Homework 3.2. Response to Peppler and Baym.

"Technology has the potential to open doors to young people who have historically been left behind in education. Access is the key." (Peppler, 2013, p.12) 

In her article "New Opportunities for Interest Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age," Kelsey Peppler discusses both the remarkable inundation of digital technologies into the lives of today's teenagers, and the effects that this media influx has had upon youth culture, and, in particular, youth culture's response to and engagement with the arts. Keppler describes a growing distinction between  the traditional "push" approach of learning in schools, where skills and knowledge are imposed upon a student regardless of personal need or interest (learning "about" something), and the emerging "pull" approach of learning through digital technologies outside of schools, where students are able to selectively engage in learning skills that they need in order to create, complete, and master various activities and tasks in which they have specific interest, even passion (learning "to be") (Peppler, 2013, p.11). Somewhat unsurprisingly, evidence suggests that teens are more interested, and more apt to engage more deeply in creative activities, through social media and other digital outlets over which they have control. Peppler discusses these "interest-driven activities" in a largely positive light, which is refreshing given the overwhelmingly negative press that technology seems to get in regards to education, creative development, and the social lives and skills of young people.

I think that it is really powerful that teens now have the ability to creatively engage with platforms in which they feel skillful, or want to learn to become skillful. Young people have grown up with these technologies, they feel ownership over them, and a comfort in utilizing them for their needs and their interests. Google is a source of knowledge that is constantly at teens' fingertips, and social media platforms like Instagram and Tumblr allow for casual participation in a very creative way. 

However, in a cursory search of images relating to teens and digital technologies, an incredible amount of snarky, negative, and even ominous cartoons come up regarding the degrading effects of technology on creativity, on culture, and on our and our children's social lives. Images imply that children and teens don't know what books are or how to "work" them, that people become distant through use of technology, that our phones and computers force us into states of isolation, of idiocy, or just plain rudeness. Even when images aren't necessarily negative, they still are often "anti-tech," implying that the path to serenity is stepping away from your phone, engaging in the "real world." 

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While I think that there are indeed potential negatives to an overuse and over-reliance upon technologies (I myself was admittedly shocked at Peppler's revelation that the average teen is absorbing over ten hours of media content per day!), I think there are also positives that can tend to be overlooked in today's discourse, especially as older generations that did not grow up with this level of technological integration into everyday life try to make sense of the tech- and media-rich lives of teenagers and millennials today. Peppler's article discusses some of the negative aspects, some of the idiocy that can occur, but she also tends to focus on the positive aspects of technology in the lives of teens as it relates to education, to creativity, and to personal excitement for learning. In my opinion, our society could benefit as a whole not only from increased research and development regarding the use of creative technologies and social media within the educational sphere, but also a more open and accepting attitude of these new and potentially groundbreaking paths in art-making and education.

It is human nature to resist change and have a fear of the unknown, and resistance to new technologies is not in itself new at all (see cartoon below, circa 1907). As Nancy Baym states in her book Personal Connections in the Digital Age, "Social norms have been diversifying and changing since they first appeared millenia ago, and will continue to evolve as long as there are people." (2010, p. 154). However, it is our responsibility as both educators and members of an increasingly technological society to engage in these new forms of learning, of creating, and of being with not only a healthy sense of skepticism, but also a sense of courage, of inquiry, and of adventure. 

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