Week 6: Tell me more, tell me more...": Information, Education & Work

Studying or Socialising?
By Shaun Buzza

As I sit here in a computer lab at my university, I look around at other people’s computer monitors. Without going into specific detail there a few people typing homework or assignments, a few more browsing the internet, two people on Facebook and I can also see someone on MSN Messenger. While it is obvious that the use of internet technology has greatly influenced the way we work and study, and some would argue that multitasking has become second nature, it is hard to say how useful the internet is as a tool when it can be used for almost everything else.

I suppose I can use an analogy and liken the internet to a Swiss pocket knife. It has multiple functions where some are more useful than others. On one side we have multiple blades that can be used for cutting food, for camping and fishing etc, screwdrivers for changing batteries and fixing appliances. And yet on the other we have toenail clippers, tweezers and toothpicks for maintain our appearances in public, as well a bottle opener and corkscrew for parties and social gatherings. So much like a pocket knife, the internet has its professional tools and social ones. The integration and relationship between the two categories (social and professional) have been fused, further backed up by Howard and Massanari’s article; ‘Learning to Search and Searching to Learn:
Income, Education, and Experience Online’, where it states the social aspects of search related study.

So when we consider the effectiveness of the internet as a tool for work and study, we must release that it is not necessarily one, but many tools that have different uses and specifications. In essence we must first establish our motives, objectives and how we handle multitasking.

References

Howard, P. N. & Massanari, A. (2007). “Learning to Search and Searching to Learn: Income, Education, and Experience Online”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. 12(3), Article 5.