President Obama on Sunday delivered a commencement address that included warning graduates of the “distraction” posed by technologies like Apple’s iPod and iPad devices. “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told students at Hampton University. “And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment.
I am learning the hard way that just because you have an understanding of technology, and in a broader sense, an educated knowledge of what you do, you must not be fooled into believing statements in interviews such as "we are a family" and "we want your input". This is a load of goat manure. Such statements are made purely to land you as an employee, and have no basis in truth. Caveat emptor.
Is that **prior** forms of information are no better, given that they have, recently, probably more than ever, been shackled, not to a principle of truth seeking, but one of political agenda. The problem isn't being overwhelmed, so much as that, for example, people seeking Fox News as a valid source of information have unlimited noise on the internet to present them with validation with what Fox News says, so they never bother to look any place else. This isn't, "becoming overwhelmed", its being narrow minded.
The technology, treated with open mindedness, and a valid skepticism, based on what can be proven, rather than just one what upholds your existing opinion, is no more a *distraction* than someone visiting the local library and reading everything from Dawkin's God Delusion to Palin's Going Rogue. The key is to ask, "Which of these has a basis in fact, and which one is the exact opposite, and contradicted by numerous facts? People focused on only what makes them feel comfortable with their own prejudices won't bother reading past the dust jacket of the one that they don't like, or skimming the contents, and, when they do go to the internet, its not to determine which one is supported by evidence, and why, its to find places that confirm their already simplistic, knee jerk, reaction to what they already reject.
In short, the net has the same problem as the news on TV today. No one is in charge of making sure that the crazy, wrong, and completely false bullshit gets pointed out, while the facts get through. If anything, its worse than the news, because you can get worse hate speech and idiocy from the ME, if you are into that, than the news will ever report, worse right wing idiocy, if you want to find it, than Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh can dish out, and worse nonsense from super-left wing reality deniers, than any new age, altie-medicine, everything that isn't made from twigs and organic fertilizer = bad, on TV or any place else.
What is needed is not to avoid such things (and I don't get how the hell he equates XBoxes and Playstations with being "sources or information..", at all), is to stop teaching kids to memorize, follow the leader, and think only like they are told, and teach the one thing we have been failing at, for the most part, except among the 2-3% that somehow figure it out themselves, ***how to evaluate facts, not just accept them, because someone bigger than them, politically, etc., says it is so***.
Technology is only a distraction to those ignorant of the facts, and unwilling to questions their own perceptions. For someone willing to actually think about things, and verify that something is true, not just "popular", its a whole different ball game. Besides which, the main distraction these things have been recently is a) gamers are less likely to fall for bullshit, since they experience more ideas than people who are not being "distracted", and b) in the case of the internet, reliable sources on it are often more accurate than the damn national news networks. Not that its hard to be more accurate than some of them to start with...
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Obama Cautions Grads Against Getting Tangled in Tech
Posted by: Katherine Noyes May 10, 2010 11:23 AMPresident Obama on Sunday delivered a commencement address that included warning graduates of the “distraction” posed by technologies like Apple’s iPod and iPad devices. “You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told students at Hampton University. “And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment.
The technology, treated with open mindedness, and a valid skepticism, based on what can be proven, rather than just one what upholds your existing opinion, is no more a *distraction* than someone visiting the local library and reading everything from Dawkin's God Delusion to Palin's Going Rogue. The key is to ask, "Which of these has a basis in fact, and which one is the exact opposite, and contradicted by numerous facts? People focused on only what makes them feel comfortable with their own prejudices won't bother reading past the dust jacket of the one that they don't like, or skimming the contents, and, when they do go to the internet, its not to determine which one is supported by evidence, and why, its to find places that confirm their already simplistic, knee jerk, reaction to what they already reject.
In short, the net has the same problem as the news on TV today. No one is in charge of making sure that the crazy, wrong, and completely false bullshit gets pointed out, while the facts get through. If anything, its worse than the news, because you can get worse hate speech and idiocy from the ME, if you are into that, than the news will ever report, worse right wing idiocy, if you want to find it, than Beck, Hannity, or Limbaugh can dish out, and worse nonsense from super-left wing reality deniers, than any new age, altie-medicine, everything that isn't made from twigs and organic fertilizer = bad, on TV or any place else.
What is needed is not to avoid such things (and I don't get how the hell he equates XBoxes and Playstations with being "sources or information..", at all), is to stop teaching kids to memorize, follow the leader, and think only like they are told, and teach the one thing we have been failing at, for the most part, except among the 2-3% that somehow figure it out themselves, ***how to evaluate facts, not just accept them, because someone bigger than them, politically, etc., says it is so***.
Technology is only a distraction to those ignorant of the facts, and unwilling to questions their own perceptions. For someone willing to actually think about things, and verify that something is true, not just "popular", its a whole different ball game. Besides which, the main distraction these things have been recently is a) gamers are less likely to fall for bullshit, since they experience more ideas than people who are not being "distracted", and b) in the case of the internet, reliable sources on it are often more accurate than the damn national news networks. Not that its hard to be more accurate than some of them to start with...