Previously, Nick Carr's "Shall People" book unleashed an endless debate around the web and the press about the urgency - are we devastated by the constant use of the internet? Long before Carr's pleads of troubled mothers had lifted their hands from their daughters, who were joking all the time in the virtual space instead of reading "Under the yoke."
Indeed, statistical surveys show that between 1984 and 2004, the period of internet and computer games, the number of graduates who have not bothered to go from start to finish and a book in their lives for personal satisfaction, has jumped by 10%. Does that mean that the Y generation ... dulls?
The arguments in favor of this are quite heavy. Karr makes an example of a study of medics and psychologists from London's University College, which shows how flow of fragmented information from the screen and doing a few things simultaneously
leave unused brain regions responsible for in-depth cognitive processes
such as critical thinking and imagination. The endless possibilities of the internet make its users scatter their thinking and rarely focus their mind on a task for more than a minute or two.
The abundance of bright visual stimulants designed to draw attention to the different niches of the consumer market, wears off our impressiveness and our desire to focus on details.
For five years, London experts have tracked the behavior of visitors on two popular sites - the British Library's website and an educational program page offering access to scientific articles, e-books and other specialized information. A typical site visitor showed the concentration of a grasshopper - he jumped from one article to another, holding up to a maximum of three minutes.
So what about the average internet user who is distracting his attention between his mailbox, Facebook, Skype and dozens of other pages? The energy of his brain is directed mainly to the rapid assessment of information and there is not much to be left for deeper thinking. According to Carr, this reflects not only our momentary concentration but also our ability to deepen on anything - forever.
Books, for their part, develop a completely different type of intelligence, the writer believes.
When we read, we focus entirely on our attention
on the written and use all our resources to understand the meaning and to imagine what is said in the work. The written word develops the ability of our mind to build on the basis of the information provided, making us more creative and able to think critically, rather than accepting a pure coin readily read in Wikipedia or a blog.
There is no doubt that new technologies change the way our brain processes and uses information - scientists and critics on this issue are unanimous. But perhaps a century ago and a little while the linotype was invented, allowed the book to reach every home, other clever heads were struggling over the question whether the letters would dull our ability to perceive the real world adequately.
Back in the 16th century, Martin Luther, the theologian, catches his head: "The many books are a great evil. There is no measure and limit for this writing fever, "worries one of the greatest minds of his time. Four hundred years later, one of the most popular writers of modernity - Edgar Allan Poe - also throws stones in his own garden:
"The vast multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the great evils
of our age because it puts an insurmountable barrier to finding the right information. " Does it sound familiar to you? Today, the arguments against the Internet monopoly are the same. There is no doubt that every mediator between reality and the brain changes the way we think of "living" life. But does that mean that our intelligence is diminishing?
On the contrary, researchers from the University of Edinburgh Andy Clark and David Chalmers said. In their essay, The Expanded Mind, they ask a simple question: "Where does the mind end and where does reality begin?" In their view, mind is not just a product of combinations of neurons in the brain, but a complex system made up of the connection of the brain to the environment. "The mind is adapting to connect with the world and to shape it as a continuation of itself - and that includes the machines," they think. Imagine a woman named Inga. Inga is from New York. She heard from a friend that the Museum of Modern Art had a new exhibition. He thinks and thinks the museum is on the 53nd street, and then he's headed up there. Now imagine New Yorker Otto. He suffers from Alzheimer's. His memory is damaged, so he's keeping a notebook with important information about him. Otto wants to go to the same exhibition. Since he can not find the museum's address in his own brain, he searches the notebook and reaches the event at the same time as Inga.
According to Clark and Chalmers
Inga's brain-coded memory and Otto's notebook are the same thing.
In other words, the notebook is part of the expanded mind. In the same way you can think about the Internet.
Apart from memory, one of the main forming forces of the intellect is that of other people. The Internet is strong in this - it offers constant communication and the ability to compare opinions and sources. In a way that is different from literacy, this develops the ability for critical thinking and self-assessment. Expanding the mind to millions of other minds - actually 1.8 billion, according to the latest estimate of the number of Internet users, creates a historically unprecedented superintendent in which everyone is a fraction of the whole. The Internet is a huge brain, scientists say, offering access to all sorts of information that was not the pocket and desire of anyone until 30 years ago. He democratizes knowledge by questioning the monopoly of certain points of view that has been imposed in the era of books written by only a handful of specialists.
And if we are appalled how few young people today have heard about composer Beethoven and writer Gogol (but they know about the dog and Google), let's think that before the Internet knowledge and culture were measured with values and names that were standard for all. The amount of swallowed standardized facts made us more or less intelligent. Today, Google has a choice of what to learn and what to think.
Something more -
the organization of the human brain itself is more like the Internet,
rather than an isolated computer, scientists say. Neuroscientists Larry Svanson and Richard Thompson of the University of Southern California have proven that our control center has no hierarchical structure, and is more like a large company that relies on its success in communicating with employees. The signals in it do not go in one direction to a central data processing node, but they run through complex spatial connections between different parts of the brain - just as it does in the network. Another argument in favor of the global web as the perfect continuation of our own mind.
What is happening today is much more than a decline in intelligence, suggesting a mass consultation among experts, organized by the University of Ilona and the Pew Research Center. It is more about
total and global replacement of the type of intelligence,
we work with. Since it is primarily determined by our ability to adapt to the environment, humanity is currently undergoing a giant evolutionary leap that will allow us to connect our brain with an ever-growing range of electronic helpers and information channels. When we learn how to handle them intelligently, they will give our minds abilities and scale that were absolutely impossible only a few decades ago.
Everyone will have constant access to information, knowledge and resources that they can not fit into their own head. Thus, without the help of implants and biological engineering, we are entering the era of cyborgs predicted by visionaries such as Kevin Warwick and Ray Kurzvale. The Internet unites us into a supermod, which carries the luggage of both wisdom and endless folly. It depends on us how we will use it.
Source: www.sciencealert.com , www.pexels.com
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