I’ve been on a similar rant as this guy this semester…
Sherry Turkle, Author of “Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other” noticed this “cyborg effect” watching young video game players become one with the machines they were playing. It is getting to where I feel like I’m speaking to a roomful of cyborgs when everyone is clicking away at the computer in my classes.
I teach a lot of my courses to the back sides of flat screen computer monitors. We’ve implemented a new ritual that I unveiled the first day of class. When I want to connect with my students, I ask them to go to “human mode” which means they must turn the screen 90 degrees and slide it over so I can see their faces. When I need them to do something on the computer, they can then go back into “cyborg mode” which is the normal, face-obscuring position of their monitor. Hopefully this small change will help us stay connected at the human level.