Connect and Disconnect; The Value in Both

I love reading books with different viewpoints and thoughts on social media, as it provides a balanced approach and outlook on some of the work that we are doing.

Here is a sample from the book, “Hamlet’s Blackberry“:

When the whole world is within easy reach, there’s no end of things to see and do. Sometimes it feels like a kind of a paradise. However, there’s a big asterisk to life in this amazing place. We’ve been doing our best to ignore it, but it won’t go away. It comes down to this: We’re all busier. Much, much busier. It’s a lot of work managing all this connectedness. The e-mails, texts, and voicemails; the pokes, prods, and tweets; the alerts and comments; the links, tags, and posts; the photos and videos; the blogs and vlogs; the searches, downloads, uploads, files, and folders; feeds and filters; walls and widgets; tags and clouds; the usernames, passcodes, and access keys; pop-ups and banners; ringtones and vibrations. That’s just a small sample of what we navigate each day in the room. By the time you read this there will be completely new modes of connecting that are all the rage. Our tools are fertile, constantly multiplying.

I can’t say I argue with any of that.  I know I love what I do, but the reality of a lot of the work I do is that I can do it from anywhere in the world (I am writing this post on the Gold Coast in Australia) and because I can do it, I often do.  I have heard several people talk about the “blur” in our lives and how our personal life now easily mixes with our professional life and vice-versa.  With mobile devices, it is easy to bring your work home with you and stay connected at all times.

When I was younger, I remember continuously missing my dad as he spent an inordinate amount of time at our family restaurant.  I know that this was something he felt he needed to do to provide his kids with opportunities that he never had growing up, but it was also something that I know he loved.  My dad loved us more than anything and without him, I would not have the opportunities that I do now.  For better or worse, that same type of commitment to work can be brought home, and I wonder if the trade off of seeing someone physically who has the same dedication to work that my dad does, is worth the trade off that they may not be in the room mentally or emotionally?

“Balance” is something I have thought a lot about, and more so since I have started blogging (see here, here, and here).  The funny thing is that I have thought a lot more about it since I have been connected with social media because of the endless amount of articles, tweets, websites, and book references on the topic.  As someone who is an advocate for social media use in the classroom for both teachers and students, I think it is essential that we not only learn how to connect, but also learn how to disconnect.  The problem is that many use the “balance” argument as an opt out for teaching social media to students at all.  To me, that makes no sense.

In Alberta, we have DPA (Daily Physical Activity) to teach our kids to incorporate exercise into their lives.  We do it for 30 minutes a day, not all day.  Incorporating this exercise teaches our kids the importance of physical wellness in their lives, helping to achieve balance.

I think the misperception on the use of technology is that because we talk often about technology,  the focus is on doing everything with technology.  The reality is, we often talk about technology in schools because this in an area that we need to improve as a system.

In the book  (the parts that I have read so far)  the fear is that because of this easy connection, we are losing “depth” in what we do and how we think:

And we’re losing something of great value, a way of thinking and moving through time that can be summed up in a single word: depth. Depth of thought and feeling, depth in our relationships, our work and everything we do. Since depth is what makes life fulfilling and meaningful, it’s astounding that we’re allowing this to happen.

The common argument is that our kids are spending too much time in front of screens at school. My first question is, ‘what are they doing?’ Are they doing “typing drills” or math facts? Or are they connecting with others, creating something deep and doing meaningful work?  Where would the activities that they are doing fit in with Bloom’s Taxonomy, and how have they connected to anything more than a screen? If we are simply using a scarcity of computer time to play games and do programs such as “All the Right Type”, of course we are going to be taking away from the depth of thinking of our kids. On the other hand, some of the work I have seen from students using social media and connecting across the world has been the best and deepest work that I have seen.  Reading a book can bring depth, but so can a conversation with someone across the world.

If we were to talk about “depth” I would say that the simple idea of blogging has brought much more depth to my thinking then I had before. Would I simply “journal” and get the same out of it? Honestly, no because I wouldn’t journal. I appreciate the “audience” and the connection a blog affords me, but I also enjoy the ease of organization and the opportunity to go back and look at my own thoughts and their development throughout time. I also believe that my thinking has the opportunity to become deeper when it is an open and transparent form because it creates a level of accountability to those I serve. Through the writing process, I have the time to develop my thoughts, but once I hit “publish”, that is an opportunity to further advance them. I love the conversation, but I also love the time that I just sit down and write on my own as well.  Why is there not balance in that?

When I think of balance, I constantly refer my thoughts to this Will Richardson article:

But here is the thing: the reality is that most of those folks who are concerned about kids needing balance are out of balance themselves, just in the opposite way.  They’re not online enough, not reading, writing, participating, connecting and creating in these spaces as much as they need to be to fully understand the implications of these technologies for their own learning and for the kids in their classrooms. Lately, when I’ve been responding to people about the “balance” question, I go with “well, actually, you’re out of balance too, you know.” I get this kind of stunned silence. What a concept.

By ignoring social media in our school and not working with our kids, are we able to give them the opportunity to learn to walk away, or are we simply forcing them to do it during the day through compliance?

There is value in being disconnected, and I have actually spent less time being connected in some aspects of my life.   In doing this I have also learned that when I do connect, I appreciate it more.  I learned this by going through the process and seeing for myself, not by being forced to shut down.

Social media and technology is not going away.  It continues to change, evolve, and look different, but it will always be there.  We will never teach balance by spending the day at school and pretending it doesn’t exist.  There is value in both connection and disconnection; we have to show both.

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