The Internet Ruins Kids' Brains: Episode 3,462

Today in The New York Times, yet another The Kids Are Being Ruined by the Internet! article. The star of the piece: Vishal Singh, a bright young high school senior who hasn't done his summer reading because the Internet distracted him for three months. The story contains a bunch of the usual facts, figures, and man-in-the-cafeteria quotes about how video games and online multitasking soften the brain and make students fidgety.

But the argument against the idea that social networking, video games, and YouTube are creating a generation of unproductive, unfocused citizens is embedded right in the article. Vishal may not have finished Cat's Cradle—a book students have been not finishing since well before the Internet was a glimmer in anyone's eye—but he isn't just sitting around or hopping twitchily between browser windows and text threads. These days, for instance, he's editing a music video, using a new computer and fancy video editing suite he seems to have paid for himself:

The video is based on a song performed by the band Guns N' Roses about a woman whose boyfriend dies. He wants it to be part of the package of work he submits to colleges that emphasize film study, along with a documentary he is making about home-schooled students.

Now comes the editing. Vishal taught himself to use sophisticated editing software in part by watching tutorials on YouTube. He does not leave his chair for more than two hours, sipping Pepsi, his face often inches from the screen, as he perfects the clip from the cemetery. The image of the crying woman was shot separately from the image of the kneeling man, and he is trying to fuse them.

"I'm spending two hours to get a few seconds just right," he says.

He occasionally sends a text message or checks Facebook, but he is focused in a way he rarely is when doing homework. He says the chief difference is that filmmaking feels applicable to his chosen future, and he hopes colleges, like the University of Southern California or the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, will be so impressed by his portfolio that they will overlook his school performance.

"This is going to compensate for the grades," he says. On this day, his homework includes a worksheet for Latin, some reading for English class and an economics essay, but they can wait.

For Vishal, there's another clear difference between filmmaking and homework: interactivity. As he edits, the windows on the screen come alive; every few seconds, he clicks the mouse to make tiny changes to the lighting and flow of the images, and the software gives him constant feedback.

This is the story of how to make education work for the digital generation (or the Millennials, or whatever they are), not the story of how going digital is ruining education. Vishal is perfectly capable of intense focus—he just chooses not not apply that concentration to Latin worksheets (worksheet?! They still use worksheets?). Vishal has Ds on his report card, and some cool music videos are not likely to compensate for that fact when he applies to college. But much of the fault for those Ds lies with with teachers, administrators, and legislators who insist on teaching the students they had in 1981, not the students they have in 2010.

But instead of grabbing that thread, the reporter pulls this quote to guide readers to the conclusion that digital kids are virtually identical to those rats that push a button over and over to get cocaine in lab experiments:

"I click and something happens," he says, explaining that, by comparison, reading a book or doing homework is less exciting. "I guess it goes back to the immediate gratification thing."

For more on online education and how to rescue kids from schools that are WiFi blackout zones, go here.