Feb 16 2008

The Tethered Self…..a Student/Teacher Quandary?

It is strange sometimes how you keep back some articles for reading for such a long while, that when you finally sit down for a supposed skim through you suddenly realise what an interesting piece you have been missing. This was true of Sherry Turkle’s article entitled – ‘Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self’ – which I believe is a chapter from a book called Handbook of Mobile Communications and Social Change. The article deals with more than the any studies into ubiquitous and embedded technologies that we can now carry and wear, by seeing how these technologies are affecting simply who we are.

She describes that we are ending up with a new sense of self which is not anymore simply a ‘separate world, plugged and unplugged.’  As Turkle describes it:- ‘The self, now attached to its devices, occupies a liminal space between the physical real and its lives on the screen. It participates in  both realms and the same time.’ As such as she describes with ubiquitous technologies like the mobile phone even if we are half way around the world, emotionally and socially because of this always on connection means we are really as much at home as away. When I traveled many years ago backpacking through such areas of the world as Kashmir I was completely along, only able through some convoluted way in the largest cities to phone home if necessary. I even remember sending letters home telling my parents where I would be in a few months so that they could send things via Post Restante to that country or city.

Still I do not have the connections with technology, that the students I teach feel. As Turkle says: – ‘Whether or not our devices are in use, without them we feel adrift.’ Social networks have taken this a step further, forcing you to always check in – being the mediator to many friendships and communications. How does this feeling of having to be always connected with technology mediating that affect our abilities to be alone. Turkle goes even further to suggest that we are not only tethered to technology for communication, we are now ‘…tethered to the gratifications offered by our online selves.’ 

So how does this al affect the world of education, well I guess most of it is pretty obvious. But how many meetings as an IT teacher have I been involved with parents discussing this very problem of being tethered to a technology, which leads to students trying to multitask entertainment, communication and work activities at the same time. We all do it – at the moment while writing this blog post, I am listenign to the football on the internet streamed radio, making a CD, browsing my bloglines account – in fact I have two computers on the go…but let’s not go there. As Turkle says :- ‘The pressure to be always on can be a burden. Teenagers who need uninterrupted time for schoolwork resort to using their parents’ account to hide from their buddies.’ The answer to the problem of ‘continual partial attention’ is a difficult one to which I have seen no real answers.

When I ask students how they cope, they often say they simply have to rely on will power. But what of those that cannot stop chatting to their friends via MSN, checking their Facebook account – especially if you take it in terms of being part of ones self, ones tethered self rather than as an addiction as some would say? Although as Katie Coleman suggests, this maybe is not all bad as the ability to work with in so many disparate communities holds many promises.

As a teacher that always shares with my students that I am not the ‘font of all knowledge’ but am in fact a facilitator able to guide all students in the right direction, maybe to the right communities to be able to learn and understand if not as such remember then maybe the tethered self will become a necessity to live and work in this century. The abilities to live and survive and depend on ones self and ones knowledge will become less and less valued.

Well as I said an interesting article that links in with many ideas, that at this moment I do not think anyone has any answers to. If anyone has the answers to give to parents about multitasking and practical ways to help their chile concentrate, please comment! The worries that Turkle brings up are however I believe a little overstated, as a final quotation from her might suggest:- ‘ These questions ask what we will be like, what kind of people are we becoming as we develop increasingly intimate relationships with machines.’

By drtech • Delicious Links, Education Theory, Social Networks, Technology • Comments Off on The Tethered Self…..a Student/Teacher Quandary?