Do we really want to be fast and efficient students?

Lecture halls are filled with the bright lights of laptops–many students choose to type instead of using a pen and a notebook. Passages of long readings are highlighted instead of annotated in the margins. Why do we do these things? Maybe typing is faster. Maybe students don’t have time to read the whole assignment; just skimming the “important” parts would be most productive when it comes time for discussions. As students, we are forced to enter this sort of technology-filled world to keep us on the fast track–we need to get the grade for the credits for the degree as fast and efficiently as possible.

But what are the psychological consequences of this type of lifestyle? Carr notes the decrease in his own attention span, the change in his thinking process. It’s an English major’s nightmare, right?–the belief that churning out lots of information is better than interpretation and close reading. How does this alter our own ABC’s of psychology: Affect, Behavior, and Cognition? How do we, as students, react to technology’s insistence of the algorithmic process of learning as opposed to an absorption of knowledge?

Any personal experiences with this in college? Are you one of those mentioned “pancake people” or have you ever felt more like a machine than an analytical thinker?