I am attending the 9th Annual Rural Telecommunications Congress Annual Conference, which is one of the oldest community technology meetings in the country. The group is meeting in Lexington, Kentucky this year, and has a record attendance of more than 400 people.
The opening keynote talk was delivered by Coach "Tubby" Smith, head basketball coach for the University of Kentucky. He talked about his work in introducing technology in underserved neighborhoods by providing after school technology programs that include technology, training, mentoring, and equipment in the home to help kids.
But the most interesting remark that he made was about his own basketball team. He said that he had to work very hard with his basketball players to encourage them to communicate with each other, and with him. He said the players had so many gadgets--PDAs, cellphones, iPods, etc. that they were constantly fiddling with them, and in the process these youth were tuning out not only the coach but other team members. He said it was a constant struggle to get the players to put the devices away and be present to what was going on around them.
It is ironic that the proliferation of inexpensive and capable communications devices are, in some ways, making us less communicative.
There are many other examples of how the technology is improving human to human communication, but we need to remain thoughtful about the effects of technology, especially on our youth.