Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier (PBS)

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16 years ago

Longtime reader, never submitted... but this PBS documentary spreads out in so many directions that are congruent with the YC crowd -- personal productivity and multitasking, education for the digital natives, school computer access, privacy, etc. etc. -- that I have to share it.

Some key moments from the first half of the show:

- brain scan research at Stanford on the impact of multitasking on productivity

- a Korean facility for internet and video game addict high school students, and a shot of 5 or 6 year olds signing up for a school-operated social network and singing a song about 'netiquette'

- a teacher and the principal of a 'wired' high school in the US saying 'We can argue for ages about about kids needing to stay in their seats and keep quiet, but I don't know any job that exists, now or in the future, that requires them to stay in their seats and keep quiet' 'They won't be asked to remember a bunch of information someone told them, they will be asked to do stuff, build things, work on stuff'

- the dean of that same school monitoring the computers in real time (most students have Photobooth open) -- huge privacy breach (at least that's how I'd feel).

This is fascinating -- what are your thoughts on this?

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