BURNETT: Use, don’t abuse, technology

Last week, a friend posted an old Newsweek article on her Facebook wall. The 1995 op-ed piece by Clifford Stoll was titled "Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana," and, as the title suggested, Stoll explained why he was "uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community" (i.e. the Internet).

Specifically, he poo-pooed the then-predicted-but-yet-unrealized rise of e-commerce, the shift of major publishing avenues to electronic formats and the increased use of web-based technologies in education, all with pithy phrases like "Do our computer pundits lack all common sense?" and "You can't tote that laptop to the beach." I chuckled as I read and reposted with my own pithy comments about my "long-term relationship with Amazon" and an imagined scenario of introducing this gentleman of 15 years ago to 21st century web wonders like Wikipedia, Google and, of course, Facebook.

I was willing to consider Stoll's article as nothing more than an amusing but oh-so-wrong prediction of the future and go on my merry way—until one of my friends pointed out something I hadn't thought about. She observed that the basic trajectory of his argument is nothing new: "Similar things were said about the printing press—and Socrates complained about literacy." Those technologies changed how information was distributed, democratizing society and, looking back, the protests against them seem ludicrous. I was humbled by her comment and I'm forced to wonder if my own views will one day seem as absurd.

I don't want to misrepresent Stoll, because his article is more than simply humorous, mistaken prognostications. The core of his argument is that technology can't replace direct human interaction or, when it can, it is, at best, a poor substitute—a sentiment with which I both agree and disagree.

I love technology unabashedly. I love the access to information and communication given to me in recent years. In the last week alone I bought books on Amazon, figured out how to change the headlight in my car using an Internet tutorial, Skyped with relatives on the opposite side of the globe, read news, entertainment, and scholarly writing online and spent easily as many hours communicating with my students via e-mail and Blackboard as I did interacting with them face-to-face in the classroom.

Technologies—especially communication-based technologies—define the shape of my life to such a degree that I have as difficult a time imagining my life without them as Stoll did imagining his future with them.

But I would be disingenuous if I didn't admit there are moments when technology—or the ways people use it—sets my blood boiling. The promise and joy of those technologies crashes right up against their dangers when I start thinking about the ways they are used and abused, many times leading to dangerous outcomes.

Whether we're talking about a fatal car accident caused by a texting driver, someone taking his own life to escape cyberbullying, public embarrassment or loss of job resulting from inadvisable posts on social networking sites, or simply a student who learns nothing at school because she's too busy watching YouTube clips on a laptop during class, the impacts of increased availability and sophistication of information technologies in our society are obviously far-reaching.

But I can also use those same technologies in different, positive ways: to raise a friend's spirits when he's having a difficult day, to network with professional contacts, to share vacation photos with my family or to take far more complete and better-organized notes during a presentation than I ever could by hand.

Ultimately, technology is a tool, imbued only with the meaning and authority we grant it. I can choose to use a hammer to build a house or to bash someone over the head. Neither act makes the hammer good or bad; how I wield it gives the hammer meaning. More importantly, how I wield it reveals something about me, my priorities, my values or my ability to utilize the tool to specific ends. The same is true of information technologies: the danger isn't in what they might allow us to do, but in how we choose to use them.

And therein lies the rub: Many of us are not making thoughtful, conscious choices about our technology use. My biggest frustration with the abilities offered us by new tech is the ways we as a society are negotiating—or failing to negotiate—the new technological landscape. Instant and omnipresent access to one another seems to have often become a guarantee of access, demanding our participation in communication regardless of what other activities we might be engaged in at the moment.

One result of this interconnectedness is a blurring of our various selves, a layering of identity and activity that purports the benefit of increased productivity.  My cousin recently shared with me her shock at moving into a tech-centered division of her company and seeing how everyone was engaged in multiple activities at once via their personal electronics during meetings. She and I share the belief that if you're doing something besides taking notes and thinking about the topic at hand during a meeting, you're not really paying attention, and, more importantly, you're being disrespectful. And when you're being obvious about the other activity you're engaging in, you're being blatantly disrespectful.

The conviction that we can be as productive, perhaps even more so, when multitasking via instant communication technologies, and the belief that such multitasking productivity is to be highly valued are obviously attitudes shared by my students, some of whom have problems with selective hearing when it comes to my classroom policy on cell phones (i.e. I don't ever want to see your cell phone).

I'm aware that cell phones can be used for a great many useful, class-related purposed like seeing how soon class will be over or e-mailing one's self a reminder. Of course, there are also those cell phone owners who must check personal text messages the second they receive them. All such activities, legit or not, look pretty much the same to anyone who isn't the cell phone user in question.