Good Media
A Brief Retreat from Media!
Andrea Rock, contributing editor
In our media-saturated world, why not spend a little time this month, taking a retreat from using media, into reading some of the latest books about what the new media may be doing to us, to our children: the quality of our lives, and the possible influence on their brain development. There are a number of good books right now that seem to be based on high quality research:
The Digital Divide: Arguments for and against Facebook, Google, Texting,
and the Age of Social Networking. By Mark Bauerlain, 2011.
The author has compiled a number of previously published articles by a variety of researchers, and organized them, not by pro and con, but by subject areas: The Brain, The Senses, "Learning in and out of the Classroom," "Social and Personal Life," "The Millennials," "The Fate of Culture," and "The Human (and Political) Impact. In the course of reading the different articles, readers will be exposed to both sides of the arguments.
iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us. By Larry D. Rosen.
The author suggests that daily use of technology may change our brains’ ability to process information and relate to the world. This may result in signs and symptoms of psychological disorders - such as stress, sleeplessness, and a compulsive need to check in with all of our technology. Rosen offers proven proven strategies to help us overcome the iDisorder we all may feel in our lives, and he (happily!) does not suggest that we must give up the technology that we love.
Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn. By Larry D. Rosen.
A great book for book parents and teachers, this will help us understand how our technology-oriented children have developed different learning styles, and offers strategies for how to engage them, both in their education and there relationships.
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. By Nicholas Carr, 2011.
The Pulitzer Prize-nominated author explores how our use of the Internet—our response to technology—may be changing the way that our brains become hardwired. Are we and our children sacrificing our ability to read and to think deeply?
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. By Sherry Turkle.
In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity.
Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us. By Andrew Keen, 2012.
As does Turkle, in Alone Together, Keen argues that the more electronically connected we become, the lonelier and less powerful we seem to be becoming.
He sharse front-line stories from such online networking organizations as Groupon, Zynga and LinkedIn.
Enjoy!