These statistics translate to the online world, too, with the percentage of page views (taken from 59,573 page views) lasting less than four seconds standing at 17 per cent, and the percentage of page views lasting longer than ten minutes standing at just four per cent. Our collective attention spans have dropped and we’re easily distracted: between the previous paragraph and this one, I spent 10 minutes playing ‘Crossy Road’, wondering how much quicker I would be able to write this article if I didn’t have my phone here with me.
The deep,
Received:
School email: Re: Yearbook 2015
dark web
Case in point. The combination of how easy it is to be distracted by innumerable websites, apps, opinions and games, combined with our increased capacity for distraction, is undeniable, yet of 20 Upper School boys I spoke to – an admittedly small sample – 15 said that they do their homework with their phone next to them. Further to this, every boy I asked said they kept their phone on their person throughout the school day. Out of these 15 boys who work with their phones around, 13 have access to any or all of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Whatsapp. So, should we be encouraging the use of devices that encourage distraction so readily in an environment that is already so intellectually challenging?
While the internet continues to be an essential tool, Marko Marsenic (Year 12) warns that using it means your online identity is being ruthlessly exploited – and that buying bitcoins is a risky business
Illustration by Alexander Macnab (Year 11)
Received:
Facebook :
I worry about the internet. I worry about how many people are unaware of the way it can be used by large corporations and alien governments to violate privacy for ‘security reasons’, not to mention by advertisers to sell your information for profit. After I had found out about these shady yet lucrative operations, I wanted to learn how these things where being done and why; so I decided to take A-level computer science in the hope that I might eventually make my own contribution to combat the misuse of the internet that takes place every day under the guise of legal activity. The internet is the greatest creation of our technological civilisation. Its exceptional complexity surpasses anything mankind has ever created. In essence, it is a huge quantity of utterly unstructured information spanning the entire globe, connecting us all, utilising hundreds of thousands of remote terminals for anything from mining bitcoins to watching TOWIE online. It truly is a wonder of the modern world. Say you are balding and are looking for a supplement to help you grow back your thick mane: as soon as you Google ‘balding help!’ it all goes into action. Your IP address (your computer’s location and identity) is logged on Google’s servers as a cookie. Once the cookie is created, Google’s AdSense program will suggest links to companies that will provide you with a supplement for your problem. This could be displayed as a sponsored link or as a sidebar advert on other websites you visit, for example. And this data mining, used to supplement ‘personalised advertising’, is 100 per cent legal, because you agreed to the terms of service when you signed up to Google.
You were tagged in a comment on Facebook!
The evidence would suggest that a debate needs to be had on whether the use of mobile phones and tablets should be at the heart of the curriculum in the future, and, in an election year, I find it surprising that more wasn’t made by the leading parties about what their approach to education and technology will be. What the future will hold is uncertain. It certainly will be interesting to see what direction the new government and schools across the country decide to take in the coming years, and whether we will truly move into the so-called ‘third wave’ of computing in schools, having already moved from one-to-many computing programmes to 1:1. While the role of technology in education remains unclear at the moment, one thing is for sure: our dependence on technology is at an all-time high in human existence, and it seems the smartphone is here to stay. I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
‘If the product is free, you’re not the consumer, you’re the product’
Derek Powazek
Power Off
42
43
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs