How far does progress go and what does it mean?

I really have to question how the book and the video relate to each other. While the book praises the computer as the tool and catalyst that brought about the great age of information, the video focuses on all the harmful effects the internet and technology have had on our civilization. Even the narrator of the documentary was an individual who at first embraced the computer as technology that would allow our society to evolve, grow, and progress in ways that prior to its invention were impossible. The video focuses on questions and conflicts we experience everyday in our new wired world like: What is multitasking doing to our brains? and Can you and what are the effects of internet addiction? While these are important questions to be sure, I believe that they fail to examine why need to ask these questions in the first place. In other words, is there something about our bodies that make us naturally want to multitask and/or make us addicted to the internet? I guess I'm more interested in knowing the why instead of the what. All of these things really painted a dark picture of technologies that I really believe do far more good than harm. One area they could have discussed when studying the effects of internet "addiction" in Asia is how the internet and online games are make our civilization more connected than ever before. Consider the following: Prior to having things like online games, how often would you be communicating with people from other countries? While I admit that the video did have me somewhat convinced that to some people and cultures the popularity of online gaming goes far past what is healthy, being a computer gamer myself I know that it can be a very educating experience to be playing with somebody in say Australia. People who study economics talk a lot about how the world is becoming more globalized. Instead of having independent economies like in the past, when one countries' economy suffers nowadays, the whole world feels the effects. While the experts continue to debate whether this is a good thing or not, you can be sure that without the communication the internet allows this would not be possible. The chapter about learning and technology was extremely interesting to me. The teachers and other people they interviewed talked about a new digital "world" that the young people are growing up in. They believed that they key to education in this day and age is trying to enter this world through the use of technology in the classroom in an effort to prepare kids for their futures. This is a concept I cannot agree more with. Frankly, I don't know how I would have gotten through my first year of college without resources like Sparknotes, Wikipedia, and Bookrags. While most schools (and colleges for that matter) are trying to come with new and creative ways of trying to prevent students from using these resources to make their work easier, this chapter talked about institutions doing the exact opposite, embracing them. One of the interviewees in particular talked about how he doesn't believe that people will need to know things they were taught or memorized in the past in future, but instead will need to create and build. I have always wondered why we needed to spend so much time trying learn things in school that in the real world we could simply type in on Google and find in seconds. To me, this demonstrates progress more than anything else. Changing the way that we learn from that young of an age will change our future in ways that we cannot possibly realize yet because the key to shaping the future-to progress, is in our past, and that past begins with our education today. I think that the cultures and the institutions that embrace technology with children and students will have the graduates and adults that are the most successful tomorrow. The video shows how Korean students are taught how to use computers from an extremely young age. While I think they might have taken the use of technology to a little bit of an extreme (starting at too early of an age), I think they have the right idea. The future of our children, and of our race for that matter depend on the use of communication technology. If society continues to find new and more creative ways to embrace this technological future, the sky is the limit.