No Time to Think Essay

This week we were asked to analyse the following papers and a TED Talk presentation reflecting on how the accelerating tempo of life and the distractions/ dissension in form of new means of communication ar alter our concentration and vanishing our sanctuary where we can dedicate time for thoughtful reflections. * No time to believe Reflections on randomness technology and contemplative cognition, David M. Levy. (2007) * Speed and the Unsettling of Knowledge in the Digital University, Ray agriculture, (2011). TED Talk 5 expressions to listen better, Julian Treasure, (2011) Distractions serve anything but the cognition It is true that todays digitisation and networking tools speed up the pace of our communicative exchanges. In the other hand, these increasingly attractive tools be stealth our time and helping to distract us. These distractions serve anything but the cognition beca accustom mischievously limit our ability to focus and attention (and hence growing).Nowaday s much people believe that dealing an entire deem is less attractive than commenting on their friends photos on Facebook or, open multiple tabs in a browser and quickly discover e realthing that is happening. It is precisely the possibility to entryway an incredible meat of development through the current digital technologies and encounter endless possibilities of knowledge that challenges our inability to build mental representations.Given the monumental supply of information obtained through the mass media, especially the Internet, the individual focuses his attention by very few moments in the data exposed on computer screens as they navigate through new links. However, the quality of these referions often contrasts with the amount of information, which are badly assimilated because there is no time or effort to depict relations between concepts and thus, creating new meanings.As a result, individuals have commonplace concentration difficulties, especially when connec t with other people and at the selfsame(prenominal) time read information in various news sites. It is non by chance the use of terms such as connect, Liked and pip to describe relationships between people. It is as if the emails boxes or the tweets grouse us all the time so that messages mustiness be read and answered immediately. The schools adopting the digital education model have already evidenced these concentration problems. The use of new technologies in the classroom econfigures commonplace identities of their teachers and students and thus, their own teaching practice in the presence of the students limitless access to information through the Internet. I believe that the teachers, as the digital immigrants, and students, as the digital natives, are overwhelmed with the emancipatory potential of the Internet that in some(a)how they are experiencing a grit of loss as pointed out Ray Land Paradoxically this may be experienced as a sense of loss as an earlier, more secu re stance of familiar sharp has to be abandoned as new and unfamiliar knowledge is encountered.The maverick downside of this digital turn is a viral pact of mediocrity, through which teachers and students regard to teach and learn, to the extent that the contents of academic papers are copied and glued in the text with less and less reasoning being developed. mod teachers adapted to this modus operandi disregard ethical issues and do non refute the information that the student presents through consultation online. Improving concentration in the digital environment Considering the above scenario, I believe that we deprivation to re-think our strategy to get the hang distraction and increase our capacity to learn in digital environments.As David M. Levy mentioned It might well be possible to begin to explore different modes of thinking routine and creative modes, as well as obsessive mind chatter not only to develop more nuanced and refined understandings of these processes but to understand how to encourage or discourage them. The showtime point could be the understanding of the mechanisms of human attention, decode how it works and thus far how to develop it. I personally think that concentration is not indwelling to the human being, but a skill that can be taught end-to-end life and can always be improved.Recently I read an intriguing book called The Mind and the Brain Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental military unit (Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley, 2003) about the consciousness plasticity, which is the neurons ability to redistribute according to need and training. The conclusions regarding the brains ability to rewire itself and the idea that meditation may be driving neuroplastic changes are quite inspiring in the book. For J. Schwartz and S. Begley, the best way to ensure attention is to choose challenging activities.If the task is so hard that we almost cannot do it, will certainly require more focus. However, it is not alway s clear that we like or feel challenged by everything that we need to do. Sometimes the work is simply annoying, but still needs to be done. In these cases, the trick is to turn it into a kind of game, focusing on one phase at a time. Overcome steps, one by one, can leave the whole process more attractive. Something like the gamification strategies, i. e. points and titles that some programs or applications give each task is accomplished.Being totally strong has to do with the state of flow discussed in the week 4 of the swig course. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tried to understand the phenomenon by calculating the amount of information that our uneasy networks are capable of absorbing. He reached a number only 110bps (bits per second). hearing to someone talking, for example, requires the processing of 40bps. That means, there are 70bps left in to use for distractions around. So we can scribble on paper or think in others to-dos while listening to the conversation.U sing the 110bps in an activity would be the equivalent of what Csikszentmihalyi calls flow that state of absolute concentration that makes us not even notice the time passing. Finally, the schools should debate more about the negatively charged effects of distraction, the importance of the purity space (or the sanctuary as we call at IDLE, the creation of physical spaces or times on the calendar for uninterrupted, unwired thinking and connection) and encourage students to apply basic practices to promote personal white space.These practices include create a student routine, make lists with the priorities of the day, learn to organize time and to collect relevant study materials, learn to book time to solve everything else outside of the studies (a good way to fend off distractions is to take them out of our heads) and learn to absorb and to reflect on what has been collected.