My students have been hearing me turn the phrase “Disconnect to Reconnect” for about a week now. At least, I think they hear me. It’s never clear what high school students hear. Many believe that multitasking is acceptable and is not considered rude – so maybe they aren’t actually hearing me but just doing their best to keep their minds elsewhere.
Actually, walking around the school campus with ear-buds in one ear is unacceptable behavior, but students on our campus keep cramming those small things in their ears. Teachers keep asking students to remove the small irritants. In reality, putting in ear-buds into a small ear is more of a fashion statement than anything else but teachers struggle to explain that the ear-buds are distractions.
The tethering of their heads to a small device has me thinking about my own patterns of behavior.
Lately being tied to email and texts as a means for communication has become an annoyance of mine. It started as a quick statement to a teacher that email is a poor form of communication. This came about after reading the French company Atos zero email policy initiative (Bloget, 2011; Kim, 2011). I find it exciting that the company policy initiative has attracted interest from other business leaders two years after critics thought it would never work.
The teacher disagreed with my halfhearted argument that email is bad. He debated that email is the best method of communication. In fact, he pointed to my 500+ unread emails on my iPhone as evidence that I failed at communication and was the last person to discuss emails. Actually, 450+ of those unread messages were synchronization errors between my iPhone and Microsoft Outlook – but he didn’t know. He also didn’t know that the unread messages were reminders to do something. Yes, I could have categorized the emails in Outlook for tasks but that doesn’t work right on the iPhone.
Anyway, the point is that the original articles and discussions with this teacher prompted me to think harder about the use of emails. I concluded that emails are a distraction. Eventually, I added the iPhone to the list of distractions.
Are we using these devices as tools or as drugs? Nick Bilton from the New York Times Bits uses the YouTube viral video “I Forgot My Phone” to begin discussing the disruptions being caused by human beings forgetting to live the moment.
Lately, I’ve been known to place the iPhone in a drawer. It was challenging at first. I wanted to immediately attend to the beep of a text message or the bleep that a new email arrived. There were horrible withdrawal symptoms but now I can leave the device in the draw from 7:00 in the morning until 3:30. It’s fine. I’m fine.
In fact, I’m so good about it that if the telephone rings while I’m with my students then I keep attending to my students. If it is important then someone will show up at my classroom door. Kids hate it. They expect me to stop what I’m doing and answer the phone. Some get irritated that I don’t stop talking and run to answer the phone.
My personal experience of withdrawal symptoms mirrors the report by University of Maryland researchers. In 2011, they asked 125 students at Bournemouth University to volunteer “to stay away from all emails, text messages, updates on Facebook and Twitter.” (Daily Mall, 2011). The volunteers reported psychological and physical symptoms comparable to addicts. British company Intersperience reported similar results from their 2011 survey.
Sadly, modern teachers are always behind the technology curve. Hopefully our society stops using the smartphone 24/7 and learns moderation is best.
In our school, teachers are relying on emails and text messages more now than ever before and they use the devices instead of actually speaking to someone. These teachers should take notice that this behavior is not healthy. Teachers should be in the forefront and leading the charge against the use of texts and emails and not be behind the curve. Instead, teachers need to get out of the chair and go to the person. It’s time to disconnect to reconnect.
References
Bilton, N. (2013, September 1). Disruptions: More connected, yet more alone. Retrieved September 1, 2013 from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/disruptions-more-connected-yet-more-alone/.
Blodget, H. (2011, December 4). BOMBSHELL: Huge company bans internal email, switches totally to facebook-type-stuff and instant messaging. Retrieved September 1, 2013, from http://www.businessinsider.com/company-bans-email-2011-12.
Daily Mall Reporter. (2011, January 7). Technology junkies: How we suffer withdrawal symptoms like drug addicts if we’re kept away from our gadgets. Retrieved September 1, 2013 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1344723/How-suffer-withdrawal-symptoms-like-drug-addicts-kept-away-tech-gadgets.html.
Kim, S. (2011, November 29). Tech firm implements employee ‘zero email’ policy. Retrieved September 1, 2013, from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/tech-company-implements-employee-zero-email-policy/.
Taylor, P. (2013, March 7). Atos’ ‘zero email initiative’ succeeding. Retrieved September 1, 2013 from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11384220-8761-11e2-bde6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2dhuiVer1.
Los Angeles Times. (2011, August 11). Our addiction to technology trumps caffeine, chocolate and alcohol. Retrieved September 1, 2013 from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/08/technology-addiction-chocolate-caffeine.html.
Update: the school now uses emails as a method to send out notices regarding school lock downs. Our school undergoes numerous lock downs because of the neighborhood – not the school. Now the staff is being kept informed about the lock downs via emails. This means I must now keep my phone in my pocket.