Technology prejudice and elitism infiltrates Keene State College classrooms

A little over a month ago, my fellow Opinions writer Allie Bedell wrote a column discussing the controversy on whether students should or shouldn’t be allowed to cite Wikipedia as a valid source in their various academic assignments. Though Bedell certainly did an excellent job, I think she failed in one regard; it was missing that certain Matt Miracle flair, where you make the opposition look like a bunch of idiots that don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. It seems like most people are more than happy to bash and criticize technology without testing it or even researching it first. I like to call this technical prejudice, mainly because I like to coin terms that make people who disagree with me sound racist in order to stir up a big reaction, but also because I think the term fits with what I’m going to be talking about for the rest of this column. So let’s step back and look at the basic argument against Wikipedia, shall we?

So, the common criticism is that Wikipedia is like the Wild West of the Internet where anyone can edit anything and there’s no way to truly tell fact from fiction. Really? So I can just go to Abraham Lincoln’s webpage and make him a pedophile, thus sabotaging all those fifth graders getting ready to do their poster presentations on the 16th president? It’s that easy? Well, let’s try it! Uh oh, that article’s semi-protected and won’t let my edit go through. Wait, Wikipedia protects things!? That’s right, we learn something new every day, and hopefully we’ll become better people because of it. But before I go onto someone else, did you know that if someone edits something in Wikipedia without providing a source, there’s a big “not cited” notification after the sentence? Also, to the professors out there reading this, have you ever gone to the bottom of a Wikipedia page and looked at the references section? It’s filled with numerous real academic sources and ISBN numbers from dozens of books. So I guess the haters out there are right, Wikipedia isn’t a valid source; it’s multiple valid sources.

Anyway, in the spirit of me about to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology let’s try someone less famous and not semi-protected like Dr. Sigmund Freud. I’m going to time how long it takes for Wikipedia to catch my fake information, and I’ll even go so far as to provide a fake source so that it’s not too obvious. OK, so it took a little less than five minutes for a Wikipedia editor to catch that Freud was not a pedophile. For the more controversial pages such as global warming or George W. Bush, Wikipedia actually requires review first before they allow the change to be seen (I found that out by typing in Wikipedia in Wikipedia).

Now, if you’re lost and wondering what exactly I’m trying to prove with all this, it’s a rather simple point: Most people haven’t even tried this sort of thing nor do they even care to. Hell, most people are afraid to test stuff out on their own computers let alone the Internet. Still, it doesn’t stop them from making judgments about how effective the stuff is at doing its job. I’m also not necessarily advocating that Wikipedia is the only source anybody needs for anything; Bedell put it best in her article when she said it served mainly as a good starting point. Like I said above, if you click those tiny numbers and look at that references section on every page, you can find dozens of great references for any research you may want to do. Hell, I’ve written tons of great papers and come across plenty of great books using this method, and I’m not at all ashamed to admit it.

Still, this technical prejudice doesn’t start and stop at Wikipedia. We see it all the time, especially as the younger generation. I’m sure some of you have heard your parents say something like “What’s the point of texting? I don’t get it,” or, “What’s with all this touch screen crap?” I mean, let’s look at our own school. Professors are encouraged to implement technology into the classroom, but when they go up for tenure, it makes them look lazy despite the fact that technology is a sure-fire way to guarantee participation in the classroom. Aren’t we forgetting that it’s not about technology, but rather education? Anyway, that could be a column all on its own and I digress. Bottom line: The unfamiliar scares people. A lot of us will probably be the same way when we get older, so fight it. Don’t be afraid to get out there, do your research, and actually test how things work before making grand assumptions about them.

Matt Miracle can be contacted at

mmiracle@keeneequinox.com