I use the word “cyborg” deliberately. Alice Wong, who founded the Disability Visibility Project, travels around the world (even to White House parties) via remote-controlled robot. “We’re all cyborgs,” she has frequently told me, pointing to the many ways in which people of all different types of abilities intersect with technology. When people try to limit access to tech, she argues, they’re really cutting off part of themselves.Danah Boyd, a technologist at Microsoft, wrote in 2009 about missing her “cyborg life” whenever she’s cut off from the online world, including during classroom-like occasions. “I can’t pay attention in a lecture without looking up relevant content,” she wrote. “And, in my world, every meeting and talk is enhanced through a backchannel of communication.” In her most recent book, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Boyd explored how much more intensely younger generations experience being cut off from information flow. The “networked world,” she wrote, is here to stay. It’s up to teachers, then, to build networks of learning, solidarity, mutual respect, and even trust.
