Disconnect to reconnect

I love the unconventional path the recent chemistry Nobel prize winner, Eric Betzig's life took, a true tinker at heart! He knew what he needed to do, fed his inspiration and it unfolded to him outside convention. In fact, he built the high powered microscope that led to this Nobel, on a friend's living room floor. He escaped the professional grind to "produce" and returned to authentic thinking, saying "I missed the curiousity of the lab". Yes! Never stop thinking "what if?", on all levels. It's the "Rec Room" phenom, the place we all went as kids to build just, well, whatever. Check out this Microsoft initiative, called The Garage. I have to say, I hate that they brand it "Microsoft's 24-Hour Idea Factory". Ugh. It speaks to what is wrong on so many levels about corporate "inspiration". But, it's a move in the right direction, how tinkering, "soft fascination", taps into relaxing our brains to escape cognitive fatigue. Outside magazine has an incredibly insightful piece about this, the heart of it reminding us:

"We are shaped by evolution to heed the ebb and flow of drifting clouds, rustling grass, and singing birds. Unlike voluntary or directed  attention ... "effortless attention" produces no fatigue. It's the mental equivalent of floating on your back, and a rested mind is a more productive mind"

I've been teaching tech for almost 10 years, and I'm just now beginning to see patterns where some kids just cannot disconnect from whatever technology has grabbed them. Insidiously, since the online experience "gamifies" to hook us, as dependent it is on advertising to reach so many, it can lull new users of all ages uncoachable, making constructively creative use "unnecessary". Let's do something about that!