Technology: good or bad?

I remember the first time I used a computer in elementary school. They were big and clunky and it took place in a time before the Internet was invented. It took me years to understand new technologies and not until high school was I able to learn how to quickly adapt to them.

My four-year-old son on the other hand, knows how to start up and shut down my laptop, navigate Web sites and, even though he doesn't know how to write yet, and he can type his name and several words on various programs.

I'm astounded by how fast he has picked up using a computer and this got me to thinking if all of these new technologies, like smart phones or social networking sites, are hurting or helping us.

PBS recently aired a special "Frontline" episode, titled "Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier," that took an in-depth look at just that.

The show covers everything from video game addiction to how the military is using technology to use unmanned aerial vehicles to execute air strikes in foreign countries from a base near Las Vegas.

What I found most interesting were interviews with several professionals discussing whether multitasking may actually be hurting students' mental abilities.

"It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking," sociologist Clifford Nass, from Stanford University, said during an interview.  Nass says multitaskers are terrible at ignoring irrelevant information, keeping information in their head organized and switching from one task to another.

This revelation was eye opening for me because I am that person. When I am doing homework, I have my e-mail open, and I am also listening to music and reading other Web sites, including Facebook and Twitter.

So what are we losing out on by multitasking?

"At the end of the day, it seems like it's affecting things like ability to remember long term, ability to handle analytic reasoning, ability to switch [from one task to another] properly, etc," Nass said.

After listening and reading Nass' study results, I found myself believing that technology is hurting us. However, Digital Nation goes on to show us how technology has helped students at a failing public school in New York.

The principle decided to give all students laptops and create a curriculum based around using technology. Within a year, test scores increased 30 percent in reading, 40 percent in math and attendance went up 90 percent.

Now I'm really confused. Is technology helping us?

I don't believe anyone really knows because there have been several conflicting studies in the past that have looked into whether or not social networking sites impact college student's grades.

A University of New Hampshire study released in December found no correlation between heavy social media usage and grades. However, a study released last April from Ohio State University found that college students who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grades than students who don't use Facebook.

Also, this month a report from the Canadian Press said that constant Twittering and texting causes students to have bad grammar. The report is based in part on the failure rate of an English language exam administered by the University of Waterloo.

All of these studies are meaningless though because there is no way anyone can truly prove a correlation between social networking sites and student grades. Technology changes too often for a study to be relevant, and I seriously question the validity of studies based off of what college students say they do.

Besides, if a student is failing, isn't it possible that other outside factors like jobs or family responsibilities could be the reason why?

What I have discovered from watching Digital Nation and reading all the studies on social networking and grades, is that technology is neither good or bad; it is a set of constantly evolving tools that can be used or misused.

Students should learn to multitask less, or, if something is important, log out of e-mail, and silence phones, and focus on the task at hand. Just because we have an enormous amount of information and technology available to us, it doesn't mean we have to be in the know every second of every day.

As for myself, I think utilizing technology is a great way to teach my son basic reading, writing and math skills and at the same time the importance of not misusing technology.

At the end of the day though, I believe what's important is that students should spend at least part of their day disconnected from technology in order to stay connected to reality.