PopeLando

October 18th, 2016 at 1:39 PM ^

This is a man who managed to insult the media AND his players in one fell swoop. Add that to the most boring "kids these days" talking point, and you have a very forgettable sound byte that will nevertheless lead to people liking him less than before.

He can do better. We deserve better.

Honk if Ufer M…

October 18th, 2016 at 8:52 PM ^

Well he's clearly right that kids are spending all their time looking at screens, whether it's phones, video games or any other computer, instead of watching or playing nearly as much as kids always did before the age of the internet, cell phones, advanced and wide spread home video games and dvr's. 

Obviously if that's true than it also follows that they do have less natural and instinctual feel for the game, knowledge, experience and refinement than if they had immersed themselves in it as much as they did texting and video gaming etc. Like Harbaugh says, playing football makes you play better football. Isn't that obvious?

Not only that, but it's increasing obesity and poor health, which limits the talent pool.

Further, it's messing with people's brains and making it much harder to concentrate and focus among other problems.

I can see all that having an effect on parity in that the people with higher potential aren't maximizing what should be advantages that other guys shouldn't be able to reach up to or catch up to if everyone was maxing out their focus, energy and time on the sport over the course of thier lives to the degree that kids in the past did. 

How much that really affects parity, I don't know, but the over all level of ability, interest in or willingness to focus and concentrate for longer than a 5th of a sentence of someone speaking, or on any one topic has been destroyed.

I'm saying all this off the top of my head from what I observe and things I've seen or heard or read in the past from interviews, reports, documentaries, and articles. But the stuff I searched for and am posting below back me up.

http://www.alzheimers.net/2013-11-12/overuse-of-technology-can-lead-to-…

Read what the teacher Joana Kompa said about digital dimentia and her students in the comments to the above article, as well as the article of course.

http://mashable.com/2014/03/14/tech-brains-neuroplasticity/#2fHoGQwlqkqt

This includes affecting your heart beat and blood pressure and other serious shit: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/serendipupdate/effect-video-games…

http://www.medicaldaily.com/smart-phone-dumb-human-5-ways-technology-re…

"Russ Poldrack, a neuroscientist at Stanford, found that learning information while multitasking causes the new information to go to the wrong part of the brain. If students study and watch TV at the same time, for example, the information from their schoolwork goes into the striatum, a region specialised for storing new procedures and skills, not facts and ideas. Without the distraction of TV, the information goes into the hippocampus, where it is organised and categorised in a variety of ways, making it easier to retrieve."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/18/modern-world-bad-for-br…

http://www.techlicious.com/tip/5-ways-your-smartphone-could-be-harming-…

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/01/06/cell-phon…

Shit is real.

ST3

October 18th, 2016 at 1:52 PM ^

He's 49! The countdown to the epic, "I'm a man! I'm 50!" rant begins now.

I knew he was older than me because I remember looking forward to making that rant when I turned 40. I emailed the rant to my brother when I turned 40 and he had no idea what I was talking about.

I place that rant side-by-side Allan Iverson's, "we talkin' bout practice" rant and Jim Mora's, "PLAYOFFS?!?" rant.

The Mad Hatter

October 18th, 2016 at 12:46 PM ^

My 4 year old got addicted to an Ipad like it was cocaine.  Before he had it he played outside and with his toys constantly.  After he got the tablet, all he wanted to do was play games.

Eventually we had to take it away from him completely.  He was a total bastard for about 2 weeks while breaking the addiction, but now he's back to normal.

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 1:01 PM ^

can be a difficult balance though.  You're right, you don't want to mess with cognitive development, but you do want to cultivate skills.  "Screen time" used to me simply watching TV and playing video games, now kids are introduced to coding and video production in like the 5th grade.  Electronic technology is like the "new math."   The use and functionaliy of these devices is not simply for idol time at this point but is instead part of a well rounded and educated child.  Essentially, a kid who cannot create his own You Tube video using clips and music on his or her own by the 6th grade is significantly behind.

In reply to by ijohnb

MichiganTeacher

October 18th, 2016 at 1:08 PM ^

Yep.

My daughter is in 1st grade. She took her first coding class last summer.

I think tablets are fine for toddlers as long as they're in moderation. "Moderation" will be different for every kid, of course.

But I have kids in high school who can't use a search engine effectively, don't know how to use a spreadsheet, etc. and that hurts them.

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^

in a bind with it.  My son has a lot of interest in a lot of different kinds of game, Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy's, Halo, Roblox, but he is frustrated because he wants to do more but does not know how and does not have a good resource to help him.  He wants to understand how the games are made and what you need to do to make them, but  I seriously don't know anything, would not even know where to start.  He has ideas about animation etc. that he doesn't know what to do with and a dad who isn't partcularly helpful.  I simply don't know the answers to the questions he has, nor really where to find them. 

In reply to by ijohnb

Nothsa

October 18th, 2016 at 1:25 PM ^

MIT has a pretty slick programming environment to get non-programmers doing creative things with their Android smartphones. It interfaces with the phone's various sensors, and is pretty cool. You don't actually have to write code, and the videos and examples are pretty straightforward. I used this to get my then 7th grade daughter interested:

http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/front.html

DonAZ

October 18th, 2016 at 1:19 PM ^

My daughter is in 1st grade. She took her first coding class last summer.

Really?  That's fascinating.  What's that like -- what do they code, what language is it in, etc.?

I can imagine a really high-level language that could be used to code simple stuff -- adding numbers, building strings, etc. -- that would reinforce logical constructs.

Years ago -- circa 1985 -- I was doing some work in REXX, and I recall thinking at the time that parts of that were so simple it could be taught to children.  I doubt your daughter is working in REXX, but perhaps some other simple, interpretative language like that.

 

In reply to by ijohnb

UMxWolverines

October 18th, 2016 at 1:29 PM ^

No to sound like an old fart (I'm 22) but creating a youtube video should be way down on the list of things a kid in 6th grade should know.

People say they need to keep up with technology, but bombarding more technology on a daily basis does no good. I promise doing homework on an ipad has no more benefit than doing it out of a book. Plus it's easier than ever to just look up answers from online programs on Google.

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 1:46 PM ^

what you are saying, but on-line video/gaming production and editing like that is kind of a like a new sport.  There are people like Dan TDM who are seriously multi-millionaires, and it is now like a real industry that is changing and evolving.   It used to be correct to say that "nobody made a living that way" but that is simply not true anymore. 

DonAZ

October 18th, 2016 at 1:52 PM ^

Your post did not read like an old fart.  Your post read like a damn sensible person for 22 years old.  Kudos to you.

I'm 57 years old, and I've seen wave after wave of unchecked enthusiasm for this and that.  Hell, I recall someone going on and on that the little wheel on the mouse would revolutionize computing.  Was it helpful? Yes. Was it fundamentally transformative?  No.

Ditto for a lot of what passes for "can't miss" solutions to problems today.

Sometimes I think we deliberately overlook time-tested and unsexy answers simply because they are ... well, time-tested and unsexy.

Now that's an old fart talking.

Monocle Smile

October 18th, 2016 at 2:04 PM ^

"Entrepreneurship" is a big buzzword today, and overselling product is the name of the game. Lots of effort and attention are going towards marketing rather than the product itself because that's the perception of how money is made. Never mind that Sriracha never has to advertise anything because it sells itself.

I'm in the aerospace industry, and I see this plenty here as well. There's this misguided idea that if something isn't oversold and hyped like crazy, then it won't be taken seriously. I'm not exactly sure how true that is, but I am consistently asked to inflate numbers and hide problem areas (with pretty-colored plots, of course) for the sake of award fee.

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 2:06 PM ^

blog is journalism now.  This is what goes where a newspaper or magazine used to go.  That is transformative.  To teach somebody interested in jounalism right now how to pen an editorial piece in a black and white box is a waste of time.   As a parent right now of a child in elementary school, it would be helpful to me if my son learned a little bit less about Egyptian pyramids and a little bit more about how to do things that 1) he enjoys and 2) could possibly lead to him being employable or able to generate income after graduation.  I don't think that is me being a "new fart," I think it is genuine frustration that the public school system is lagging so far behind the reality of our society.

In reply to by ijohnb

DonAZ

October 18th, 2016 at 2:22 PM ^

I think it is genuine frustration that the public school system is lagging so far behind the reality of our society.

That's a different can of worms from the earlier proposition that certain things are over-relied upon to turn things around.  It's also one fraught with potential argument, so I won't go there.

... could possibly lead to him being employable or able to generate income after graduation

Sometimes I think the number one thing to teach a kid is to understand how to work hard at something to completion, and to do so with a good attitude.  Throughout my life I've seen it true that those with a good work ethic and a good attitude are sought out; those with a poor work ethic or poor attitude are avoided (unless they are really good at something, and I mean really good at it). 

But then again, that's a lesson best learned at home.  Some of that can be taught by the schools, but it's best taught at home, and by example.

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 2:32 PM ^

think it might just be my personal frustration.  I have a child who has genuine interests that are so foreign to me in terms of execution that I almost can't contribute to his learning.  I have to keep saying "someday you will learn how to do those things once you get to the right place to learn it" because I seriously don't know how to help him progress.  So I am constantly trying to kind of plan around our differences in terms of facilitating his interests and strengths.  Kind of a personal "micro" struggle that I incorrectly turned into a macro-issue.

In reply to by ijohnb

DonAZ

October 18th, 2016 at 2:37 PM ^

I have a child who has genuine interests that are so foreign to me in terms of execution that I almost can't contribute to his learning.

I'm curious ... what are those areas of interest?

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 2:49 PM ^

of got into it a little bit above.  My son is fascinated with video games, but he does not want to play them..... he wants to make them.  He is very interested in movies and film, but he does not care to watch them...... he wants to create them.  He is starting to read about the differences between the kinds of animation used by Pixar and Dreamworks.  He is in 3rd grade for god sakes. 

I know nothing about this stuff, and I mean NOTHING.  I don't even know the questions to ask to find out what the real questions are.  The best idea that I have is to buy the family a Surface Pro for Christmas so that at least I can give him a canvas even if I really can't really "lead by example" in this regard.

DonAZ

October 18th, 2016 at 2:58 PM ^

I see ... thanks for expanding on that.

To compound the dilemma, the technology used for video games or film editing is likely to morph and change over time.  Just keeping up with the changes will be challenging enough; mastering them is another level up.

The Surface Pro approach sounds like a good enabler of further exploration.  Perhaps let him get his hands on a video recorder that he can bring the video into the computer and start practicing with edits.  You could participate by working with him to shape the creative aspects of the finished videos.  Help him understand that the creative process has a lot of false starts leading to a better finished product. 

Best of luck to you and him in this adventure!

ijohnb

October 18th, 2016 at 3:07 PM ^

I am going to need it.  I was always pretty "conventional" in my interests.  I played a lot of sports, enjoyed listening to music, really enjoyed pretty conventional subjects in school and went to law school.  And he comes along and he is like "Suprise!!! I don't care about any of that!  Now I would like to animate Harry Potter and create a cartoon of him landing on the moon on this computer!"

I use computers for 1) typing, and 2) going to this blog.

Its going to be a long few years.

In reply to by ijohnb

UMxWolverines

October 18th, 2016 at 4:00 PM ^

Kudos to your son. He sounds like he is very ambitious for his age. And to think he figured out he wanted to do that all on his own. Like DonAZ said I believe the best thing you can teach a child these days is to be ambitious and chase something. Maybe have them set smaller goals and they'll gradually set larger ones for themselves. And I agree with you about the public school system also. If kids knew more about what was out there earlier it would help. Like robotics teams for example.

Carcajou

October 18th, 2016 at 11:06 PM ^

This is the one problem with the shorter attention spans and faster resets that come with modern technology and distractions. It is too easy to abandon anything difficult or that doesn't come naturally.



People make fun of 'participation trophies', but getting kids just to show up and put forth some sort of effort at practice on a regular basis is really a big accomploshment and part of character development. It's a lot easier for the stars to show up. It's a lot more difficult for kids to commit to sports than in decades past- there's a lot of other things they could be doing, a lot of things where their self-esteem is not so much at risk.

In reply to by ijohnb

DrewGOBLUE

October 18th, 2016 at 4:21 PM ^

Regarding public education, it won't be very long until even the K-12 level is dramatically changed by new technologies. The added simulation/immersive effect of this kind of stuff should, eventually, bring the learning capacity of kids to a whole new level. So we're probably gonna seem unprecedentedly dumb in comparison to later generations.

(speaking of Egyptian pyramids)
 photo IMG_7283_zpsjctsztoh.jpg

xtramelanin

October 18th, 2016 at 8:06 PM ^

Image result for mount rushmore

what was once old shall be new again.  for all the right reasons...

teach them about the hurley burley of life and being a man in a physical world.   character matters over all other attributes.  properly instilled, almost any talent or career choice can be reasonably pursued. 

In reply to by ijohnb

Carcajou

October 18th, 2016 at 10:56 PM ^

maybe, but...

I think a big part of growing up is 1) learning to try and possibly enjoy things we otherwise wouldn't; 2) becoming a better human/citizen/ethical/thinking being, who some employer then employs and trains them to do some work that generates some income.

I don't think education should be about entertraining kids and job training subsidized by the rest of society.