In academics, increased technology indicates decreased productivity. Every day, more and more young children are obtaining access to newer technological advances. Five and six year olds are walking around with iPhones and MacBooks. Teenage boys blow of homework because they are too drawn to their video games. Now students are expected and sometimes required in high school and college to have laptops for academic use. Some individuals contend that using technology in class makes teaching and taking notes easier while also allowing students to have unlimited access to educational information. However, all that comes with a price; students do not have the patience or resistance to keep away from social media and iPhones when they are so easily accessible. While the increase of technology has helped to make remarkable advances in medicine and communication worldwide, precautions must be taken in order to minimize the superfluous use of it in education. 

Using technology is an easy way to get distracted from the real world. When your attention is directed to social media, it takes control of your concentration. It makes people isolated from everything around them and decreases their focus and social skills. While some have this false belief, multitasking does not exist when trying to gain true knowledge but that does not stop anyone. At South Carolina, numeral classroom consist of three hundred college students with a teacher that lectures through powerpoints. If the teacher posts these powerpoints on blackboard, what is the incentive to pay attention in class? Your laptop is directly in front of you and it would be so easy to check Facebook or shop online rather than listen to the teacher. Due to this generation being surrounded by technology constantly in their daily lives, it is hard to take it out of any setting, even for a short fifty-minute class. 

Many teachers encourage the use of technology in class because of the unlimited access to websites, educational applications and notes. It is much more efficient and less time consuming to take notes on a laptop. However, often people cannot contain the information as well as they can if they take notes on paper. This controversy as to whether the benefits of technology making organization and retrieving information easier are worth the neurological damages that come from students reliance on technology. Many researchers and credible figures have given reasons to encourage electronic use in education and reasons to eliminate or redirect the use of it. It is true that technology gives students the capability to attain infinite knowledge and be able to communicate with a broader amount of people. Yet, it is also true that most students cannot help themselves to abuse this and use technology for superfluous reasons. Soon losing the ability to decipher which requires more attention, classwork or social media. There needs to be a reduction in the amount of technology used in education before students begin to lose their attentiveness, sense of social skills and productivity, and their minds.

The natural human desire for something more has helped to cause this increase in technology and the negative effects that comes with it. There was no instant appearance of technology in educational life; gradually more and more people have discovered new ways to communicate and educate by creating devices that do so. For that reason, there is now almost no limit to what a student can access from their computer, cell phones, etc.  In the 1970s, when computers were first introduced into education, classrooms were no longer dominated by the teacher alone and since then it has only gotten worse. As more and more technological devices are incorporated into college campuses, the more students are expected to do because they now have access to it. This brings students to this falsified idea that they can handle doing multiple tasks at once and thus began the "myth of multitasking" as Matt Richtel calls it. "While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble shutting out irrelevant information and they experience more stress." (Richtel 482) This issue continues to grow and become more serious. In class, students will have their notes up on one page and Facebook up on the other while also constantly checking their phone for texts and social media alerts. Matt Richtel assesses in another one of his articles Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction that "research also shows that students often juggle homework and entertainment. The Kaiser Family Foundation found earlier this year that half of students from 8 to 18 are using the Internet, watching TV or using some other form of media either "most" (31 percent) or "some" (25 percent) of the time that they are doing homework."

Getting into the twenty-first century was when the burst of technology on college campuses caused the information gap to grow larger. The information gap, according to Ian Leslie is "the gap between question and answer, where creativity thrives and scientific progress is made." Given the ability to look any question up or plug any problem in takes away intensive mental thinking and reduces potential to gain true knowledge. However, most people have not realized this. Important figures as high as the president have been promoting the use of technology in educational settings for years. It makes things easier, plain and simple. 

At a public university like South Carolina, a lecture course to over 300 students with no electronic visuals and no use of laptops to take notes sounds absolutely miserable. As the number of students in the class increases, it becomes harder and harder to be interactive and get people to participate. So, to many administrators and students, the use of electronics in class will only makes things easier. Sadly, consequences arose and this caused students to have the temptation to use their electronic devices for non-educational purposes and most seem to give in. Teachers try to fix this by walking around the classroom or emphasizing the importance of paying attention but students still find a way to direct their attention to social media and text messages. In his article, ""All Over The Place": A Case Study Of Classroom Multitasking And Attentional Performance", Dan Hassoun expounds his research on pretending to be a student in a large college class and observing what the students did during class. After examining a student named Brandon in the class, he concluded, "like many web surfers (myself included), Brandon appeared content to vacillate his attentions among websites and activities as he saw fit, with few controlling devices governing what to view and for how long." This is one example of many of college students tending to use technology for non-educational purposes more frequently when they find the class boring or arbitrary. 

The main cause to the superfluous increase of technology on college campuses is the administrator's constant desire to better the school without focusing on the repercussions. People are too excited about all the positive effects from more technology being incorporated into education that they are disregarding what it will do to the students socially, physiologically and psychologically. It is easy for students to be brainwashed by important figures that they trust on how they should gain knowledge in college. So, if these figures continue to promote excessive use of technological devices, then students will become overwhelmed and incapable of handling all of the information and access available to them. If technology is gradually incorporated into South Carolina, then the students can adjust to the changes and they will not be as stressed or distracted. 

As more technological devices become welcomed in the classroom, the temptation to use them for non-educational purposes becomes greater. Since it is so easy, students believe that they are capable of switching between focusing on the teacher and focusing on social media and still understanding everything said in class. However, this technique is not as effective as the common student believes. The feeling of boredom and laziness drives college students to almost intentionally lose focus and exert the least amount of energy possible to obtain information in a rather slapdash manner. As South Carolina teachers continues to influence the use of laptops and cellphones in class, the more students will take advantage of this opportunity to slack off and get the notes later from a friend or blackboard. If students have a strong desire to learn and get as much as they can out of their classes, then the use of technology to take notes and explore the web for information can be extremely beneficial. Sadly, most students are not like that and because they have grown up with the constant distraction of technological devices, it almost feels abnormal to disconnect from social media and texting for more than a few minutes. Even when they have the readings right in front of them on their computer, it has now become common to simply read the first sentence in a paragraph or search for specific words in a text in order to get the gist of information without wasting too much time. Nicholas Carr discusses his fear of people becoming more machine-like in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid? He states that, "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence." Hence, if South Carolina students continue to use technology as an educational shortcut to obtain information, they will begin to lose their creativity and ability to think abstractly.

There are too many benefits to technology to get rid of it completely, however, decreasing the use of it in educational settings will greatly benefit the production and interaction of the classroom. South Carolina students are at fault of being unproductive and unsocial when given to ability to use technological devices in educational settings. It has become increasingly more common for teachers to influence the use of computers in class rather than face-to-face interaction among classmates. They inhibit students' ability to talk in class because it is distracting, however, ironically, they allow them to use electronic devices. Many people believe that because of the ability to be more efficient with a computer, students will be more productive with access to one in class. However, the ability to be less efficient is greater with access to social media and texting. "More technology in the classroom has long been a policy-making panacea. But mounting evidence shows that showering students, especially those from struggling families, with networked devices will not shrink the class divide in education. If anything, it will widen it." (Pinker) Students are almost encouraged to not interact with each other and because of social media; most of their interaction is online rather than face-to-face. 

There seems to be this pattern of people being overwhelmed with all this new information that they are not sure how to process it. "The constant buzz, the need to keep up with the never-ending rush of information, and the efforts to divide and spread one's time and attention ever thinner are starting to take their toll." (Pang) Either they are trying to process it all at once (multitask) or they lose the ability to discriminate between what is important and what is arbitrary. Outside of the classroom, researchers have found that the majority of university students attempt to either (a) simultaneously use technological devices and social media for non-academic purposes as they study or work on homework or (b) actively switch back and forth between their digital devices and academic tasks. (Flanigan) This can lead to increased stress in students because they feel flooded with all that is expected of them, or it can lead to students feeling overconfident in their ability to multitask and believe they can process information quicker. Matt Richtel addressed this in his article, Hooked on Technology and Paying a Price, showing how most people struggle with focusing on single tasks these days because they constantly want to find new information rather than processing what is right in front of them; they can no longer differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information. Facebook and emails have begun to become prioritized higher in importance to the human mind than actual information that increases knowledge and expands human thought. 

Because of how easy it is to access information now with Internet, students are no longer pushed to expand their minds and figure out answers on their own, rather than from Google. This causes students to feel like they are enhancing their intelligence, however, the information rarely sticks because no work is required to find it. According to Ian Leslie, as technology increases and it becomes easier to acquire information, the information gap (lacunae between question and answer) becomes smaller and smaller. This gap "is where creativity thrives and scientific progress is made." In short, as students begin to put more and more reliance on technology to enhance their knowledge, the less personal knowledge they are actually obtaining. College is the time for students to be finding themselves and exploring their minds but the use of technology for this purpose is noxious and inhibits their ability to be creative in thought. Jonathan Strickland uses an example in his YouTube video "Is Technology a Threat to Our Education?" on Socrates' concern on writing being detrimental to learning to show that every advancement can have complications and imagining a world without writing seems impossible now. However, writing down information is much more simplistic than technology and does not bring about the same dangers. The possibilities are endless with technology but contrary to popular belief, this is a terrifying realization.  

It is clear that there is no way to go back and undo the damage that has arisen from increased technology. People are too reliant on it now that without it, no one would know how to function properly. However, if students and educators are made aware of the future negative effects on their intellectual and emotional well being, they can be more cautious about how much importance they put on electronics in education. It appears that most students are aware of how distracting technological devices are but they cannot seem to take their attention off of them when needed. As a plan of action, it is up to the teachers to push their students' away from technology in their classrooms except for when it is absolutely necessary. With proper educators, the use of technology in class can help to expand the knowledge of students exponentially. However, many teachers are either too ignorant or do not care enough to try to redirect students' attention off of their devices and back onto the teacher. After conducting a study, in his article Social Media As Academic Quicksand: A Phenomenological Study Of Student Experiences In And Out Of The Classroom, Abraham Flanigan argues that "Rather than forcing students to be passive in the classroom, instructors may be able to fend off social media use by creating dynamic, engaging classrooms where students are expected to participate in discussions, activities, or group work." If teachers are more interactive with their students and more assertive on not using technological devices in class, students will be pushed to pay attention more and participate in class discussions. South Carolina has begun this process with discussion classes for certain required courses such as history. These courses force the students to put the electronic devices away and interact with their peers in order to get credit for the course. While forcing participation can seem unfair, in this day and age, it is sometimes essential for students to truly gain knowledge out of the course. 

Society has implanted into college students minds that they must use technology in education if they do not want to fall behind. This added stressor helps to drive students down the road of constant technological use in education, because they are afraid of being outdated and behind. However, Tim Walker encourages us "to step back and actually assess the actual evidence about the limits  --  and successes- of technology in the classroom. What really has been delivered in the way of improved student learning?" Simply because increased technology has the ability to enhance human knowledge, does not mean it will. Whether South Carolina needs to block social media sites from their server or require students to put them away during class, something needs to be done to sway students from becoming technological robots. Educators that teach large lecture classes consisting of 100 or more students must find ways to make the class interactive and interesting or else the students will get bored and will look to social media and games to captivate their attention. Jesper Aagaard says, "it is suggested that teachers opt for a hands-on approach to educational technology like asking students to close their laptops or "flip their tablets" during specific parts of a lesson" in order to push students to pay attention. Depending on the size of the classroom, the characteristics of the students and the subject matter itself will determine what method or approach to use in order to maintain the students attention in class. However, students need to push themselves away from technology as well. South Carolina college students need to try to restrain from using their laptops for notes unless it is absolutely necessary and turn their phones off during class so they are not even tempted to check them. 

Due to all of the benefits that technology has to offer, most people are unaware or ignorant of the negative effects it has on education. However, a multitude of researchers and educators have shared their concerns along with proof of technology being used in the wrong way in the classroom. While technology has opened the door to many opportunities and forms of communication, it is closing the door to creativity and personal connections. There is no doubt that students' attention spans are slowly getting smaller and smaller as more technology is welcomed on college campuses. So, limiting the use of computers, cell phones, and other technological devices to only when absolutely needed will encourage students to focus more, worry less and interact with their classmates. Because the more reliant we become on technology, the less creative we are with less independent thought. 

