World-Shaker

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jtotheizzoe:

The Phone That Wasn’t There

We’re finally getting to the bottom of “phantom vibrations”

Over at The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer collects the  leading edge of research into the “phantom phone vibration.” For such a widely-experienced phenomenon, there’s been surprisingly little research into it, but scientists do have a few guesses as to the causes, etc.

I was particularly intrigued by this note:

Extroverts have many friends and work hard to stay in touch with them. Social information carries more import for them because they care deeply about it, they’re directed to it, and their regular emotional reaction to social stimuli carries over into texts. And since a strong emotional reaction to texts predicts increased phantom vibrations, it makes sense — and indeed, it correlates — that extroverts experience more phantom vibrations.

Check out the rest at the link above. Are you a sufferer?

(via The Atlantic)

Why Do People Feel Phantom Cellphone Vibrations?

mentalflossr:

Matt Soniak looks into another one of life’s big questions.

How Teachers Make Cell Phones Work in the Classroom →

A fascinating article on how one teacher uses technology in the classroom. They even spend some time covering how he uses an iPad, feedback systems, peer instruction and inquiry-based learning.

As soon as kids walk in, Musallam sends out a text blast through Remind101, asking them a challenge question that’s related to the day’s lesson. “First person to tell me the units on K for a second order reaction gets chocolate,” he types and sends off. His students know he does this regularly, so they’re constantly anticipating the question during the day, in and out of class.

“Sure, that’s kind of cute,” he says, admitting that it can be seen as gimmicky. “But more importantly, in my mind that’s saying, ‘You’re carrying around something that I can contact you with.’ It’s a fun ways to stay motivated in our day, which can be pretty dry sometimes. It’s a chance to think about what we’re learning outside the context of state testing.”

Pocket-Based Learning: My Cellphone Classroom →

On my commute one morning recently, one of the local radio stations was discussing a ban on Ugg boots by a Philadelphia school district because students were hiding their cell phones in the calf-high versions and using them in class. The radio announcers were discussing how cell phones in the classroom are a distraction and that “real learning” doesn’t take place with a mobile device in hand. After listening to the announcers and various other callers lament the student use of cell phones in the classroom, I decided to call in and offer a different perspective.

What did I say? Bring them on!

Click through to find out why.

Pew: One-third surveyed prefer texting to talking →

infoneer-pulse:

More of us are letting our thumbs do the talking.

According to a new Pew study, 83 percent of American adults own cell phones and 73 percent of them send and receive text messages. Pew surveyed more than 2,200 people and asked those who text to cite their preferred way of being contacted on their cell phone. Almost a third—31 percent—said texting, while 53 percent said they prefer a voice call and 14 percent say it depends on the situation.

Texters in the 18- to 24-year-old range are likely to have the most buff thumbs. Pew finds the average young adult in that range sends or receives an average of 109.5 texts per day, or about 3,200 per month. About a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds fit into the hard-core 100-plus-texts-per-day demographic. The median texter in that age group sends or receives about 50 texts a day.

» via CNET

Just wait until my friends hear about this…via text.

"

My story is by no means unique. It has long been a rite of passage in our culture of rugged individualism to spend a summer in Europe, or to hike the Appalachian Trail, or to bike down the West Coast. It doesn’t matter how far you go, just as long as you disconnect, cut the umbilical cord, get lost and end up with stories to tell your kids someday (edited for public consumption, and perhaps a tad exaggerated). Time away from our social networks as young adults helps us figure out who we are, and become fully individual.

As of late, however, our time in the social wilderness has been eroded by omnipresent connectivity — that is, the mobile telecommunications device. And I’m afraid that with no solitude, we will become less, not more, connected to our friends and families. Without loneliness, our society will innovate less.

[…]

Today, we carry our phones with us almost all the time — so we can’t truly be alone.

Yet we all need solitude. It is necessary not only for individualism but also for developing self-awareness and intimacy. Let me explain.

Time spent alone allows us to see ourselves as others see us. It’s important to have a backstage — a safe, private space where we don’t have to worry about folks watching us, where we can let our hair down, practice our social routines and strike back against the indignations of life in the public square. The backstage is where our “true” self resides, as distinct from the front-stage self we present at the office or on the street.

The mobile phone in the garden erodes that private space. And, in turn, it precludes intimacy: Until we have (and can protect) that private self, we can’t be intimate with another. Intimacy, to extend the theatrical metaphor, is like giving backstage passes to a select few. It rests on the private self remaining distinct from the public self, so that you have something to offer chosen friends and family members.

"

—

- Dalton Conley, Cell Phone Weighs Down Backpack of Self-Discovery

I have written a bunch about the need for solitary time as a cost of being a creative — to gain mastery of complex skills, to think deeply — but Conley’s demonization of cell phones is too narrow.

It is the friends calling us that intrudes, and the struggle of the creative for a private space in which to practice is a struggle with those friends, and our desire to be with them. It’s not a struggle with movie houses, restaurants, or living rooms. It’s not cell phones, Tumblr, or Twitter that are distracting us, but other people, and ourselves, because we want to remain connected.

As Shakespeare has Julius Caesar tell us, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings’.

(via stoweboyd)

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A Visual History of the Cell Phone

13 Percent of Cell Phone Users Have Fake Conversations →

infoneer-pulse:

Ever pretend you’re talking on the phone to avoid interacting with people around you? You’re not alone.

About 13 percent of mobile phone users are guilty of conducting fake conversations to get out of real conversations, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

» via Live Science

Confession: I managed to get the 1st Generation iPod Touch four days before it was supposed to have launched (the Apple Store near me inexplicably sold me one). I would walk around campus pretending to talk on it like an iPhone, which had just come out a few months earlier.

People totally bought it.

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37% of Married People Say They’ve Digitally Snooped on Their Spouses

Parents, however, were the worst online snoopers. Thirty-nine percent of mothers and 36% of fathers said they had done some digital snooping (across the board, women were more likely to admit to snooping than men). The majority of parents, 59%, also said that tracking their children’s location with a cell phone service or other device wouldn’t be a problem.

"Ms. Moore said the “hands-on” cellphone policy was proposed by School Board member and local realtor, Carol McMasters who said the idea came to her while talking with friends who regularly consult their cellphones. “Whenever we forget the name of an actor, or a musician, we pull out our phones and find the answer. Right away, we know without guessing. Why can’t students do the same thing?” Her husband, Larry, a self-described hacktavist, convinced her that cell phones would help kids think of standardized tests as a massively multiplayer game, in which they were cracking secret educational codes. Mr. McMaster said that he would prefer to see standardized testing eliminated and he embraced his wife’s idea as a means to that end. “If every kid in America could find the right answer to every question, maybe testing will just go away."

—

I agree with a lot of this, but let’s see how long it lasts.

UPDATE: Turns out this is satire and I’m an idiot. I do expect things to be clearly marked. I’m feeling sad that this seemed entirely plausible to me.

School district first to permit cell phone use during standardized tests - O’Reilly Radar

Seven Questions to Ask About Texting in Class →

Despite their ubiquity among students, mobile phones are still viewed as contraband in most classrooms. Students are told to turn their phones off, leave them in their lockers, or leave them at home. This response to what is arguably the most ubiquitous 1-to-1 computing device available in our schools today undoubtedly led many students to list bans on mobile phones as one of the biggest obstacles to technology use in the recent Speak Up 2010 report.

That same report also indicated that parents and students were paying for these devices themselves — and were more than willing to purchase data plans if mobile phones would be accepted in the classroom. This willingness on the part of parents to subsidize technology in the classroom could free up valuable school funds for purposes other than buying hardware. If for no other reason, this may be cause to think twice about blanket bans on mobile phones in the classroom.

A very interesting read.

For all my Tumblr Teachers who want to do this, but know you’ll be fired and sued into dust if you do.

Don’t you love how she goes right back to teaching like nothing happened?

Teachers Don’t Like Cell Phones (by CyborgNinja128)

Electronic devices will shape classroom of future →

Initially, cellphone use was banned at most schools, however, the rules have relaxed in recent years.

Costello points to a statement by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty that a cellphone is seen as a viable learning tool

“Up until that point, I think a lot of schools had really been leery of allowing kids to pull out a cellphone and use it as a learning tool,” he said. “To some extent, I think some teachers were not aware to what extent it could be used as a learning tool.”

A story for my Canadian readers. What’s up, arctic wind friends?

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futurejournalismproject:

Evolution of the Cell Phone

From the early 80s launch of the the Motorala DynaTAC 8000x, to the Samsung SPH-M100 Uproar’s introduction of a built in MP3 player to our next cool buzzword of the future.

Bonus points for visualizing our eventual disappointment with our latest and greatest gadgets.

Via 7itron (click through for biggie size)  

Very cool.

NASA launched a man to the moon. We launch a bird into pigs.