

Jeff Jarvis on Why the NY Times Might Have it Backwards on Children and Tech - dreambird
http://thefastertimes.com/mediaandtech/2010/11/24/is-the-new-york-times-asking-the-wrong-question-about-children-and-technology/

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dkarl
The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to it
is unjustified. Conventional wisdom really does sway in huge, slow shifts from
one gross oversimplification to another and is now completing a swing from the
_tabula rasa_ back to a belief in a single, unchangeable human nature. We
repeatedly fail to sustain a more complicated viewpoint regardless of the
evidence. How long until we swing back to _tabula rasa_ and laugh at this
current trend without realizing we are laughing at ourselves?

~~~
epochwolf
> The attitude that culture cannot change the mind and can only be adapted to
> it is unjustified.

ADD is a perfect example of this. I was diagnosed with it and I was medicated
through most of school because I really couldn't focus on boring material.
Eventually I learned to focus on things I'm not interested in and I don't need
medication.

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enjo
It sounds like a mis-diagnosis, which unfortunately with ADD has been far too
common. Too often we mistake kids who simply don't want to do things as having
ADD.

I've had fairly severe ADD my entire life. I wasn't diagnosed until my
mid-20's. I haven't had much luck with medication (I can certainly concentrate
100% better, but the side effects have been pretty bad in general). I have
learned to at least manage it better in my adult life. I work on a
10-on/10-off cycle. I still manage to be really productive, even if bosses
that I've had in the past couldn't handle my distraction issues. It's
precisely why I work for myself now.

~~~
epochwolf
> It sounds like a mis-diagnosis

It's possible I still deal with the same issues I did as a kid but I've
learned to manage them most days. I'm certainly not a severe case.

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epochwolf
> Richtel, to his credit, focuses at the end of his piece on a distracted
> student who can, indeed, focus — not on the books he’s assigned but on the
> video he’s making. Maybe that’s because he’s creating. Maybe it’s because
> he’s working with tools that give him feedback. Maybe it’s because he is
> communicating with an audience.

Maybe he's interested in the video and not on the book? I have several tickets
piled up in JIRA that I really am not interested in. (Really, really not
interested) I'd rather be spending my entire day on hacker news. Instead I
only stop by every few hours to clear my brain between tickets. Discipline is
useful and not easy to learn.

~~~
pessimizer
I've always thought that a diagnosis of ADD was mostly a diagnosis that a
person wouldn't concentrate on what the person dispensing the drugs wanted
them to concentrate on. Looking at the criteria for diagnosis, I could have
been easily categorised as ADD when I was a child, yet I've never had a
problem concentrating. I just wasn't interested in school or schoolwork. In
college, when I suddenly had more control over my personal curriculum, I did
great.

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die_sekte
>>>@SivaVaid(hyanathan) just said on Twitter: “There are no wires in the human
mind. So it can’t be ‘rewired’ Get a grip.” Right. What can be rewired are
media and education and that’s what we’re seeing happen — or what we should be
seeing happen.<<<

What a load of bullshit. The human brain can change; in fact, it changes all
the time. The problem is that we are changing far faster than our brains can,
which isn't really all that dangerous in my opinion—somehow we continue to
live even though we have lots of unnecessary body parts. In comparison, the
unnecessary parts of our brain shouldn't hinder us all that much.

~~~
dgordon
Which unnecessary body parts are those? The appendix is there to repopulate
the intestines with beneficial bacteria when they get wiped out. Extra
kidneys, lungs, etc., are there because that's what naturally happens with
bilateral symmetry, and provide useful redundancy. I'm having trouble thinking
of other "unnecessary" ones.

~~~
die_sekte
The thing, I'm having trouble too. My anatomy knowledge is kind of bad and I
might just have repeated something without making sure it's right first.

