Dozy, ExSp33b1rd, the problem is way deeper than gazing at the guages for information.
We have slowly built a virtual world in which software and the enticing and even intoxicating, (in-toxic-ating, if we take the root word) images formed by billions of pixels may just present information but this way of replicating the outside world is making a fundamental shift in psychological and sensory perceptions; they have grown into substitutes for what is going on outside the cockpit. We accept that what we see on the screen is not only more accessible but "more" accurate. Prior to automation it was easy to perceive that what was presented on the guages coincided with the world beyond the cockpit. Today most "piloting" is done "inside the cockpit", (so to speak) and because cockpit information is so rich, so ergonomically good and reliable, the need to "verify coincident information", (by which I mean, attend to understanding what is going on outside...beginning with the wings and engines and extending to weather systems), is less.
Steam guages always elicited a slight suspicion not wholly justified, because they got very good but remained unchanged until the early '80's. But the nature of reading, interpreting and flying the "group of six" is fundamentally (and philosophically, if anyone cares) different in the way our mental model of the outside world is structured and reified.
The effect is a disconnect between what is merely seen outside the cockpit and what is psychologically perceived outside the cockpit.
Many Old Farts, (and I'm one of 'em) may struggle with this notion and even dismiss it, but in my view no one under the age of 30 probably would. In fact, it is likely that none of this is visible to them - they are "in the river" so to speak and can't see the movement that has occurred in the tools of their trade.
Under the heading of, "I'll see it when I believe it . . ." we we old farts see the world fundamentally different. It is why skills, particularly manual skills, are yielding psychological space to skills which require the manipulation of a virtual world which more thoroughly than ever, is the model of reality we carry in our heads.
One is never in a cockpit, one is in a virtual reality, the presentation of which is on screen. That is a state of mind that a group-of-six could not possibly achieve. "Virtual Reality" is actually an oxymoron but fewer and fewer intuitively know this, (or experience the difference that makes a difference).
I know this is a topic for another thread and my apologies for the momentary thread drift. But there is a qualitative difference in recent accidents even just within the field of human factors and it shows up primarily in CFIT and LOC accidents. Control is lost or a CFIT occurs in perfectly serviceable aircraft because the real reality when the virtual reality implodes when the screen reality for some technical reason, disappears. I think this is what is going on when we speak of "children of the magenta line"; - there is simply less experience in reality to fall back on when the software or the guages quit.
The F/O on the Colgan Q400 accident at Buffalo was texting on the taxi-out. It's what people under 30 do and it was "normal" for her. The sad thing is, no one at her airline told her how to be a professional airline pilot and her captain just let her continue. We have to teach those who don't know that aviation still kills regardless of how much information we have on our guages or screens or tablets.
So ExSp33b1rd, well done and good for you for keeping the iPads, cell phones and other 'virtuality'-creating devices out of the cockpit, at least until your students understand that an accident is not virtual.
PJ2