Teens and Technology

Rainie, L. (2014, July 23). 13 Things to know about Teens and Technology. PEW Internet Project.
         Retrieved July 25, 2014 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/07/23/13-things-to-know-about-
         teens-and-technology/.

Technology has influenced many teens in different ways.  Teens today are on their cell phones/smartphones more than they are on laptops or PC's.  They use their phones for almost everything, chatting, texting, social networking and the Internet.

A research was done with over 2000 advanced placement and writing teachers to see how the use of technology has effected the way teens look up information and if it effects have helped students or hurt them.  Teachers are saying that yes technology is helping students become better researchers, it gives students access to more information and they are more self-sufficient when doing research.  But, then there are those teachers that say the students are getting to much information and don't know how to decipher it, they have shorter attention spans and students hope to find information quickly and easily.  If students where being graded on their research skills using technology their grade would be fair to poor depending on what is being evaluated.  The bottom two skills were able to tell the difference between reliable or unreliable information and patience when looking for that hard to find information.

With technology at our fingertips we as teachers have to realize that we can not keep using the old methods of teaching, we have to broaden our thinking to include more interactive lessons were students are engaged in their learning.

So with this technology are we creating a society where the students can multitask, find answers that are in-depth and find them quickly or are we creating a society where the students have short attention spans, lack the ability to make deep relationships and lack the ability for finding in-depth answers to questions?  What do you think?


55 Slides