Professor Martin Westell’s topic was how technology is impacting on attention, motivation, multi-tasking, learning and work. This posting is to share my notes on multi-tasking, media consumption, evidence-based decision-making, the pace of change looking forward and ways to deal with that. The speech marks are quotes from Prof. Westell.
One surprise for me was to learn that young people are not so good at multi-tasking (e.g. consuming multiple media at the same time). It was surprising in that, a not unusual comment at media conferences is for one of the speakers to talk about their son or daughter’s ability to watch TV, txt friends and update their MySpace/Bebo or Facebook profile all at the same time. As it turns out, that all seems to be something of a myth. Adults in are not so adept at multi-tasking either,but they are better at it than young people. It seems that what people do is to shift their attention from one task to another. So a young person would send an SMS, then check out YouTube, then turn to whatever is on TV – sequentially, not simultaneously. Media consumption is episodic. Check out the research referred to by Prof. Westell
here.
The point about ‘partial attention’ is consistent with the ’scarcity of attention’ phenomenon as observed by Brian Solis.
Adults are better at multi-tasking because they have more highly developed ‘executive functions’ (such as inhibiting impulses and paying attention). Younger people do not have the same attention-holding ability as adults – that probably explains why kids appear to be consuming multiple media at the same time. They just flip quickly from one to another.
On the Impact of ICT
It is important for the ’system’ (i.e educational institutions, service providers, regulators) to understand – at a reasonably deep, rather than surface level – what ICT experiences students have. Where there is a lack of understanding “the system retreats” (eg. where schools ban access to YouTube and social networking sites).
Young people are better at discerning authentic & synthetic messages (eg. after MySpace introduced advertising, some young people left the service).
Socialisation (not information) is now the primary use of the Internet. “It’s not the technology that changes the way you think, it’s about you and what you do with it”.
Young people experience violence online in a similar way to real violence (ie. their brain reactions are similar). A young person experiencing a lot of violence online becomes more violent in the real world. Their online experience changes their worldview and interaction with others in the real-world. This can have positive effects as well, depending on the virtual experience. Online video game players apparently make better laproscopic surgeons. Learning how to take-in massive amounts of information during video games develops a high capacity for attention.
ICT is process-focused rather than product-focused. Demonstratively high processing skills is a key indicator of future success – more so than numeracy skills. The best time to learn processing skills is between 7 – 15 years of age. Happily, learning changes brain connectivity through-out life (ie. it is possible to learn no matter what age you are).
Highly structured learning environments that focus on content inhibits skills-building to an extent (skills such as planning, strategising and prioritisation). More effective learning environments incorporate multi-sensory activity, emotional content and interpersonal interaction. ICT collaborative tools are good for building self-regulatory or ‘executive’ functions. Giving more control to young people over their education would help to develop their self-regulatory skills.
Evidence
We can only use evidence to inform decision-making (ie. evidence is not the sole basis on which to make decisions). Each decision-maker has their own beliefs, experiences and values that come into play.
Forward-looking
Prof Westell referred to Kurzweil’s
Singularity is Near to suggest that, at the current rate of progress, the next 25 years will be the equivalent of progress made over the last 100 years. In such an environment – with so much change, so much diversity – a distinctive ‘Generation Z’ (i.e the generation after Gen Y) is not likely to happen. In an environment of rapid change, ‘future-proofing skills’ such as creativity and innovation will be of strategic advantage.
Decision-making will involve ambiguity – making decisions with unknown probabilities or unknown outcomes. This means that decision-making would need to be open to possibilities. This is different to making decisions through risk-assessments (evaluating varying levels of probability).
The problem is that people prefer knowns to unknowns, going so far as to sacrifice potential rewards for the sake of surety. Our natural response to ambiguity inhibits innovation and leadership. Apparently
‘neuro-economics’ goes into this kind of thing (ie. ways of getting around this problem).
Professor Westell referred us to a presentation by
Ken Robinson on creativity – one of the messages being that creativity is just as important as literacy skills. Creativity means being open to possibilities, doing new things. According to Sir Ken, “if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come-up with anything original”.
On top of the need for ‘the system’ to understand young people’s use of ICT, other challenges are to cope with complexity (fast pace of change), ambiguity and to embrace creativity.
