My brain's been spiderwebbing on the topic of "noise" this summer. Here are a few the-dots-seem-connected-to-me quotes from what I've been reading. What connections do you see regarding Gen M and noise/silence?
From "The Multitasking Generation," by Claudia Wallis:
Some are concerned about the disappearance of mental downtime to relax and reflect. [Co-author of Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-olds, David] Roberts notes Stanford students "can't go the few minutes between their 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock classes without talking on their cell phones. It seems to me that there's almost a discomfort with not being stimulated--a kind of 'I can't stand the silence.'"
From Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, by Thomas Newkirk
Classrooms often seem places where everything is rushed, where teachers seem bombarded with expectations (this spelling program, that vocabulary program, a new inservice for the math program) -- so much to juggle. Time is chopped up into shorter and shorter units. Depth gives way to breadth; and time-intensive activities like writing and revising fall by the wayside. But in my experience, excellent instruction rarely feels rushed. As a learner, you feel there is time to explore, there is the tolerance of silences, there is the deliberate buildup to an activity, there is the feeling of mental space to work in. This space is harder and harder to create.
From some of my senior girls last year, when asked, "How much 'down time' do you get?" (Notice their initial interpretation of the question!)
From Noise, by Teresa Tomeo
...consider the ramifications of rarely (or never) reflecting. What if we were to become so desirous of being entertained, or so accustomed to simply responding to stimuli, that we rarely had a chance to actually think about ourselves and our direction in life? In a sense, we would become less than human. Instead of being proactive we would be merely reactive, and eventually the stimuli would dominate, stunting our growth and jeopardizing our self-identities. We would risk not knowing who we are, why we are here on earth, and where we are headed in both this life and eternity. In short, over-indulgence in noise clouds our thinking, and it is perhaps the most devastating effect of our dominant media culture. It is the reason many of us place more emphasis on the Super Bowl than on our spiritual lives. The noise is so attractive, so intoxicating, and so loud that we drown in the distraction.
From Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury:
Montag listened. Nothing. Nothing. Millie, he thought. All this country here. Listen to it! Nothing and nothing. So much silence, Millie, I wonder how you'd take it? Would you shout, “Shut up, shut up!” . . . all he wanted now [was] the long time needed to think all the things that must be thought.One of my sophomore students explained, during class discussion, that she totally identified with the concept of saying, "Shut up, shut up!" to silence. "That's why I go on MySpace at 3:00 AM...3:15 AM...3:30 AM...just looking for someone to talk to. It's too quiet!"
Take a few minutes -- preferably of silence (!) -- to think through the implications of these selections. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Some possible questions to ponder along the way: (1) Why is silence important?
(2) How am I modeling "down time" ?
(3) How can I intentionally reduce noise?