Albert Mohler: The Challenge of Attention in the Digital Age

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Excerpt:
The rise of mass media and the culture of entertainment shaped the minds of generations now at mid-life and older. Today's generation of college and university students faces a far greater array of attention demands -- most of them now cellular and digital. Many teenagers and college students seem to experience genuine anxiety when they miss a few minutes of digital activity. (In fairness, their Treo and Blackberry toting parents are often almost as distracted and inattentive.)

Ask any educator and you will hear the horror stories. College professors look out at the tops of heads as students are bent over keyboards. On some campuses, faculty members are in revolt over students surfing the Web and maintaining their Facebook pages during lectures. The learning experience is transformed even if the students are taking notes on their laptops. Eye contact between the teacher and the students is often almost totally lost. the rest image