a power user

There's no doubt that, when given a laptop in a lecture setting, most people surf the web, check email, or play video games. Their attention is lost and they've checked out. Of course, there's an assumption that technology is to blame. The only thing that I really blame said technology for is limiting doodling practice for the potential future artist (and for those of us who still can't sketch to save our lives). Y'see - I don't think that people were paying that much attention before. Daydreaming and sketching (aka "taking notes") are not particularly new practices. Now the daydreamer might just be blogging instead.

My frustration at the anti-computer attitude goes beyond the generational gap of an academic conference. I've found that this same attitude tends to be present in many workplace environments. Blackberries and laptops are often frowned upon as distraction devices. As a result, few of my colleagues are in the habit of creating backchannels in business meetings. This drives me absolutely bonkers, especially when we're talking about conference calls. I desperately, desperately want my colleagues to be on IM or IRC or some channel of real-time conversation during meetings. While I will fully admit that there are times when the only thing I have to contribute to such dialogue is snark, there are many more times when I really want clarifications, a quick question answered, or the ability to ask someone in the room to put the mic closer to the speaker without interrupting the speaker in the process.

A very interesting insight over at Apophenia into the so-called generational conflict between the younger, hyper-connected individual and the (usually) older, less-of-a-computer-power-user type.

And I agree that dismissing it as something generational is missing the point. Sure, older people might be more inclined, let's say, to belong to the latter category, but that is only as a result of their upbringing and what surrounded them through it. And the difference between that and what surrounds your average young person growing up right now (or 5 or 10 years ago, and so on).

But other than that it is a matter of choice, in my opinion. You choose your attitude towards this, the attitude doesn't choose you because you fit its demographic.

My take? Never settle for anything, no matter how good (or complete) it sounds. No, don't settle for the information in the brochure. Google it. Wikipedia it. Ask your Twitter followers. Start a discussion on Friendfeed. Get as much information as you can, from as many sources as you can, in order to then let your brain do what it was meant to do: make sense of it all. I don't believe our brains are there just to remember stuff we've been told at some point. No, the ability to filter is there, built-in, so why not use it? Why settle for someone else's conclusions, when you can have your own?