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Claus, your comment about Balkanization called to mind one of the "drivers" on the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education, developed by the Institute for the Future for the KnowledgeWorks Foundation.

The driver is labeled "Strong Opinions, Strongly Held." Here's some of the commentary. Forgive the length but it's a valuable perspective...

As media channels fragment and subcultures form around strong common
interests, fervent opinions will be reinforced by powerful digital
networks—with a tendency toward more fundamentalist views of complex
problems.

This trend reveals the potential for extreme
polarization of views that can flourish unchecked by open dialogue and
majority perspectives. Recent debates around critical issues concerning
immigration, creationism/intelligent design/natural selection, US
military presence abroad, and health care funding reflect seemingly
rigid and intractable positions. As digital media and networks support
greater selection and customization of channels of interaction and
create expectations of personalization, the capacity to work across
viewpoints and opinions will be highly valued.

Indeed, the
intensification of fundamentalism around core issues presents a
fragmented public sphere that risks effective civic dialog and
engagement in complex issues. Newly emerging “social cities”, such as
those in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe are demonstrating that
investment in participatory governance and social connectedness are
creating a path to healthy, urban civic life and stability.

Strategic
Question: Where will strong opinions intensify tensions around core
educational issues, triggering tipping points that cause major
disruption—positive and negative?
 

I think you hit the nail on the head, Nancy.

The value of sustained attention too often gets lost in discussions of technology and learning.  A robust attention span also helps students learn to listen, hear people out, set aside their own preconceptions for a moment and leave themselves open to persuasion.  One of the more troubling and reasonably well-documented side effects of the internet revolution has been its balkanizing effects.  People can quickly search out facts or opinions that support their own world views and simply ignore the rest--witness the proliferation of extremist blogs.

I say this as a technology enthusiast who uses the internet every day in the hunt-and-peck manner described by the author of the Times article. The internet has become a very powerful tool for students, educators and professionals alike. Still, schools face the challenge of teaching students to use the internet well while engaging them in more old-fashioned, meditative, linear modes of reading.

Interesting perspectives--and you can't go wrong with saying "both are necessary," of course.

The greater danger, it seems to me, is the loss of the great value of sustained concentration, human interaction with a single text and author perspective. Marshall McLuhan was right--the medium is the message. I'm certainly in favor of efficiency in learning, and the example in the article of the young man who struggled mightily with making meaning out of sustained reading, but had mastered content via quick-cut, multi-media interaction with information was impressive.

I'm still stuck on Nick Carr's observations, however, of his own reading habits: he was finding it increasingly difficult to stick with a lengthy piece of reading, to follow all the threads of a topic or story. His own personal boredom threshold had been raised. I think that's a warning signal.

Two thoughts: First, we decry our "mile wide, inch deep" curriculum in America, our expectation that a little understanding (enough to pass the test) is good enough. Aren't mastery and sustained study of a discipline related--and might that not include stretching our personal focus, until it becomes "flow?"  Second,  the countries we wish to emulate (Finland, for instance) spend very little time on "computer skills" in early grades, preferring to focus on regular old literacy instead of digital literacy, as well as community-building, perseverance, cooperation, etc--things that are considered "soft" here in the United States. At the very least, we should be trying to extend concentration and focus in young children, building their capacity for attention and interest.