30 de novembro de 2016

Abandono escolar de jovem tem custo igual a gasto do país com ensino médio



M
O trabalhador que tem ensino médio consegue renda bem maior do que aquele que para no fundamental.
Cada brasileiro que conclui todo o ciclo da educação básica acumula ao longo da vida, aproximadamente, R$ 15 mil (trazidos a valores de hoje) a mais do que seus pares que ficam para trás.
O problema é que, a cada ano no país, o número dos que não avança é enorme.
Cerca de 900 mil jovens de 17 anos —espantosos 25% do total— fogem do script todos os anos, pelas mais variadas razões, e não completam o ensino médio.
Se somarmos o que todos eles deixam de ganhar, temos que o custo privado total da evasão na última etapa do ensino básico é de quase R$ 14 bilhões por ano.
Os cálculos são do especialista Ricardo Paes de Barros, economista-chefe do Instituto Ayrton Senna e professor do Insper. E ele vai além.
Com base no que indicam pesquisas internacionais, Paes de Barros também estimou o chamado "custo social do abandono" no ensino médio.
O jovem que sai da escola prematuramente tem mais chance de se envolver com violência. O gasto público com um adolescente encarcerado é muito maior do que com um aluno de ensino médio.
Esse jovem tem maior probabilidade de usar drogas, o que pressiona as despesas com saúde pública.
Ele acaba pagando menos impostos. E assim por diante.
Tudo isso entra na conta do custo social do abandono escolar pelo jovem.
Segundo Paes de Barros, se a adição de todos esses fatores como percentual da nossa renda per capita for semelhante ao verificado em outros países, temos um prejuízo de cerca de R$ 35 bilhões por ano.
Somando, portanto, o custo do abandono escolar pelo jovem para as pessoas individualmente e para a sociedade como um todo, chegamos a um prejuízo de quase R$ 50 bilhões por ano no Brasil.
Paradoxalmente, esse é o valor que o setor público do país investe anualmente no ensino médio.
Ou seja, a mesma quantia que é gasta de um lado, é perdida de outro.
Esses números ajudam a dimensionar a gravidade e a urgência do tema no Brasil.
Temos demorado —e falhado— tanto que chegamos a um ponto em que precisamos entender melhor as causas do abandono e apontar soluções para saná-las ao mesmo tempo.
Em um estudo que está conduzindo, apoiado por Instituto Unibanco, Insper, Instituto Ayrton Senna e Fundação Brava, Paes de Barros tenta identificar o que está por trás da elevada evasão escolar no Brasil.
O objetivo da pesquisa, ainda em fase preliminar, é munir os gestores educacionais com evidências que ajudem a orientá-los sobre os caminhos mais eficazes.
Até agora, Paes de Barros e sua equipe identificaram 124 práticas pedagógicas distintas que vêm sendo aplicadas pelo Brasil afora no ensino médio.
É um sinal claro de que estamos atirando para todos os lados, com muito pouca evidência comprovada da eficácia do que está sendo feito nas escolas.
Isso ajuda a explicar por que temos falhado miseravelmente com nossos jovens e por que o custo dessa falha é tão alto para o país. 

The AltSchool: Progressivism Redux (Part 3) by larrycuban

Located in the South-of-Market district (SOMA) of San Francisco this micro-school of 33 middle schoolers is a few blocks away from Yerba Buena (see Part 2). I spent a morning there speaking with the Head of School, Emily Dahm (who also is in charge of Yerba Buena), observing two lessons taught by "core educators" James Earle (social studies/English) and Eman Haggag (science), and interviewing Katie Berk, a product manager, from the technical side of the "micro-school."
Facing busy Folsom Street, AltSchool space is divided into four large carpeted rooms two of which were used that morning for lessons (no class I observed was larger than 15). The other two spaces include a room with desktop computers and commons area for the entire school to meet. Software engineers and staff (coders, designers, and product managers) were located in a large space in the back of the building adjacent to the classrooms and commons area.
Each classroom space has wall-mounted cameras and microphones hanging from the ceiling--called Altvideo--that produce data for teachers to view later privately about the lesson they taught.  The technical staff has produced an app that teachers can use to find the precise part of the lesson they want to see. This self-evaluation occurs during the school day and other times.
On November 7, 2016 I arrived at 8:00 AM and interviewed the Head of School and both core educators. School began at 9:00 with a "morning meeting." There were 21 twelve to fourteen year-olds sitting in a circle with Eman Haggag counting down from 10 to 0 to secure quiet for the "morning meeting" to begin. On a whiteboard are listed announcements:
Good Morning,
How are you? I am quite marvelous. Cupa' tea?
Few things:
--Feynman bring phones to class powered off (students are in different groups--(the internationally known physicist Richard Feynman)--is name of one group of students)
--Field trip Wednesday--Altschool shirts + pencil + paper
--Ceramics class 11/17, 11/18/,11/22
Students ask logistics questions about upcoming field trip, teachers answer their questions.These morning meetings are to inform students of daily activities and build bonds of community among both students and adults.
At 9:10, students go to the Earle's and Haggag's spaces. I go to observe a 90-minute lesson in James Earle's room.
SOMA space.jpgSOMA plaque.jpg
________________________________________________
*The camera is a red dot in a small square below "Join or Die" poster; the mics are in the ring suspended from the ceiling.
______________________________________________
There are 14 students in Earle's class, one with desks and chairs along the windows and walls facing the center. The students sit on the desks with their backs to windows and walls and their feet on the chairs.They appear used to the informality of the seating arrangements and easily shift to sitting at their desks later in the lesson.
SOMA Earle.jpg
In his third year at SOMA, Earle taught global cultures using art, literature, history, and science for eight years at a private school in East Hampton (NY). There he used digital tools extensively. He was attracted to AltSchool for its "public mission, inclusivity, and freedom to work on an integrated curriculum." *
Earle, wearing a checked long-sleeved shirt with a loosened gray tie over jeans, stands in the center of the room ready to launch the lesson on students writing their position papers on the struggle between colonists and Britain over trade, taxes, and loyalty to the Crown.
To pairs of students, he has assigned actual characters who lived in the years before the American Revolution when colonials were divided among themselves as patriots who sought representation in Parliament and loyalists  to the Crown (e.g. British commander Jeffrey Amherst, Admiral Samuel Hood, colonist William Franklin).  King George III and British Parliament were also divided over how to best treat the uppity colonists who didn't want to pay taxes that would recoup British costs in defending the colonies in an earlier French and Indian War that had lasted seven years.
Students have researched the person about whom they are expected to write a position paper.  Earle had created playlists of sources, video clips, and readings located on students' Chromebooks covering these years and different individuals he had assigned to pairs of students.  Some members of the class are just beginning to get a sense of their character's personality; others are at sea and today's lesson is aimed at answering students questions and get them to dig into the writing.
Earle stresses the importance of students knowing their character's personality and what positions the person would take on trade with Britain and colonists' representation in Parliament. He goes over the slide listing instructions on writing a position paper, paragraph by paragraph, and the importance of the students writing an internally consistent paper that reflects who their character is, their personality, and what stands that the person would take in this on-going struggle with the mother country.
After going over the parts of the position paper, Earle then says "Let's go around and ask questions." There are many.
One student asks about William Franklin, a colonial Loyalist (and son of Ben) and his personality that she gleaned from sources she used. Earle responds about how to develop a plan consistent with the character each team is going to write about. Knowing their character's views on trade, for example, become part of the position paper. Another student asks about her character who is a British soldier and how he would address his commander.
Earle interrupts the class for a moment as he sees six students who have opened their Chromebooks and have begun tapping away. He asks them to close their lids for now since the questions others ask can apply to their work. They do.
Students resume their questions. One asks whether they will work on the Island simulation (lessons that Earle created to show students the different factions in the colonies; the simulation has six islands with different resources where competition and cooperation do exist but change over time.  An upcoming debate among the Islands will occur). Earle says they will have the debate. He turns to another student question.
After another few minutes of questions, Earle asks students to now sit at the desks so he can see what they are working on as they begin writing. All of the students either open their Chromebooks to read and re-read sources in their playlists or begin writing. Some students have their partners in the room and some are in the other class with Eman Haggag and even others are at Yerba Buena.
I speak to three students near me and ask what they are doing. One shows me the playlist she has and the video she is watching; another explains to me about the British soldier she is going to write about. One student has William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne, and wonders how to address and write a letter as a member of the House of Lords.
Earle goes to each student, listens to what the student is concerned about in the position paper or character he or she has been assigned, and has a mini-conversation before moving on to another student. To one student, he says, "get your fingers moving on the keyboard." The student does. For the remaining time in the lesson, students are figuring out their character's positions on different issues roiling colonist-British relations and at various stages of writing their position paper.
I leave the room and  walk a few steps to the open space where Eman Haggag's science lesson on "Speed Machines"is underway. Part of the lesson is a lab measuring the speed of a marble going down a ramp. The open space is furnished with a series of black-topped lab tables (resistant to stains and flaking) holding three to four students facing the front of the space where there is an interactive white board that shows slides for the lesson.
Haggag came to SOMA this school year. She has taught eight years in charter and private schools in the Washington, D.C. area. In those different schools she had one laptop per students, interactive white boards and a host of digital tools available to her. What attracted her to AltSchool was the concept of experimenting in a "lab school" where different ideas about schools and classroom lessons can be tested. "Here," she says is the "autonomy I have sought in teaching."  Moreover, she says: "I feel ownership of what I do. In this lab setting, I can practice what I preach."
By the time I enter the room, Haggag--wearing an ankle-length black skirt with a flowered blouse over a long-sleeved shirt and a blue scarf---has organized the 13 students into groups of three and four students collecting data on how fast a marble rolls down a ramp. Like Galileo rolling balls down an incline and measuring their speed, this lab sought to  apply the formula:
SPEED =DISTANCE  (DIVIDED BY)  TIME
Students had already constructed an inclined plane out of 2' X 3' pieces of hard cardboard and scotch-taped a yard stick, marked off in 3" segments. The task for each group is to time how long the marble takes to go from the first segment to the second and then from the second until the next all the way to the 10th and last segment.  Each student in the group has a task. One uses her smart phone as a stop-watch; another catches the marble at each segment and another records time and length of drop.
As I walk around the room, these 12 to 14 year-olds are engaged in the doing each step of the experiment and recording the data. Haggag walks to each group, inquires if there are any problems, and answers questions. At one point she says to the class: "You're getting into the groove. That's awesome."
I overhear one student--the marble catcher in a nearby group say to her group -mates: "This is really stressful."
Haggag asks students to begin looking at the data they have collected and enter it into a Data Table with columns for distance in centimeters (each segment of the yardstick), time, and speed. They are to calculate the speed of the marble for each segment by dividing the distance by the time it took to traverse the distance. Students enter data and have many questions. Some are answered by group members and friends in other groups; others by the teacher who goes to each group and checks on the data they entered. A few students say out loud the mistakes they made in setting up the experiment and executing it.
With about 20 minutes left to the lesson, Haggag stands on a chair with a four foot high "rain stick" that has small pebbles in it. She turns "the rain stick" upside down and the  sound of the pebbles falling inside the stick is a sign that the teacher wants students' attention. The class quiets down. She then gives students instructions to disassemble cardboards, yardstick, and scotch tape, clean up any debris on floor and reassemble at their lab tables.
The students scurry about, clean up, and sit in their groups at each table.
Haggag then asks the whole group to think about what they learned from the experiment. Some students said that they did too many trials using the marble; others said they didn't do enough trials. One student said how hard it was to release the marble and get an exact time. In each instance the teacher asked what the student had learned from their mistakes. Carrying off an experiment, one student said, depends on how well a procedure is done. Done poorly, he said, then the data are wrong. Haggag compliments students for their candor in enumerating their mistakes.
The teacher now asks students to calculate the data they collected. Students talk among themselves as they enter the numbers in the Data Table.
After about five minutes, Haggag asks the class to review the data and think about the hypothesis they had from previous lessons and how certain many members of the class were then that "numbers never lie." She then goes over the estimates of speed that groups had calculated and how much variation existed among the groups using similar ramps, yardsticks, and marbles.
Even with these varying estimates, Haggag wants each group of students to graph the curve of the marble's speed that they recorded.  She demonstrates on a slide how to put the various points on the grid--one axis is time and the other axis is distance--by counting the little blocks and where to insert a dot that with other dots will eventually produce a curve. She tells students that graph will show the "Speed of a Marble."
quadrillesheet
Students work on this in groups as I leave the lesson to have an interview with Katie Berk, a product manager on the technical side of the AltSchool. The technical staff are lodged on the same floor in a large space at the back of the building.
Of nearly 160 employees in the network of "micro-schools" in San Francisco, there are more than 70 educators and about 30 are on the technical staff (they are not teachers) working on products, as coders, designers, and product managers. I interviewed Berk. In her third year at AltSchool, she was previously a Lead Product Manager at Zynga where she led a team that produced games.
At AltSchool, the technology side of the school receives a gigantic flow of data from "network" schools, digests the information, and designs software that solve problems that teachers and students have with current platform and programs while coming up with different ways to help teachers make their work both easier and efficient to reach the goals teachers have set for their students.
Berk tells me that the main job of the technology side is to help teachers teach and students learn more efficiently. They accomplish this, she says, by having close contact with what both teachers and students are doing by having engineers and designers spend time every week watching teachers teach and talking with them..
Teachers, Berk told me, run into problems with certain aspects of the platform used across AltSchool and they want simple ways to do an "end-around" the problem. Also teachers have ideas on what can make lessons, say, in science or math, easier for students to grasp and have an idea that can turn into an item on a playlist or the designer can wrestle with what the teacher wants and figure out a solution that she and her colleagues can create for the teacher. This collaboration between teachers and technical staff at AltSchool was one of the reasons that Berk came to the "network" of "micro-schools." I thanked her for the time she spent with me and left.
_________________________
As I drive home after my interview with Berk, I think how unusual this partnership between educators and the technologist side of a school really is. On-site, skilled technical staff that confer frequently with their "users" to come up with solutions to teaching and learning problems while, at the same time, smart, experienced teachers can turn to designers and engineers to try out software ideas that teachers believe might help them teach and students learn is uniquely innovative. That partnership is uncommon in schooling today, both public and private.
Yes, I thought, there are issues of privacy for both teachers and students amid constant surveillance during school hours that still need to be negotiated.  Firewalls to prevent hacking or sharing information have to be strong enough not to be breached. That issue will not disappear.
Another thought occurred to me as I drove south on the freeway. AltSchool was practicing a form of progressive pedagogy that would have had John Dewey nodding in agreement.  Yet, at the same time, AltSchool had married their progressive ways of teaching and learning to the sought-after classroom and organizational efficiencies that new technologies provide in the "micro-school" network. Maybe Edward Thorndike, that early 20th century "educational engineer" who thought everything could be measured and analyzing data would point the way to better managed and efficient schools would, along with John Dewey, be nodding in agreement for the first time (see here).  Bringing together these two wings of the progressive movement a century ago finally  into one network of schools can be done, reformers might conclude, albeit at $26K per student a year.
__________________
* In an interview prior to the lesson, Earle succinctly told me how digital tools at the Ross School where he taught previously and here at the AltSchool have helped him negotiate the inherently impossible task of "managing the complexity of teaching." He appreciates how many decisions, how many activities, how many student psyches come into play with his expertise and personality in a lesson. He seeks to have students acquire the skills and concepts he wants to communicate and have students not only grasp both but also come to understand and use in their school career. Negotiating this daily complexity of teaching is, according to Earle, aided, in part, by the digital tools he has available and uses with his students. Those tools are helpful to "manage the complexity of teaching," he says, but it is still a high mountain to climb every day.
larrycuban | November 30, 2016

29 de novembro de 2016

Professor Watchlist Is Seen as Threat to Academic Freedom


the website Professor Watchlist was started last Monday.
A new website that accuses nearly 200 college professors of advancing “leftist propaganda in the classroom” and discriminating against conservative students has been criticized as a threat to academic freedom.
The site, Professor Watchlist, which first appeared Nov. 21, says it names those instructors who “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.”
“We aim to post professors who have records of targeting students for their viewpoints, forcing students to adopt a certain perspective, and/or abuse or harm students in any way for standing up for their beliefs,” wrote Matt Lamb, an organizer of the site.
The Professor Watchlist is a project of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit organization that says its mission is to educate students about “true free market values.” Charlie Kirk, its founder and executive director, wrote in a blog post that “it’s no secret that some of America’s college professors are totally out of line” and that it was time to expose them.
But Julio C. Pino, an associate professor of history at Kent State University in Ohio who is among those named on the site, said in an interview, “What we are seeing with this site is a kind of normalizing of prosecuting professors, shaming professors, defaming professors.”
“The broader issue it raises is: What kind of country is America going to become in the next four years?” he added.
Professor Pino said professors should not fight the creators of the list directly but instead seek allies on and off campus to address what gave rise to the atmosphere that allowed the website to flourish in the first place.
The professor is listed on the site because, it says, he faced investigation by the F.B.I. “for connections to ISIS.” He declined to address the allegations, but has denied any ties to the terrorist organization and has spoken out against violence, according to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.
Mr. Lamb, a director of constitutional enforcement and transparency at Turning Point USA, said in an email that the website was “simply aggregating” professors whose actions have been the subject of news reports.
“This site is a beautiful example of freedom of speech,” Mr. Lamb said. “Professors can say whatever they want, other people can report it and we can compile the reports on whatever they say.”
The website has thin information in its entries and a less-than-smooth search function. That could be a reflection of how rapidly it was created to capitalize on the political climate, particularly after the election of Donald J. Trump as president, Professor Pino said.
Among those featured is Melissa Click, a former University of Missouri professor who was caught on video calling for “some muscle” to remove a journalist from a student demonstration in 2015. The university later fired Ms. Click.
One of the instructors listed, Joan Neuberger, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who teaches Russian history, was described on the site as leading a petition to bar students who carry concealed weapons from entering classrooms “in violation of Texas law.”
But Professor Neuberger said in an email that the characterization was inaccurate. “The law had not been finalized yet when we were petitioning,” she said, adding that the website showed no commitment to posting factual information.
Professor Pino said Professor Watchlist was a “reboot” of similar past efforts, such as Discover the Networks by the conservative activist David Horowitz.
Hans-Joerg Tiede, the associate secretary for the department of academic freedom, tenure and governance at the American Association of University Professors, said in an interview: “There is a continuing cycle of these sorts of things. They serve the same purpose: to intimidate individuals from speaking plainly in their classrooms or in their publications.”
He noted in a blog post that the monitoring of organizations and people deemed “radical” dated to 1934, when the conservative political activist Elizabeth Dilling published “The Red Network: A ‘Who’s Who’ and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots.”
Among the organizations listed in her work were the American Federation of Teachers and the American Civil Liberties Union. Ms. Dilling wrote that the federation supported “full ‘academic freedom’ to teach anything, including socialism, communism or atheism,” according to the blog post.
Mr. Tiede said the site could be used to harass professors or sabotage them from gaining jobs or promotions. And some professors were submitting their own names to the website as a way to emphasize the absurdity of the list, he added.
Others took to Twitter to highlight parody submissions, such as Albus Dumbledore from “Harry Potter” and the Professorfrom the television series “Gilligan’s Island.” The submission for the latter character read in part: “Spent almost 30 minutes building a working radio out of coconuts but failed to maintain a working signal in the end.”
Some in academic circles said professors should not overreact to the site, but should not ignore it either.
“In the past, I have taken the position that we ignore such challenges to free speech and the hate mail that usually accompanies it, but no longer,” Professor Neuberger said. “Now I say we fight as hard as we can against people who don’t care about accuracy, who can’t recognize fake news and who seek to monitor what we do as educators.”
Continue reading the main story

Is Digital Connectedness Good or Bad for People?

UPDATED NOVEMBER 28, 2016 ,The New York Times

André da Loba
People of all ages are spending more and more time online. Does this digital trend improve lives or hurt them?

DEBATERS


A Way to Explore and Build Relationships We Wouldn’t Otherwise Form

Noa-gafni_slaney-thumbstandard
As social creatures, we seek out opportunities to connect with others. The internet is particularly effective in helping us do that.
As a child growing up in the United States with foreign parents, every summer we would visit my mother's family in Israel. There I would marvel at the artists on MTV Europe. And every four years, my Chilean father would hole up in our New Jersey basement to watch the Mundial on Univision — a cultural phenomena in other parts of the world, but unknown to our American neighbors.
Today’s globalized success stories are wonderful because they are undeniably influenced by their local context.
Nowadays, music, sport and culture spread easily across the globe. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is the darling of the art world. Shakira's fans go beyond Latin America. And even Black Friday sales are now a global phenomenon. It’s clear that the internet is having an impact on much more than our preference for music. For 18- to 24-year-olds, the heaviest social media users, it is the top source of news. For millennials, it is the biggest influence on voting behavior and the reason that they are more likely to give to global, as opposed to local, causes. The success of economy superpowers such as AirBnB, which has inspired millions to travel differently, points to a generation that is more open to connecting with strangers based on mutual interests and a willingness to trust people based on their online profiles.
But the internet, like all platforms, can be used for positive and negative interactions. We cringe with horror at hateful speech and people who leverage 140 character sound bites to further their anti-openness agenda. In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, many observers claim that social media has created “filter bubbles” that reinforce our views as opposed to opening us up to new ones.
As our world becomes more closely intertwined, we want to hold on to the elements of our identity that define where we come from. It can be sharing our home or showing pride in our local government. That is what makes today’s globalized success stories so wonderful — they are undeniably influenced by their local context.

Online Sharing and Selfies Erode the Value of Our Private Lives

Emerson_csorba-thumbstandard
About a year ago, I attended a meeting in Geneva focused on gathering 450 "changemakers" to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges. I thought the participants would emerge with new relationships and perspectives on complex issues such as poverty and climate change. But very little meaningful conversation took place. Instead, participants spent the summit glued to their phones, taking selfies and sharing on Facebook — their posts usually accompanied by inspirational quotes and messages on how grateful they were to be included in this group of leaders.
The authenticity of these online activities is often more an attempt to curate a particular image than an expression of a person's actual beliefs and convictions.
This experience is representative of a values shift taking place in society toward concepts such as authenticity, transparency and vulnerability. Arthur C. Brooks, of the American Enterprise Institute, describes this shift through what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called "amour de soi" to an "amour-propre"; that is, individuals partake less in activities for the sake of activities' intrinsic worth than for their use in satisfying others. Indeed, it is virtually impossible to spend time on social media without coming across friends sharing random thoughts, requests for advice and updates on personal relationships. Although heartfelt, the authenticity of these activities is often suspect, often more an attempt to curate a particular image than an expression of a person's actual beliefs and convictions.
We celebrate this behavior, and see it modeled by many of society's leaders. As a Canadian, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comes to mind. Recently named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People and appearing on the cover of GQ as the "Prime Minister of Suave," Trudeau is active on Instagram and is considered by many to be the sort of open and authentic leader that we need in the world. Trudeau's visit to the White House, for instance, was accompanied by numerous "candid" Instagram photos and clever hashtags with the Obamas. Among these, a photo of the Trudeau and Obama families captioned "Meeting the neighbours," and a second with Trudeau in black tie, tagged #StateDinner. Though an important meeting between Canada and the United States, the Trudeau Instagram feed was at times more suggestive of a Vanity Fair shoot than a serious gathering between national leaders.
In our digital world, it comes as no surprise that these posts play such a central role in our lives, and that carefully curated social media images and comments gain such traction. But I cannot help but wonder what it is that we lose in the process of sharing so much of ourselves publicly. Social media "likes" and new followers provide us with public approval, but this need for constant sharing of ourselves — and the immediate gratification that comes with it — diminishes the meaning and significance in the things we share.
Lost in the online sharing and advice-gathering is the ability to reflect on questions ourselves, coming to our own decisions in whatever amount of time is required. In her book "How to Be Alone," philosopher Sarah Maitland wonders how it is that in a world that glorifies the individual, we have become so afraid of spending time alone. And she is right: Our digital lives favor public image at the expense of private reflection.
When it is possible to share widely, the approval we gain from followers leads us to forget that something even could be private, and moreover, that some parts of our lives are worth keeping private. Indeed, our digital connections might increase the ease in sharing certain parts of ourselves, but we must ask whether these are things better worth protecting.


Online Activism Is Having a Positive Effect in the Real World

Noa-gafni_slaney-thumbstandard
“Clicktivism” and “slacktivism” are derogatory terms for online activism. It suggests that digital campaigns do nothing more than generate likes on Instagram. Many argue that these campaigns do more harm than good by providing participants with a sense of satisfaction that they’ve taken an action without actually contributing to the cause through tangible, “real-world” means. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Our online interactions influence our offline behavior. The myth of clicktivism dismisses the powerful movements that are taking place — on and offline.
One of the most notable examples of proported “slacktivism” was the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The campaign attracted worldwide attention with leaders such as Lei Jun and Victor Koo taking part along with Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Although the campaign was criticized with simply raising awareness (2.2 million Twitter mentions and 2.4 million Facebook videos of people pouring buckets of ice water over themselves), it raised more than $115 million. More recently, the Ice Bucket Challenge was credited with funding a research breakthrough.
There are other examples of online interactions fueling real-life actions. Lean In, founded by Sheryl Sandberg, uses high profile campaigns featuring Beyoncé and other celebrities tweeting their support for gender equality. These tweets sparked a conversation on and offline about the collective responsibility to close the gender gap and as a result, more than 900 companies have officially partnered with Lean In to support female leadership.
The United Nations Foundation is leveraging online interest to create a continued focus on the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to creating compelling messages that are easy to share on social media, the foundation uses its +SocialGood community, a platform for changemakers to share resources around global issues, to spread the word and make the goals locally relevant.
Our online interactions influence our offline behavior. The myth of clicktivism dismisses the powerful movements that are taking place — on and offline.

The Constant Sharing Is Making Us Competitive and Depressed

Emerson_csorba-thumbstandard
The relationships we form are superficial at best, and the social comparison that these connections fosters can be psychologically damaging.
The relationships we form are superficial at best, and the social comparison that these connections fosters can be psychologically damaging.
Over the past three years, I have conducted hundreds of one-on-one interviews with early and mid-career professionals on how they see their lives and careers developing in an uncertain world. Through these discussions, a theme of "ruthless comparison" emerges, where we become acutely aware of how our friends and colleagues portray themselves online. Noa highlights campaigns such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Lean In, where the collective action of celebrities and average citizens creates a social pressure for others to engage in a particular socially conscious activity. While useful in generating real-life action, this pressure to engage is in large part based on social comparison: a need to portray oneself in a particular light to appear to be a person committed to doing good. These online actions are increasingly required to "keep up with the Joneses" in a connected world.
Although many interviewees were aware that these self-representations are illusory, they nevertheless felt pressured to engage in this competition, sharing their achievements and experiences over social media to show others how they are keeping up. This fuels a perpetual competition, focused on the sharing of successes and other updates, regardless of how accurately these portrayals represent real life — and they rarely do.
This sharing has psychological consequences. A handful of studies, including one recently conducted by the University of Michigan, suggest that increased Facebook usage contributes to anxiety and even depression. By constantly seeing what others are doing, and in paying attention to their lives as they seem to be unfolding in real-time, our anxiety and uncertainty as to whether we are leading lives that fulfill our own potential deepens.
This vicious cycle is difficult to escape; it requires a significant amount of confidence in oneself to both remain connected and see past the charade we collectively engage in. For every +SocialGood campaign that legitimately builds in-person dialogue, there are countless online campaigns fuelled by individual or corporate need to "curate" images that compare favorably with those of society's influencers. Based on my interviews with early and mid-career professionals, many individuals are at a crossroads in how to act in their online worlds. Skeptical of the authenticity of online activity, they nevertheless feel trapped in a society where sharing is celebrated.
Indeed, we must be weary of the comparisons that our connectedness encourages, knowing that these comparisons are often psychologically exhausting and, in some cases, harmful.

Online Connections Can be Superficial, but the Examples of That Are Outliers

Noa-gafni_slaney-thumbstandard
When I first began to research social media in 2004, the reigning narrative was that people who chose to interact online were "socially awkward" and looking for opportunities to connect in the digital realm because real-world opportunities were closed off to them. When I studied teenagers who used chat rooms, I saw that a generation of digital natives were as socially adjusted as their peers and looked to connect online in addition to real life.
Many studies have shown that people who connect with others online are less likely to be socially isolated than their peers who don’t.
Although Emerson points to the negative consequences of a digital presence, many studies have shown that people who connect with others online are less likely to be socially isolated than their peers who don't. A particular subset of digital interaction, online dating, is now the second most common way to meet someone. And couples who have met online have marriages that are just as strong as those who met in real life.
As the No.1 activity on the web, social media has become a key part of our lives. These platforms mimic — not alter— our real world behavior. They just happen to broaden our perspective. I spend the same amount of time on Instagram liking photos of my niece as I do with social innovators living in Singapore. And Twitter allows me to share my opinion on the issues I care about — much as I would at the dining room table. The key difference is that I'm now able to tap into a global community, not just a local one.
The rise of citizen journalism has given us a first-person view into current events, making us more aware and providing us with a greater sense of responsibility as a result. Marginalized groups, such as gay teenagers, have been connecting with similar individuals and finding helpful resources. And movements like #BlackLivesMatter have turned anger toward injustice to positive, peaceful campaigns for change.

Of course, as Emerson mentions, there are many instances where the web is superficial — there is Tinder, #humblebragging and a tendency toward selfies. There are also elements of social media that cause more harm than good, from filter bubbles to fake news. But the deeper connections that take place online more than make up for these outlier examples. I, for one, am continuously amazed at social media's ability to connect us all.

The Potential for Change Through Online Connections Can Lead to Frustrations

Emerson_csorba-thumbstandard
In writing about online connections, Noa highlights its "key difference" as being the ability to "tap into a global community, not just a local one." Critically, this global community allows participants to share their opinions, and in some cases, develop relationships that would not otherwise exist. Personally, I have benefited from this interactivity; several of my closest friendships, as well as professional opportunities, began with communication over online tools such as skype — with in-person meetings not taking place until sometimes more than one year into our conversations. These experiences are compelling, as are the examples that Noa shares of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and others helping change the world.
There is a danger that belief in global connectivity, and its ability to "change the world," becomes its own religion bereft of critical examination.
But there is a danger that belief in global connectivity, and its ability to "change the world," becomes its own religion bereft of critical examination. Our connectedness means that we are bombarded with success stories — often in the form of lists such as Forbes Top 30 Under 30, or global networks such as the Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum — that showcase "changemakers" collaborating to solve the world's problems. These networks focus on the social impact of their members, with the Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Class of 2016 website, framing this as "Your Guide to the Entrepreneurs and Leaders Who Are Changing Our World." As previously argued, however, the change trumpeted in these networks does not always bear out in reality; the stories of these social entrepreneurs, and their ability to disseminate these stories through their online networks, often substitutes for the longer-term and often times unrecognized efforts required to make a lasting impact in the world.
The British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes in his book "Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life," that "The myth of our potential can make of our lives a perpetual falling-short, a continual and continuing loss ... though at its best it lures us into the future, but without letting us wonder why such lures are required." Our online connections feed our belief that changing the world is possible for all, reinforced through the numerous success stories we see of social entrepreneurs and innovators overcoming traditional limitations of space and time. Connectedness, in short, strengthens our belief in potential.
But as Phillips writes, a belief in potential to create change can bring disappointment and frustration, as we realize that the stories of social change we consume in our connected worlds are not always as readily achievable as we have been led to believe.

Join Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on twitter.com/roomfordebate




39 COMMENTS

Click here to read the best Times comments from the past week.

  • All 39
  •  
  • Readers’ Picks 20
Newest


Tournachonadar

 Illiana 4 minutes ago
Oversharing is boorish and extremely tedious. I don't need to hear someone else's clinically detailed reports straight from oncology, as an example. But for very shallow people who have basically empty brains and lives, this hyperconnectedness may stimulate their cerebral tentacles. They will miss out on all the pleasures of a good read, a long hike in the woods, indeed any activity that is not punctuated by digital hyperness in checking one's metrics or email. Reliance on Chinese electronics must reassure those manufacturers in Guangdong and elsewhere that they have succeeded in eating up our occidental souls.
     

Dr. John Burch

 Mountain View, CA 8 minutes ago
Potentially, the smartphone can make the H-bomb obsolete - if the conversation is centered on holistic thinking, compassion, and the emergence of a global community with a culture that works for the benefit of all life. I wonder how we can make that transformation central to what the digital universe is doing.
     

Laura

 NJ 11 minutes ago
WQXR, New York's very wonderful radio station, has a program devoted to analog recordings on Sundays.

Yesterday while driving I heard Dvorak's "In Nature's Realm." It blew me away with its warmth, depth, and resonance. It sounded so alive.

Hearing it was ironic, as I'd heard a digital version (on an unrelated station) just a few days before while driving to Thanksgiving. It was pretty ho-hum.

You could attribute the difference to the conductor, orchestra, recording space, and other factors.

But the reality is, digital recording eliminates many of the overtones that give us richer harmonies and a fuller experience.

It's great analogy for personal vs. digital communications and friendships.

98% of communication is non-verbal. Digital friendships and communications are fine and have their place -- but we might all remember that they remove the overtones.

Life feels kinda flat without the real thing.

Thankfully, I have friends who feel the same way.
     

Lost in Space

 Champaign, IL 12 minutes ago
I am unconnected - no insta-this-and-that, no Facebook, etc. - and happy to be so. I don't seem to be missing much, but I have the feeling that the impact of social media is *much* more complex than this discussion suggests.
     

Jenifer Wolf

 New York 13 minutes ago
Noa: You & I your generation may 'seek social outlets'. Those of us who lives mostly happened before the digital age mostly stumbled into friendship & romance with actual people in the physical world. Now I see lots of people 'alone' on their devices, no doubt with imaginary connections with others, while totally ignoring those with whom they share physical space. I see couples in restaurants looking at & sometimes talking into there cell phones, paying no attention to their 'friend' or 'date' or spouse. I don't 'hate' the internet, as some of my contemporaries do, (it's great for all kinds of work) I just feel that your generation is using it as a substitute for social life.
     

redweather

 Atlanta 13 minutes ago
Digital connected-ness is a ruse promoted by the telecom giants and turned into fabulous profits.
     

Art Work

 new york, ny 14 minutes ago
Online? Offline?
Who says you can't do both ?
     

Hanna

 Richmond 15 minutes ago
As it turns out, I don't want to know everything about my friends and family. I find I like them less the more I see their opinions/dinners/photos/"likes" on social media. It's possible to know too much about someone.
     

Dennis

 Johns Island, SC 16 minutes ago
Maybe it's just the 21st Century version of Citizens' Band radio.
     

Bart Grossman

 Albany, CA 3 hours ago
When the internet was more about connection there were more positives. Nowadays it is more about consumption and ventilation. It seems to be making us more opinionated, less tolerant and stupider.
     

Bob Garcia

 Miami 6 hours ago
The term "digital connectedness" is hopelessly vague. It covers everything from someone who checks their e-mail a couple of times a day from a desktop, to the smartphone owner who keeps it on their person 7x24 and lets it pre-empt all other activities.

And none of the debaters mentions the growing use of social media as a means for the police and spy agencies to conduct surveillance on the population.
     

Matayah Fox

 Portland, OR 10 hours ago
I do not believe that the problem is that we do not have potential needed to change the world, but that social media leads us to believe that we should have all the potential. I believe that each of us contains potential unique to us, making us capable of changing the world no matter how small although digital connectedness could lead (and I believe does) many individuals to believe they have to change the entire world.
     

Sara

 Oakland Ca 10 hours ago
While I feel a physical withdrawal syndrome if I lose wifi or email - this dependence and all the fun conveniences (e.g. Buying music, checking facts, ordering stuff to be delivered to my door, etc.) is not really healthy.
Our brans develop in a complex experiential field of attachment, emotional valence, sights, smells and unconscious communication. Even the presence of Mirror Neurons indicate we are innately wired to feel real life and learn from it. It is essential nutrition.
On line 'relationships' are like processed food. They may be filling & easy, but they cause diabetes & obesity, omitting crucial nutrients. They also undermine organic farming & sustainable agriculture.
Tat is the analogy to cyber relational claims...it looks just like real human contact...but isn't hood for us.
     

sfdphd

 is a trusted commenter San Francisco 11 hours ago
It is absurd to frame this as an either/or debate. It is undoubtedly both good in some ways and bad in other ways.

We should be acknowledging the problems and find ways to compensate for that as well as celebrate the good aspects.
     

John Smith

 Cherry Hill NJ 11 hours ago
TWEETS R US--the new toy that's come out just in time for the holiday season. It's for the birds really. All of the interconnectedness still follows one universal truth about computers: GIGO = Garbage In Garbage Out. If we fill up social media with good stuff, that's what will come out. If we fill it up with trash and filth, that's precisely what we'll get out of it. With the added danger that these electronic devices that keep us interconnected are being used while people drive, and becoming a new source of violence and death in the US. Precisely what we don't need. If we use social media to supplement caring, nurturing relationships, then the outcome of the connectedness will enrich our lives. Perhaps the most powerful change is the shifting of personal emotional and physical boundaries. People express things online that would have been considered shameful by pre Internet generations. But now they're all there out in the open. We have yet to find out what the changes will be in our world if shame and guilt are eliminated from the broad spectrum of human emotion. When the hippies experimented with such interconnectedness in the 60s they were reviled and hated. But now it's cool to see how much you can show off on social media. As a child of the 60s, I'm not amused. I chose to be an interested observer back then. But now I'm dependent on social media to stay connected just like everyone else.
     

Patricia Mueller

 Parma, Ohio 11 hours ago
As an atheist I am really glad I can seek out anti-dogmatic ideology online, which makes me feel not so alone. Before digital media I was vilified and excommunicated by my own family.
     

MarkH

 Delaware Valley 13 hours ago
The blessings of truly _personal_ connection are incomparable. So too, often, are the challenges.

To the extent that online communication becomes a starting point for knowing people face-to-face, I see it as a valuable asset.

To the extent that online communication displaces opportunities for knowing people face-to-face, I see it as a grievous loss.
     

Matt James

 NYC 13 hours ago
No one likes to hear an answer like, "it depends," but how can the answer be otherwise? The merits of digital connectedness are so heavily dependent on specific circumstances that, without the addition of better parameters, the question as posed is meaningless. Older people used to physical interactions with friends and family may feel left out of this "connectedness." Yet people my age really don't have a basis for comparison. This technology means that few people are ever "forced" to be alone. This technology means few people are ever really "allowed" to be alone. Digital connectedness enables disparate groups with unique viewpoints to interact regardless of distance. The same connectedness also enables some people to restrict their interactions solely to likeminded individuals and escape any reality that contradicts their worldview.

One might say: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
     

Matt D.

 New York 13 hours ago
I think there is major difference between messaging capabilities (WhatsApp and similar chat programs) that are generally used to communicate with closer friends and family, and broadcast capabilities that are generally used to communicate to broader circles (aka Facebook). The former has been very enriching while the latter has been somewhat negative. To that end, I have cut back tremendously on my Facebook usage, and have yet to sign up to another social media platform.
     

Anne

 Washington 14 hours ago
For whatever reason, face to face relationships in my small town have turned out to be mostly superficial and opportunistic. I tried for years to make real friends. I did finally find one, but there was a lot of frustration and hurt along the way.

Having a couple of close Internet friends has helped. I'm not knocking friendships that don't involve personal contact. Sometimes, it's all there is.
     


Art Work

 new york, ny 13 minutes ago
Online? Offline?
Who says you can't do both ?
     

dmbones

 Portland, Oregon 14 hours ago
I've pondered the core consideration of the future of biology since reading Ray Kurzweil's, "The Singularity is Near." Do bio-technological enhancements further or curtail human spiritual evolution?

I'm invested in this question. I've devoted over a third of my adult life to a daily practice of yoga, meditation and chanting, seeking the fruits of our human biology. Yogic and transcendentalist myths reveal that our physical manifestation is a vehicle for our light body, or soul, to become manifest. This occurs when our capacity for observing closely the workings of our body leads to the realization that we are really more the observer than the object of our observations. In this evolved space, the words of Sri Aurobindo are understood, "We are consciousness, not life and form."

I found a video in my search after answers by the Dalai Lama in which he replies to an enquiry about a bio-technological future. He said, "I welcome the opportunity for my consciousness to be downloaded into a computer, or other form." With this statement, he supports the notion that we are more than our materiality, and that our materiality is simply a vehicle for our consciousness.

For those who have torn loose from the vales of self-discovery, ideation as consciousness is a state of being. In this state, one is both the individual observer and the whole of the object being observed, a holographic capacity that is both singular and collective, whether physically manifest or digital.
     

Andrew Peterson

 Groton MA 14 hours ago
If digital connectedness is a nice thing, then Election '16 demonstrated why we can't have nice things.
     

SteveRR

 CA 14 hours ago
"“Clicktivism” and “slacktivism” are derogatory terms for online activism. It suggests that digital campaigns do nothing more than generate likes on Instagram... Nothing could be further from the truth."
This is the other problem with on-line saturation - you come to believe that just saying "stuff" - makes it true "stuff".
Your two examples are movements where people are actually enacting change not clicking for change and they depend on the real life activities of various people to actually - you know - do "stuff". You want slactivism - how about #bringourgirlshome?
I go college - I see this slacktivism every day - and trust me - it takes a great deal of self-control to avoid falling prey to "mocktivism".
     

Hannah Marazzi

 Ottawa 14 hours ago
The irony is that many of your readers, myself included, are only able to participate in this debate by virtue of the online component of the New York Times on which this article is currently being featured.
     


Sam

 Siegel 14 minutes ago
The fact that the NY Times is online has nothing to do with this debate. Additionally, keeping in touch with friends and relatives around the globe is a nice feature of technology, but before e-mail there were telephones and before that there were letters. A friendship does not have worth based on the frequency of communication. This debate concerns the future of human relationships, and I doubt the full richness of relationships can ever be achieved online.
     

Roberto Fantechi

 Florentine Hills 14 hours ago
Like all things, it is just what you make of it. With a global family (son in London, daughter in Austin) and friends around the globe, it is a wonderful 'tool' to keep more than just in touch.
Saluti
     
READ MORE 

INTRODUCTION

RFD digital connectionsAndré da Loba
People of all ages are spending more and more time online. Does this digital trend improve lives or hurt them?