Confessions of an Update Addict

I proclaimed to the world all of the benefits of being a natural multitasker, an efficient researcher, a connected friend through the wonderful means of this thing called the internet. Have you followed the local news channel on Twitter? You can get all the headlines first! Did you see the update from So-and-So? Can you believe it? Have you seen the viral video about goats on a steel ribbon?! Oh, hang on a sec, I just got an email...a Facebook message...a text... Sure I can shop for camping gear while writing my dissertation. Why not shop on Etsy while talking on the phone? Woot just posted a new sale! 

I didn't realize, or maybe refused to acknowledge, what was happening to me. And as I ignored it, it got worse. The addiction grew and grew until I was blinded to the fact that I had a problem at all. But I do have a problem. I'm an update addict. 

Facebook scrolls numerous feeds of mostly useless things my "friends" (anyone I've ever met, basically) are doing. Twitter feeds me news headlines, professional conversations, and Instagram photos. Google provides me with an endless supply of material to peruse on literally any topic I can think of. Shopping sites tease me with sales that last for minutes. I have five different email accounts, all of which fill with junk, promotions, and the occasional message from someone I know. And all of this happens all day, everyday, non-stop. 

And there I sit, at my desk at work, with the phone laying face-up in plain site so that I am ensured to never miss an indicator light, buzz, or reminder. And on my screen at any given time, you can find seven or eight or maybe a dozen different web browser tabs open, some with work items, but most with other feed-based, update style stuff. Day after day, I wonder as 5:00 nears, what did I really get done today? Some days the checklist gets knocked down significantly. Some days, not a single task gets finished completely. I come home, crack open my laptop, phone beside me of course, and eat my dinner with the TV on. I chip away at tiny fragments of my dissertation, but the kitchen stays a mess, the laundry doesn't get done, and I usually go to bed far too late. 

The pervasiveness of the internet has invaded every element of my life, and frankly, it has changed almost every element of my life. It changes my behaviors, my productivity, my focus, the very way that I think. My entire life has become a series of distractions caused by a series of endless updates. And I probably would have gone on believing that this distracted life was both normal and beneficial, had it not been for my enjoyment of the frequent UD faculty/staff book clubs. 

The past few weeks we have been diving into a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, and today chapter seven stopped me in my tracks. First of all, know that I recognized after the first few chapters that I was a poster child for whom this book was probably written. Being on the younger end of the book club participants, there were many things that I resonated with and even unabashedly proclaimed as advantages in my life over the other viewpoints presented. I was tech savvy, could research quickly using software and search tools, I could multitask and not get overwhelmed, I didn't need to carry a pile of books because reading on screen is normal.... 

But then there was chapter seven. In this chapter, Carr goes from merely stating the facts about what the internet provides and how users interface with it to digging into studies about what all of this updatedness is really doing to our brains. Study after study noted that the more distracted a person was, be it with links, related searches, scrolling text updates, the less they really took in and retained. In fact, just the style of the internet with its myriad of updates and look-over-here's in and of itself causes the brain to constantly try to shift gears when darting from one thing to the next. And that little place between your short and long term memory, known as working memory, only typically has so many gears that it can deal with. The constant distraction of a distraction-based medium has actually rewired our brains to think differently in order to deal with all of the constant inputs. The result? Diminished recall and retention of information and lost time and efficiency in deep thinking and concentration to name a few.  And making matters worse, this brain behavior is often rewarded, driven by the fear of missing out on something important or the excitement that comes with finding information on nearly anything when you need it.

And suddenly, things are starting to make sense. My lack of productivity at work, especially this semester, my slower than desired dissertation pace, all the email accounts and blinky cell phone notifications and tabs on my web browsers, and... I have rewired my brain. And not for the better. I have given in to the temptation of the update at the expense of my memory, my concentration, my focus. I have opted for distractions as the focus, and those distractions have thrown me in a landfill of other distractions, each vying for my eyes, my brain, my time. 

Luckily, the brain is not developmentally unidirectional. If things can be learned, they can be unlearned. If the internet has rewired my brain, then control of the internet can rewire it again. This will not be an easy task. It will mean conquering an addiction so pervasive in my life, I was ignorant to its existence. But it is time. It's time to shake free of the distraction world, at least in part, and regain the world of focus. 

Here's what I believe I can reasonably accomplish and commit to attempting indefinitely:

• I will not leave my Facebook and Twitter feeds open all day long. And I will not check them on my phone throughout the day. These feeds can be checked before work, right after work, and if need be, at lunch time. Right now they are continuously open and cause perpetual distractions as I'm working. 
• I will use one browser tab at a time at work and while dissertating. Bookmarks and web addresses can be retyped if I want to get back to something. I can only think of a few rare situations that using more than one tab was actually useful (viewing two spreadsheets or copying and pasting text from one source to another, perhaps). 
• I will not check my other email accounts throughout the day at work, in church, while out and about (say, shopping), or during face-to-face conversations with people. My phone vibrates right now every time I get an email on any of my five accounts. Thus, I check the emails each time one comes in. That could reasonably be 30-40 times a day or more. 
• During meetings and meals, I will leave my phone away. No one needs to get a hold of my that badly, and no update is as important as the meeting I'm already in or the sustenance I put in my body. 
• The TV doesn't really play nice with any other productive thing, so it will be left off unless I decide want to do nothing but watch TV.

I'm not really sure you can possibly know what a huge commitment this will be for me to even try to make. In my distracted life, all of these things are the everyday norm. They are how I have selected to function. And then have altered how I think and behave and work and live. And not for the better as I once was so sure. You don't have to join me. I wouldn't expect anyone to. But I do ask that you support me, encourage me as I attend to the practice of regaining focus and efficiency and the undistracted life that I really long for.

(To give you an idea of just how tough this commitment will be, during the typing of this post, which took just over a half an hour, I have checked or posted on Facebook at least six times, turned on my phone screen twice, looked at Twitter twice, checked for new emails once, and have eight tabs open in Firefox. Tough doesn't even begin to describe what I'm about to face.)

Becoming a Better Teacher

I will confess that I often struggle in my role at the university. As an anomaly caught between two worlds, I find myself identifying with faculty as well as with my co-middle managers in the administration. The beginning of this term has me reflecting on my teaching abilities as a faculty member. 

After a month or so of procrastinating the task, last week I finally started unsealing the envelopes that held the student evaluations for the course that I coordinated for the first time this fall. Perhaps I knew to some extent what they might say, and perhaps I already knew that I wouldn't want to see the feedback. 

As a fairly new professor with only a few classes under my belt, I was tasked with developing an entirely new course, one in which 36 other instructors were strung along at my bidding, trying to implement the curriculum that I placed before them. At the time of the tasking, due to the rushed timeline mainly, I didn't really stop to think how daunting something like this might actually be. I didn't consider that the instructors wouldn't like some of it or that the students wouldn't dig into the content. I just frantically pulled together lectures and discussions, readings and writing prompts, mostly as we went along, hoping that it would be met with some level of success. 

And then I opened that first envelope. 

Students were asked what their favorite part of the course was, what they felt they learned the most about, how they identified with the materials and lectures, and what they would change if they could. And boy did students respond. After about the 400th evaluation, I could read no more. I was heart broken and defeated. And I was pretty sure that I never wanted to go in front of a group of students again. I had failed them, and they were disappointed. I showed my true colors of an unprepared, inexperienced novice of an instructor that no amount of bluffing or exuded confidence could mask.

After some time with this crushing blow, and a few meetings with supervisors that offered a much more experienced perspective, I started reading through the evaluations a second time. This time, I took me out of the equation. I filtered the bratty, snide remarks aimed directly at me, and really read what the students were saying. And what I read the second time started to amaze rather than burden me. 

Most students could identify something that they liked about the course. It may have been the comfy chairs in the auditorium, but it was still something. Many students could identify a specific topic or lecture that they enjoyed because of how it spoke to them or how they interacted with the material. Nearly everyone could identify something that they actually learned something about. And almost everyone felt invited into a community of peers and instructors, noting discussions, informality, openness as key traits to that community. A few students indicated that they wanted to dig deeper, to learn more, to discuss more about certain topics. 

Let's be honest, most of the evaluations were definitely negative. But as that inexperienced novice of an instructor, I can choose to view these one of two ways: 1) They hated me and and I'm a bad teacher that isn't worthy to stand in front of students ever, or 2) There are lots of ways that I can improve this course and my teaching to further reach and impact students' lives. Frankly, I prefer the latter. As it turns out, teaching experienced can only beget teaching experience. I was blessed with certain traits, gifts, and abilities that allowed me to gravitate to the field I am in, but it is only with hard earned years of training, critical evaluations, and intentional improvements that I can really become a better teacher. 

I didn't leave the university after all of those bad evaluations which means that I will once again be given the opportunity to develop a curriculum, work with other faculty, and attempt to reach into students' lives with information and knowledge that the university believes to have value. Bad course evaluations are not a weapon. They're a tool. The ability to tell the difference and use them appropriately is what will make me into a better teacher. 

Now, where's my textbook?