have raised a hackle or two on Gavin’s neck. By the way, I’d like to make it clear that I respect, admire, and enjoy Gavin’s thoughtful approach to using technology in education.
I don’t find Postman to be *against* technology. I believe he asks us to think critically about it’s use and affects on us individually and collectively. Many gobble up whatever is new and shiny assuming that along makes it worthwhile. In a recent Facebook thread, it’s almost embarrassingly obvious how one can fetishize technology. We all fetishize, of course.
It’s a bit beneath you Gavin, I think, to criticize Postman’s looks publicly, don’t you think? In my opinion, you should rely on your intelligent observations rather than sinking into attacks on how someone smiles or combs – or doesn’t comb – his or her hair. Granted, Postman is a public figure, but I wonder if the sort of jab you’ve given his appearance isn’t a sample of the of trite culture Postman thought might arise out of information (sight, sound, etc.) overload in a world with very serious problems.
You often use examples of ill or physically disabled people benefitting from technology. I have no doubt this is true, but the prevalence of such examples appears to be an attempt to tug at heartstrings more than appeal to reason. I have no problem with such argument, and I might well settle for Skype if I couldn’t see my family at my death bed. But do we have to go there? Again? Now I know how you must feel when people bang on about Postman.
As a former truck driver – Suprise! – I can appreciate the convenience of cruise control. And I take your point about technology making some things easier and more enjoyable. But you seem to stretch just as awkwardly as does the guy reaching to roll up the window when you search for what seem to be rather off the wall examples of problems solved by technology. Something more substantial might drive your point home.
You’re right, Postman was not an academic fellow, probably even an intellectual like Noam Chomsky. He might have been out of touch with das Volk, but are middle-class people in touch with intellectualism? Never the twain shall meet? There is definitely an anti-intellectual strain in the U.S., and I think it’s spreading across the world, but that’s another topic. I write that as a non-intellectual, of course.
I’ll try to read “Everything Bad is Good for You” when I’m done with my Georges Simenon novels. I look forward to reading less ad hominem arguments about Postman’s ideas from you and others, too.
Brad, loved the Picasso quote. He did say growing up was easy but growing down was not.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Rob,
Fair point about the physical thing – it’s just I do find his smile a bit creepy, personally – and I do find him slightly more than smug in the particular video I was referencing. It’s a use of comic timing that seems to suggest that he’s just a little bit more clever than we are. Call it personal bias, for which I humbly apologise. As for hackle raising, mine don’t get raised too easily, so you can sleep easy in your bed
I find Postman, in that particular video is extrapolating a very simple argument, and doing it obliquely. What he’s really saying is that he has no use for cruise control and electronic windows – the way he does it is to expose these things to ridicule, and I really do think that that kind of thinking is beneath him.
I do agree that critical thought around technologies is a very useful thing, and I do hope that I apply that kind of process to my engagements with tech, as evidenced by my re-thinking on things like Second Life, Twitter, etc. Had he put his argument more clearly, and without recourse to ridiculing people who do have a real use for any single technological change, I might have given him more time.
However, his base argument doesn’t work because – I suspect – you could take any sort of technological change and dig out real life examples of how they do solve problems for certain people. The fact that they don’t for others is immaterial.
The examples I use are designed to ask people to rethink their positions on technologies. If Postman is acceptable in that arena, then surely I am. When I was spending a lot of time with Second Life I endured (along with many others) a certain amount of ridicule for ‘playing in a cartoon world’.
The fact that it does (and has) helped people suffering from autism is a very fine example of how you can turn around the ‘silly cartoon world’ view if you consider people who are, perhaps, less fortunate than ourselves – or who really do find in them a solution to a problem. That Postman can’t appreciate that does seem to suggest a lack of imagination or empathy, and I make no apologies for those real-world examples.
I don’t think they’re off the wall examples – people suffer from autism, and my friend in Canada gained a degree thanks to technology. Cruise control benefits millions of people every day. I don’t see how any of this is ‘off the wall’, reaching, or stretching a point.
George Simenon sounds much more fun on a rainy day than arguing about Postman or, indeed, editing online courses
Gavin
[Reply]
Sorry about the sloppy post everybody. I won’t go into excuses. I meant to say Gavin is right that Postman IS an academic fellow.
Cheers,
Rob
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 22nd, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Rob,
In my reply I managed to make Georges Simenon English…. There’s room for error, I reckon
[Reply]
Hear hear, on this conversation. Glad to learn a bit more about your language past, and all the different methods out there.
Oh… but we disagree ! Where to go now… I spent a few months climbing mountains in 2006, and Postman’s “mountainous nonsense”, in a similar opened up the “doors of perception” for me in a new way.
But, as we’ve all said many a times when we come to a fork in the road: “to each his own” ! Though, I must admit I prefer the chinese expression: 萝卜白菜，各有所爱 Has a nice rhyme and rhythm to it while philosophizing:
“Radishes and cabbage, each has its own lover”
cheers, b
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 9:22 am
Brad,
Indeed – what I like about blogs is how they allow many viewpoints to simmer and develop over a few days, and the conversations are both gratifying and edifying. Not sure which I’d choose of the radishes and cabbages – maybe both…
Gavin
[Reply]
Brad Patterson Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 11:31 am
i agree
[Reply]
[...] Secondly, as Ken Wilson mentioned in his workshop on “10 things I think I know about teaching and learning”, there’s a serious ground-leveling effect with the Net today. If you don’t agree with some of the “bigger names” in ELT, tell them. I wrote 3 big ol’ long comments on Gavin’s blog yesterday because I disagree fundamentally with his view of Neil Postman and technology use in Education. [...]
Hi Gavin,
I was also at the same excellent ELT plenary recently and I recall thinking the mention of electric windows was a bit out of place. I can see how, for many people if not all, cruise control might be one of those things that people coo over at first only to use a couple of times and never touch again (as happened to me with 3G video calling on mobile phones and the chat box on Facebook).
One thing I did take away from that clip (probably not what the speaker intended but nevertheless an important observation) was the fact that, according to Postman’s account of the sales pitch, the salesperson ‘ploughed on’ (to briefly quote another excellent ELT plenary I saw recently) and continued to highlight the features of the car despite the line of questioning from his ‘awkward’ customer. This struck me as a good analogy for those teachers who continue regardless with their set methods and resources, regardless of the (lack of) reactions from their students.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Dave,
Yes, I think certain things have a very short shelf life, but I do believe most ‘examples’ only really suit the person wielding them (as in the case of Postman, electric windows and cruise control) – had he thought of other people, he might have been able to answer his own question.
Good observation on the second part – and I couldn’t agree more – listening to our ‘clients’ is an important part of what we do.
Gavin
[Reply]
DaveDodgson Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Just realised that the first paragraph in my comment is unfinished! I was going to add that I see electric windows as very useful indeed and I think the fact that most cars now come with them as standard, at least in the front of the car, is a clear indication that the technological innovation has been embraced.
To follow up on your internet example, for me mobile technology didn’t particularly ‘solve any problem’ (other than the ones created by other technology!) However, I find the capability to store and view pdfs and other documents necessary for my studies on my little tablet device to be very convinient – much better than lugging my laptop around or printing out reams of paper for something that may or may not turn out to be relevant for reference in an assignment.
Perhaps the question is not ‘what problem does this solve?’ but rather ‘what opportunities does this create?’
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Dave,
If only Postman could have formulated such a sensible question, we wouldn’t need to have this conversation – I agree entirely: to examine the affordances and opportunities of any single thing seems a much more mature, balanced and less sneering way of looking at it.
Gavin
Since posting my glib comment about fire above, two things have happened. 1) I have screamed with frustration at my iphone because it used to boot me off the internet randomly (this being the reason for my comment being post twice – didn’t realise it had actually gone up the first time because i was booted off at the critical moment. 2) My iphone has been stolen. Suddenly loads of problems aren’t being solved any more. So, my conclusions are: 1) Appreciate what technology does for us and accept it might not run perfectly all the time, and 2) It’s a problem if civilisation isn’t advanced as we want it to be and technology is solving that problem – you really notice it when it’s taken away from you. No longer can I play chess with strangers in other countries while I’m sitting on the bus. Harumph.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Ah yes, technology can be annoying sometimes… I tend to adopt as zen-like an approach as I can to things that have cables… Mostly they work, and when they don’t, there are plenty of other things that I can do with my time. Not quite the same with having your tech nicked, though – and I sympathise, I truly do.
Don’t you go telling the Postman acolytes that problems aren’t being solved
See, playing chess with strangers whilst sat on a bus seems like a great thing to do, to me – bit of intellectual stimulus, a grand game, contact with other cultures. What’s not to like?
Gavin
[Reply]
I once heard Postman criticizing the spell-check feature of MS Word. He had told his students he didn’t need spell-check because he was able to spell just fine. I think that’s a fine example of what could be considered ‘sneering’ and not thinking of others.
Mark, sorry you’ve lost your iPhone. Just out of curiosity, do ever chat with your fellow passengers? I don’t mean that sarcastically, by the way, I’m genuinely interested to know.
Rob
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Rob,
Chatting to passengers is probably a very culture-bound thing. I know in London it’s not the done thing, though once I did get a while carriage laughing and having a chat, but it’s generally pretty tricky. As for Postman and spell check, just another example of a man out of time…
Gavin
[Reply]
no, i don’t initiate conversations with my fellow passengers. I worry they might think I was trying to steal there technology. If someone else talks to me though I’ll happily have a chat. Better than chess. I got off with someone on a bus journey once. Technology didn’t precipitate that! Unless you count the bus of course.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 9:39 pm
I do count the bus
[Reply]
Gavin, chatting with strangers on the bus is obviously going to be culture-bound, which is why I’d asked. I don’t know where Mark rides the bus. So it’s London then? Would like to have you tell me (off-blog?) how you got the people on the bus laughing and chatting.
The example I gave (spell check) was to show I understand your point of view even if I don’t agree with it entirely.
Rob
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Rob,
Actually a few of us were bored with a man having a very loud conversation with his girlfriend in the carriage – on his phone. At one point he said “I’d better get off, I think I’m annoying everyone”, and I said “Well, it would be more interesting if we could join in” So he laughed and handed me the phone, and I had a chat with his girlfriend, and then a couple of others did and then he put down the phone and a whole bunch of us got talking. It was both funny, and very unusual for London.
We don’t have to agree, for sure – but not using a spellchecker (if you’re an adult) is a nonsense – why do we keep taking tools away from people to ‘test’ them, when they’re going to use them in their real lives? What’s that quote about education calling ‘cheating’ what the workplace calls collaboration?
I can see the value of kids learning to spell and do mental arithmetic and all the rest, but no point in wasting adult time on such trivia.
Gavin
[Reply]
Their, I mean. Spellcheck can’t spot certain errors.
[Reply]
Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 25th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
I’d almost swear you did that on purpose, to prove a point
I do believe people should learn how to spell as kids (see my comment above), I just don’t believe in turning off useful tools as adults. If we do things that way round, we’ll all know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’ but we won’t need to spend hours proofreading when a machine can do it almost as well…
Gavin
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I am not anti-technology nor anti-spellchecker. Watching co-workers type with the spellchecker on, however, I often observe how they rely on the machine in a way that, to me, makes them less cognizant as writers. It’s as if they just throw some words up in the hope that Master Spellchecker will sort out the mess.
As for language learners, adults or children, I’m not sure spellchecker does them any favors.Perhaps there’s been some research on this.
Funny story, Gavin. Are motorists allowed to use handheld phones while driving in London?
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Rob,
I’m wondering why you watch people people typing now…
I’ll take me as an example – when I was a kid, I had a spelling test every Friday with the headmaster of my junior school. I was pretty good at it and always scored well (that was back in the days when you’d do this kind of activity and you would then be told your ‘reading age’. Poor science, I suspect). So yes, I learned to spell well, and I do sincerely believe everyone should do, too.
As a forty-seven year old adult I reckon I still spell well, but I don’t touch type and sometimes I suffer from a kind of keyboard dyslexia, which transposes certain letters in certain words.
I can’t see any earthly reason why I should produce writing with those kinds of errors (writing which is often going to a third party) when there’s a little bit of software to catch them for me and correct them. It’s not like I don’t know how to spell the words, it’s just that I’m a poor typist…
I wonder if there’s any research to back up your suggestion that a spell checker makes people ‘less cognizant as writers’?
I think you have to be hands free on a phone in the UK, but can’t be sure because I haven’t lived there for over twenty-one years.
Gavin
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Gavin,
Why do I watch people type? Friends and students tell me I’m generally more observant (perhaps even ‘perceptive’?) than the average person, so that could play a role. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time working on grant proposals and formal emails with colleagues, both of us seated at the same keyboard.
So it’s not that I strut around a room full of students, slapping a ruler in my hand as I go, hovering over their every keystroke. I’ve actually never watched a student type, not closely anyway. Maybe I should though.
You’re forty-seven?! It’s a wonder you can see at all, much less type.
Knowing you don’t touch-type is very encouraging to me as an aspiring writer because I often tell myself I’ll need to become a better typist if I’m ever going to crank out my manuscripts. Don’t hold your breath, by the way.
Your use of the spell checker is much like mine, based on what you’ve shared, but I know plenty who rely on the grammar and spelling correction tool as more than a proofreading tool. Then again, I’m in a country that spends relatively little on education because so much money is used to free (read: bomb) the hell out of the rest of the world. Forgive my sardonicism.
Research would be interesting in this regard. It might be worth a Google Scholar search.
So you still know all about bus culture in London but not car driving? How’s that? Here it’s typical for people to ‘over share’ on the bus, and more often than not passengers exiting the bus thank the driver if the driver doesn’t thank them first. I ask you: If we can be that civilized on a public bus, why can’t we have more than two weeks vacation and universal healthcare?
Rob
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Rob,
Fair enough – those seem like good reasons to watch people typing. As for touch typing, I wish I’d learnt a long time ago, but I think it’s too late for me – too many bad habits to get rid of, and no patience when it comes to doing the boring typing exercises a la Mavis Beacon. Still, I’m pretty quick with about 3.5 fingers per hand, and quite accurate, too. I just wish I could look away from the keyboard and converse with people whilst typing – like the clever people do!
As for your country – well, it’s not for me to comment, really! I visit the UK at least six or seven times a year and have an intimate knowledge of the vagaries of public transport in a few cities, especially London. I imagine you’d need to be hands free on a mobile when driving though – health and safety laws in the UK are draconian to the point of ridiculousness…
I’ve always found Americans to be the epitome of good manners and civility, but yes – it probably takes more than that to make a country great….
Gavin
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“I’ve always found Americans to be the epitome of good manners and civility…”
How ironic! I think most Americans would say the very same about Britons whether they’d been to England or not. I chalk it up to all those PBS (our only public channel) programs featuring posh people sipping tea and saying things like “M’mah, Lord Thornbury shan’t be joining us this evening. Such a pity.”
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 26th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Rob,
Yes, we’re all like that
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I really liked Sue Palmer’s plenary with her point about young kids needing to stay away from screens of all kinds for the first few years. She’s not down on technology, and just as into games like online chess and whatnot to stimulate us all, she’s just exceedingly wary of very young kids getting wired, whether mobile or hooked-up, in every sense of the word. I frankly agree. Her take on Postman was:
“As Neil Postman, the essayist, put it, literacy slows down the brain, slows down the mind, it makes you more civilized, more thoughtful, more rational. Electronics, Postman said, speeds up the mind. Now, can I just say I’m not knocking electronics. Love it to bits. But let’s make sure our children can read, write, listen, play – real play, not fun play! – before we start them on it!”
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 28th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Anne,
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, I reckon – I believe that balance is important where kids are concerned, and I’m interested in how people balance out screen time, book time, eating time, playing time and all the rest. However, in this day and age, I see no reason not to introduce kids to screens at an early age – they will end up using them.
As I said elsewhere on another blog: when I was a kid I spent a large part of my time in my room, reading books, in silence, lost in an imaginary world. These days I might spend a large part of my time in my room, reading a screen, chatting to people around the world, lost in the wonders of the global community. I wonder which is preferable.
I’m sure Postman must have said something sensible somewhere, within the bounds of what technology offered when he was active, but the video which everyone loves is a nonsense because it shows no understanding of the lives of others, and no empathy for the lives of others.
I might defer to him on literacy (he may well have known much more about it than me) – but what on earth do people think kids are doing when they’re reading and writing on screen? What are they doing when they read story books on an iPad? What’s the great difference between Postman’s dead tree literacy and twenty-first century screen literacy? In many ways kids are reading and writing more than they ever have…
This report from the BBC had some interesting figures in it. Many people knocked it because it was kids judging themselves, but there’s still a lot to think about, including, as one example:
“Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing,” Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, told BBC News.
“Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries.”
Mr Douglas dismissed criticisms about the informal writing styles often adopted in online chat and “text speak”, both of which can lack grammar and dictionary-correct spelling.
The more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills.
Jonathan Douglas, National Literacy Trust
“Does it damage literacy? Our research results are conclusive – the more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills.”
Children who use technology are “better writers”
Gavin
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Anne (and others reading),
You might be interested in this:
“Critics from the left and right can both agree with some of the broad proposals the report makes: to slow down and allow children to develop according to the pace of childhood, not the pace of technology; the idea that ‘choice implies limits—and the option to say ‘No’ ‘; and a recognition that ‘technology is not destiny; its design and use flow from human choices.’ It is not enough to teach our children to use new technologies; we must also teach them to think about where those technologies come from, what they are encouraging them to do, and whether they promote or stifle genuine human achievement. This is common sense, too often ignored by those in the thrall of new gadgets, theories, or fads that promise to make educating the young painless, efficient, and fun.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/debunking-the-digital-classroom
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Rob Reply:
April 28th, 2011 at 3:21 am
One more item of interest:
“This simple point, however, keeps getting lost amidst the furor over electronic media and children’s learning. The empirical evidence suggests that electronic media are no different from any other teaching tool—good for some things, bad for others. The work ahead is to discover the nuances of this truth—in essence, what is beneficial, for whom it is beneficial, and when it is beneficial.”
http://futureofchildren.org/futureofchildren/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=32&articleid=57§ionid=263
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 28th, 2011 at 9:17 am
Rob,
Can’t argue with that at all
Gavin
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On Everything Bad is Good for You:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/playgrounds-of-the-self
Scroll down to “The Self-Flattery Curve”
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Gavin Dudeney Reply:
April 28th, 2011 at 9:16 am
Rob,
I’m wary of any publication published by an organisation with a name like the ‘Conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center…
Note how one avid reader on this website recommends it as good reading for the following person asking for recommendations…
“… What’s worth subscribing to? I’m not necessarily looking for U.S. publications exclusively, but I’d like something sympathetic to what we call Conservatism here in the states. (e.g. low / no taxes, aversion to gay marriage and abortion, etc). Also I’d like to stay away from religious magazines as much as possible (not compelling for me).”
What are the quality magazines..
Hmm…
Anyway, it is a blistering attack on anything modern, isn’t it? it almost sounds a bit like Postman bemoaning the end of society as we know it, when the computers take over our thoughts and that. I was alright with the snide hits at Johnson, but Gee? I wonder if they even read that book – which, as many have noted, is extremely thoroughly researched and sensibly written. Even the dogme folks like that one…
Rob, I’m not sure – this is a multiple-page ‘why I don’t like games and TV and stuff and it’s all killing literature proper’ diatribe. The Postman always knocks twice…
Gavin
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The Dudeney abides…
As you’ve mentioned before, there needs to be room for a range of opinions in discussions. Notice that the person whose comment you cite also reads The New Yorker. Other magazines mentioned are Reason and The New Review. There’s also mention of The Spectator (UK), the current issue of which features a cartoon you might enjoy since you made a comment indicating you the the health and safety regulations in Britain are too strict.
With the exception of the New Yorker, these are indeed conservative publications; however, they are as intelligent and articulate as it gets in (US) politically conservative circles — can’t speak for The Spectator –, which, while perhaps not saying much, says something.
I’m sure you wouldn’t agree with all comments from readers of the ‘progressive’ blogs I subscribe to either.
And, yes, it is a ‘blistering attack’. I too was surprised to find Gee among the list of ‘perpetrators’. I cited his work on discourse analysis and The New Work Order often for my thesis. It’s possible the writer just doesn’t like Gee’s political views.
Rob
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Gavin,
That must’ve been an unwitting nod to a band I’ve sometimes enjoyed listening to (‘The The’).
Rob
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[...] Wait a Minute, Mr Postman… [...]
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