Addiction to technology harms learning

Their report concluded that modern gadgets worsened pupils' spelling and concentration, encouraged plagiarism and disrupted lessons. BBC News.

Researchers at the Cranfield School of Management, Northampton Business School and academic consultancy AJM Associates have suggested that young people addicted to the use of technology, including mobile phones, are performing badly at school and that their attention levels were poor.

Dr Kakabadse claims that "For their homework, instead of reading the book, they go on the internet and lift it, rather than reading it and understanding it and putting it in their own words."

I would suggest that educators are partly to blame. New information technologies are fare more effective tools for finding information than books and educators should change their focus and concentrate on the important information management skills which will enable young people to use the technology wisely and responsibly.

Time is saved by copying and pasting. This time should be used to develop analytical and summarising skills, so that the information copied and pasted is critiqued, analysed and reused in a sensible and educationally effective way.