How Has Technology Changed Education?

There is a widespread theory among teachers that students’ constant use of digital electronics is hampering their attention spans, according to the Pew Internet Project, and Common Sense Media. With nearly everyone over the age of ten having a cell phone and access to the internet these days, it is quite common to find people of all ages dividing their attention between texting, checking social media websites and surfing the internet while performing daily tasks. Given that the main way people communicate nowadays is through text messaging, we should realize how many times in a day are distracted by our cellular devices and waste time staring at that glass screen. In the digital age, where the news is limited to 140 characters, our attention …show more content…
In a study conducted by Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University, students were observed studying for a fifteen-minute period. During this time he observed that students generally started to lose focus after about three minutes. I believe that a lack of focus in school can correlate with students to have lower GPA’s and test scores. I can personally acknowledge that my digital tendencies have a cost. The biggest disadvantage I suffer from using digital devices in class is that I pay attention less and miss instruction. However, in many ways, technology has profoundly changed education. For one, technology has greatly expanded access to education. In medieval times, books were rare and only an elite few had access to educational opportunities. Individuals had to travel to centers of learning to get an education. Today, massive amounts of information are readily available at one’s fingertips through the Internet. Access to learning opportunities today is unprecedented in scope thanks to technology. Whenever I feel lost in a subject or in a assignment I have the vast information of the internet available to help answer my questions. The use of the Internet and technology helps guide me in the right direction in order to complete my assignments. Sadly the overreliance on Internet research may actually be causing students to retain less information. There have been studies that indicate a negative link between Internet use and cognition. Students are much less likely to remember information if they believe that it would still be available in the future. The Internet has created a greater reliance on transitive memory, in which information is stored in an external source rather than in the brain