HIGH TECH HERETIC

A brilliant skeptic assails high-tech boosterism, attacking the trendy assumption that computers will profoundly improve our schools, libraries, and whole society. Stoll (Silicon Snake Oil, 1995) has spent the last two decades participating in, and commenting on, the Information Age. Unlike most high-tech insiders, Stoll isn’t sure that society’s problems will disappear if people spend more time in front of their computers, surfing the Web, or chatting online. Stoll bemoans a major educational trend of the last decade: the rapid computerization of the classroom. He’s a passionate believer in a quite old-fashioned medium of data transmission: the book. He asserts that advocates of the computerized classroom have confused data with wisdom, wisdom being the ability to filter data and place it into a larger perspective. This is exactly what the internet cannot do, says Stoll. In the computerized classroom, “solving a problem means clicking on the right icon,” allowing zero time to reflect. Thus, students focus on the shallowness of data, supplemented by multimedia graphics, while failing to consider the real-world contexts in which problems arise. Computers and calculators also create unhealthy dependencies that lead to student laziness and emotional detachment. In addition, computer learning erodes social skills. Wonderful as they may be, virtual communities can’t replace human interaction: The internet “gives us the illusion of making friends with faraway strangers while taking our attention away from our friends, family, and neighbors.” As schools and libraries blithely race down the information superhighway, our most public institutions become dehumanized, so that research librarians and teachers are increasingly “technology facilitators.” Despite the conventional wisdom, Stoll isn’t so sure there’s a pot of gold at the end of the high-tech rainbow. A much-needed antidote to all the current buzz about our glorious “wired” future. If you can manage to get away from your computer screen long enough, read this valuable book.