Young People Live in a Digital Bubble
About five years ago, I realized that I had to make radical changes to my Composition II syllabus. Young people live in a digital bubble and are not always easy to reach.
When we think of people living in a bubble, we think Baby Boomers from the World War II/Korean War era who watch Fox News or CNN until the stories loop. We think about people who are set in their ways and TERRIFIED of trying something new. They have their opinions and their products and they ain’t budging one way or the other.
However, as a general education professor, I have noticed a disturbing trend: young people live in a digital bubble! If you want loads of data on this, I do not have any. I do not have any charts or schemes. What I do have are my experiences from Composition I and Composition II. As I teach those subjects, I always use a reader. I honestly believe that writing is reading in another form and that writing does not improve at the collegiate level without copious amounts of reading. Plus, reading helps students to develop a “writerly voice” and it demonstrates the rhetorical strategy that I may be teaching at the moment.
In one of my classes, I was teaching “Getting Coffee is Hard to Do” by Stanley Fish. You may read this classic of “the world is going mad” writing here. It is seriously funny and I thought the students would enjoy it.
To my surprise, the students were baffled by this piece! When I asked them what was so confusing about it, they informed me that they did not know what a formica countertop is. They could not relate to Fish’s other references, either. I asked my students had they ever watched the Back to the Future trilogy, and they laughed. How could they possibly watch something so “old”? I then asked them what scripted shows they watched. First of all, they did not know what I was talking about when I said, “scripted show.” Second of all, when they began listing things for me, they all listed reality television. A few students mentioned Power and some had watched Breaking Bad. As it turns out, the drug-dealing teacher captured their imaginations and led a few to Better Call Saul.
As I talked with the students more, I realized that our students live in a digital bubble and it is severely affecting the way that they read, write, and relate to the world in general. Most of their television shows are reality shows. Most of their news comes from social media sites (and it is not always verified). Most of the American references that we thought everyone ought to know are foreign to them. Most of our students do not know the difference between formal and informal language anymore. In short, all of this digital life is making my job that much harder!
I did not begin writing this blog to rant and rave about the young folks. I want to discuss how our young people got here in the first place.
- ) Today’s young people are born into technology and may not know how to use it productively. For the most part, they see it as entertainment! My colleagues do not understand this. As a kid of the 1980s, my first encounter with a computer was at my school. My first encounter with the Internet was slow, dial-up from AOL in the school’s computer lab. I remember the huge, floppy disks and waiting forever for that iconic sound. I remember when it was “the world wide web,” and the “information superhighway” on the nightly news. By the way, wasn’t I tickled when I found out that AOL (America Online) is still going!
I look at my teenage son. When he was born, his father had two laptops, three video game systems, and some handheld something or other. Before my son went to kindergarten, he was reading from a physical book. At school, the teachers let him read on a computer. There was no surprise when I learned that my son is easily distracted while on screen and never stayed on task. He already knew how to do a few little things from home. On the other hand, I was SHOCKED when his teachers told me that he was reading and writing below average. Not only was I shocked, I was outraged. I knew my son could read. Once I calmed down, I asked the teacher what medium they were using in the classroom for reading. Was my son reading a book or reading on a computer or tablet? The teacher, who took pride in the school’s investment in and use of technology, said that they used computer programs for reading. I laughed at her and the school. I asked, “You do realize that my husband is an electrical engineer with more video games than a high schooler? You do realize that my son sees computers for entertainment purposes only? Put him on an actual book that he has to hold in his hand.” When they did, my son was reading on a second-grade level.
That experience with my son made me wonder how many other children are labeled as “below average” when all they need are books and not computer screens. This experience also changed the way I related to my students. I used to take off VERY HEAVILY when students did not format their papers correctly. I would give them a “0” for papers that were not properly attached to emails. My son made me realize that as a professor, we assume that students know how to do these things. The students seem attach to their phones anatomically, so we assume they know how to do all things digital. We are wrong. I have since begun teaching students how to properly format a paper, how to set up a PROFESSIONAL email and not one that sounds like a strip club name or a crime syndicate, and how to craft professional PowerPoints. I also make my students handwrite some of their assignments in class. Another skill that I have incorporated into my teaching is formal and informal language. Students seem to have lost that over time and talk to everyone as if they are texting their friends. Ellen Laird wrote a very informative essay about this. You can find a copy here.
http://celt.cui.edu/celt/webct_for_instructors/Laird_Article.htm
2.) Students are not accustomed to reading things without a thousand hyperlinks and moving parts on the side of the screen. Nicholas Carr wrote an essay that asks a question that we dare not ask of our students, “Is Google Making Us Stupid.”
I do not believe that Google is making us stupid, but it is most definitely making it difficult for my students to sit down and read. Furthermore, they are resistant to critical thinking. Why think when one can Google an answer? And this goes for open-ended, opinion questions where they are not penalized one way or the other for a “right” or “wrong” answer. Most times, reading is difficult for students, because there are no hyperlinks, no widgets moving on the side of the screen, and no other colorful distractions.
3.) Surprisingly, the pandemic made my students grow tired of interacting with a screen and they were BEGGING for face-to-face classes. We all know those students who CANNOT STOP TEXTING during our lectures. I once caught a student on Snapchat. Still another was casually cruising Amazon for shoes all during class. And these are the same students who come to my office without a clue and turn in papers that have absolutely nothing to do with the assignment. Yet, the pandemic tired students out. Seriously, they were tired of looking at me through a screen. They complained of having computer headaches, being tired of PowerPoints, and not understanding written instructions on a plain Microsoft Word document.
4.) Students’ consumption of modern-day reality television and social media activities makes reading comprehension difficult for them at times. Okay, I use a reader. Some of my colleagues hate and I know most of the students do. However, I am not going to stop using a reader. If I were not using a reader, I would base my class around Pulitzer.org’s reading list. No doubt. I do not know why my colleagues hate readers (other than the expense of them) and quite frankly, I do not care. I know that reading good writing makes for better writing. But, and this is a big “but,” I am concerned about my students’ self-esteem, because it is linked to their ability to comprehend the reading. When they cannot understand a piece, they are sometimes deflated. And many times, they simply cannot comprehend the reading, because they do not know the refernces. A writer like Fish does not stop to define the word, “formica” for readers. He assumes that most Americans know what a formica countertop is. If they have not had one, they should have at least seen one on television. If I am teaching Toni Cade’s Bambara’s “The Lesson,” I assume that most students know how long segregation lasted and that segregation was not limited to the American South. Since students live in this digital bubble and have been tested to death in school at the expense of learning real American history, they do not know many of the references these writers make. They become frustrated with the reading process itself and become resistant to it. Sometimes, they do not know what to look up when they are reading. Barry Hannah’s “Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet” simply baffles them. Many honestly do not know the war that he is referencing. When they try to look it up, some come back confused about the Vietnam War and the Korean War.
5.) Students no longer know how to respectfully disagree. The temptation of garnering “likes” or retweets has erased the notion of disagreeing civilly. But then again, January 6th shows that this is a part of our society now. We either agree or fight. In the academic space, where everything is up for intellectual discussion and debate, these kinds of attitudes are serious disruptions. I recently had a colleague share with me that a student accused of her of being racist and tried to physically attack her. She was teaching authors of the Harlem Renaissance. She had to have the student removed from her class by the campus police! These types of encounters are becoming more frequent in the humanities classroom. I have included a statement on my syllabus that explains to students that they are now in the academic space with people from all over the world. Disagreeing with their stances does not mean that another student is attacking one student personally, questioning parental methods, or even arguing with their local pastors. It means that not everyone grew up in the same house, the same neighborhood, the same church, or even the same country. I tell students, “Your normal is not normal to most people that you meet.” We normalize our households and whatever goes on in our households, and expecting others to understand our “normal” and to bend to that reality is a hallmark of a closed mind.
I could go on with the effects of technology on students’ writing and thinking skills, but this post has gone on long enough. In addition to weaving in more historical context, I added in a visual analysis to my Composition II papers. Now more than ever, students need to be digitally literate and understand the effect that images have upon our subconscious. They need to be able to take an image apart, break it down to its component parts, test its validity, and try to understand what a photographer/artist is trying to say. People have the ability to manipulate images endlessly, and we need to know what is real.
As a professor, I have ranted on way too long. This comes from my Composition II class. If you like it, press the hands.
