On the surface, it sounds like a simple question.  Is technology distracting?   I'm hard pressed not to start jumping up and down, screaming, "YES, YES, OF COURSE IT IS, WHY WOULD YOU BE SO DAFT AS TO HAVE TO ASK!", but something is holding me back.  On one hand, all to often do I see students file out of classrooms with cellphones in hand, texting this, tweeting that, no doubt updating their facebook status with a metaphorical roll of the eyes at something their instructor did or said in class.  They're like zombies, mindlessly shuffling down the halls, hardly sparing a glance to look up from the glowing, hand-held screens. It irks me, so I'm tempted to agree with anyone that says technology is bad and rotting our brains.

But without technology, could we function?  I'm chained to my laptop on an almost daily basis and, according to Marc Prensky's article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, I don't even consider myself a Digital Native.  I get recipes here, see what my crazy uncle in New York is doing here, find out last night's box score or trade rumors here.  Without my laptop, I don't know what I'd be doing with my free time.  Going out with my friends more often?

I shudder to think.

Then again, the computer on my lap does often draw my attention away from academic pursuits.  Instead of reading up on the merits of rhetorical analysis by Jack Selzer, I'm pouring over information detailing the likely landing destination of Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett (psst, he went to the Pirates), or reading helpful tidbits about the land of Skyrim, or catching up on TV's Misfits, or adding to my ever-growing, pop-culture heavy wardrobe.  Right now, I'm tempted to head over to twitter and write something snarky about how much I hate blogging. 

What was I talking about again?  Oh, right.  Technology.

Is it distracting?  Not sure, but maybe I'll have the answer after a couple of games of Curveball.  

According to Marc Prensky, I would be qualified as a Digital Immigrant.  For those not in the know, the difference between the two is that one group, the Natives, were born in a word steeped in various technologies: the computer, the cell phone, video games, etc.  Immigrants, meanwhile, have adopted the digital discourse over time, and like immigrants in other aspects, some learn better than others, but they almost always "retain their 'accent' . . . their foot in the past" (2).  

I have maintained my accent by needing to print things out.  People keep telling me to get a Nook or a Kindle, but I'm a book man through-and-through.  In a world full of PDF files that are made to save paper and reach every student in every module of a particular class, I'm that old fuddy dud that stills has to have a hard copy.  I want to read something in my hand, I need to have it to write on if I so choose.  It doesn't help that sometimes teachers post things that are illegibly copied or are rotated 90 degrees in one direction or another.  You're not helping me lose my accent, people! 

Some might find it odd that a 24-year-old doesn't consider himself a Digital Native, but it is important to note that I didn't receive my first computer until the seventh grade.  Even then, I didn't begin using the thing in earnest until high school, when no longer could I hand write my assignments.  For the most part, I always saw the computer as a tool, a means to an end, and never something that would change the way I learned in such a radical direction.  Part of me is glad it did, because my hand writing is absolutely atrocious and I enjoy wasting time on such things as twitter and ESPN.  But to me, deep down and in the back of my mind, I'll forever and always view most technology as time wasters.  Video games are for fun, and are something I do when I don't want to think.  The same goes for pouring over baseball stats and insider information.  How could something that's meant as a reprieve from dealing with society change the way a person learns?