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Is Google making us stupid? Is it making us smarter? Have we lost our ability to concentrate? Are we more social or more isolated as a result of our constantly interconnected lives? Brooke takes a look at some of the research that attempts to answer the question: how is the internet affecting our brains?
Click here for the uncut interview with Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
One expert stated that intelligence as measured by IQ testing has increased for the last 50 years. It actually has edged higher for at least a century and this is known as the Flynn effect. The Flynn effect, in fact, has decreased in recent decades and has nearly halted (if not reversed) in highly developed countries. Whatever factors contributed to the rise in IQ, the Internet is not responsible for what this guest cited.
As for the general thesis, I would say that the Internet and information age of connectivity is not simply making us stupid. It comes down to plasticity, the brain is rewired from our interaction with the environment. We adapt to the new reality; we are then different from (those) before, but not necessarily for worse or for better (by different measures and POVs, we're likely both). We've always been changing. I agree with the guests that allude to this. Plato's lament of the loss of the oral tradition negatively affecting memory was very likely correct, but the benefits of writing are worth the tradeoff.
Kurzweil is mostly technically correct. He has a sort of "ideological" myopia, however, seeing only the positive things he wants and irrationally discounting the full spectrum of ramifications --when he even bothers to consider those outside the domain of his sunny outlook. This is not without precedent among scientists and inventors. His ideas are powerful and should be a springboard but as with anything, there is more to mull.
Normally, On the Media is one of my favourite weekly podcasts. However, I lost count of the number of dangerous oversimplifications and flat-out technical inaccuracies presented as fact in this week's episode.
Folks, please, please, please stick to what you know: the media. I understand that there is a growing and irreversible link between the internet and the media, but you do not yet seem to understand the former, while I'm consistently impressed with your analysis of the latter.
Please accept this as it was intended: constructive criticism.
thanks,
Graham
Here's another good recent piece that describes discusses themes such as the net effect and augmentation.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200907/intelligence
"The byproduct of information addiction is chronic distraction."
...oh, sorry, a new Twitter alert just came in.
So, where were we...
"It's difficult to know when to stop. And you can quickly come to the conclusion that you can go on link by link by link ad infinitum."
We of nearly infinite neural connections cannot process all the information that is available to us, and that only adds to our frustration and angst.
"We have an illustration in iBrain where people wear headband sensors where they can communicate with their handheld devices or laptops just by merely thinking about it."
When I was a little kid, I dreamed about "knowing" the truth, being able to just exchange thoughts with others and see what they thought, meant, felt about something.
Maybe that is what we are trying to achieve.
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