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I dont think we should stop using computers but i do think that we should watch out for smartphone usage.

There has never been such seamless integration of the internet into out lives, how many of you have whipped out your smartphone at the pub to talk about a funny Gif etc?

How many of you check your social media on your smartphone >6 times per day?

How many of you access work eg; eMail, Teamviewer, VNC, Evernote etc outside of work hours on your smartphone?

I know i do all the above and it weirds me out... Its basically fucked that i can get a work call and dial into any number of PCs when im out drinking/relaxing or read emails before i get out of bed.

 

I think you need to balance linear thought and the over stimulation that is the internet, oh and crazy flash and HTML5 ads piss me off to no end.

 

THIS,FUCKING THIS

 

i have lost count of how many idiots i see on their phones while driving,and not even talking..like browsing the facebooks and responding to messages whilst trying to operate a motorized vehicle.

 

smartphones give us a sense of urgency and importance. you get to hear some cool sound when you get a message on your phone, so you feel obligated to respond. when 100 people like something you've posted (or propped) you feel accomplished, which then leads one to generate more topics or comments that will span more props or likes. a very superficial way of feeding that ole ego.

 

facebook has ruined true social interaction

/nopedo but i never see kids outside playing anymore and it disturbs me, especially in an urban setting.

 

I constantly miss outings with friends because i deleted my facebook and they respond "we made a fb event about it, why call?"

 

my ramblings are jumbled right now because this is just a stream of things that have been on my mind, but i'll make a more concise post later.

 

also i hate when i go somewhere everyone is staring at a screen like a mindless zombie

 

im gonna use portlandia as a reference for a second...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jT0JT3N47g

 

that minute and fifty five second clip is basically whats wrong now.

also life feels like 1984 with abbreviations with lol tldr wtf hbu, newspeak anyone? I barely have interesting conversations with people that dont evolve some celebrity or pop culture, but fuck it, im going to exploit pop culture and get rich off it and smoke degabah weed and listen to steely dan records and make art in some quaint cabin in the woods with my audi R8 removed from society unless i want to mingle with the zombies.

 

/streamofconciousnessftw.

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Somehow I missed uzzi's post. It is a good one.

 

Here's the thing you gotta understand about your friends on facebook, they have an addiction to facebook. The brain is addicted to data. Reading a new news story or even finding a new news story releases dopamine in the brain, which is why people cant help but check their phones for texts, emails, status updates, youtube videos every few minutes. Their brains are addicted to the internet just like humans can be addicted to sex or anything else. Their rationality is being overridden by a dopamine addiction in their brain. If they tell you they can't phone you because their too busy with facebook, that's peer pressure, the same behavior seen in groups of drug users or any other group trying to normalize an addictive and self destructive activity.

 

If i cant get people to read anything from the Crossfire Book Thread, which truly are well-written and thoroughly enjoyable, here's a quick lecture from Nicholas Carr.

 

http://bcove.me/7j4zpzwz

 

Also, I'm obviously not going to convince anyone to get rid of computers from their life. We can't. It's physically impossible to remove the computer from the world now. It would be like removing electricity from your office. You would be able to continue to work, but you wouldnt be able to compete with companies that had electricity and so you'd lose your share in the market. Instead, what I'm saying is that we should be thinking about how to restrict the computer to certain things. What tasks are computers good for, and what tasks do computers utterly destroy. We need to think about what CANT be digitized and put on the internet, because right now we assume everything, our entire lives MUST be monopolized by the internet.

 

The previous generation never once thought about what CANT be put on the television, which is why the presidential candidacy is a fucking Gong show. I like how you use 1984 as an example, because in 1984 the culture was a TV culture. The president was a movie star, and the other running canidate was a host on Saturday Night Live. Canidates believed the presidency was won or lost by makeup. In other words, cosmetology replaced ideology somewhere in the late 1900's.

 

"Social networks" and anything that calls itself a "community" should be greatly limited on the internet. In fact I dont think music should be allowed on the internet either. I think culture and community should be geographical and since music is part of culture, it too should exist only in a geographical arena. Even record sales were tied to geography at one point because the physical presence of a record meant it was still tied to a geographical area.

 

And BOOKS, holy fucking books. Books are becoming more and more important in the age of the internet. The format of the book will stand the test of time, so long as humanity continues to value things like rationality, intellectualism, contemplation, etc.

 

 

 

 

Heres a few final points: TECHNOLOGY is not a replacement for IDEOLOGY. We live in a society where our ideology is informed by the technology we use. To quote marshal mcluhan, "The medium is the metaphor." I keep hearing people say "Its not the TV's fault, its how we use it." which is wrong because the TV itself dictates how we use it. In other words, the medium of the television ITSELF decides the content of our culture FAR more than the shows being broadcasted.

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Honestly soup money, i think if you just utilize the computer for research all is fine

 

and i could never agree with you on the music part.

 

The internet has actually empowered some artists, granted they are savvy enough.

Record labels used to literally own there musicians, but now with the advent of things like bandcamp,people can go the indi route and say fuck signing ones soul away.

 

also i can hear regional music without actually having to to travel... i know you're not gonna climb the Himalayas just to hear Himalayan monk throat music.

 

My main quip with the interturd are the social networks. because they are quite the opposite ,if anything artificial social networks. like 12 oz.. im not actually debating with you in some forum with columns, but im typing to you my thoughts, bypassing however many miles are between us.

 

On one hand they are awesome, i check the oontz's front page every morning before work. However, i will go to reddit and then /r/politics and see how people are stupid and just adopt whatever is regurgitated to them and say the same thing over. Also everyone on the internet complainin' not out demonstratin', i'm guilty of it too, this is one thing i think needs to end. the internet has definitely pacified activism because now you can safely express your views without having to be targeted.

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Like DAO, I didn't grow up with the Internet.

 

I was in college when you got your first computer, and I rarely used them in college (undergrad)

 

I studied Graphic Design with radiograph pens and tracing paper. It wasn't until there was money to be had in web design that I fully evolved.

 

I'm now in Digital Marketing, and if the Internet goes down, my day is done. So I guess I am fully vested in the new technology.

 

I do understand your point though and often wonder if technology is making today's youth fucking retarded... Actually, I'm positive it is LOMGROTFLIRL.

 

This is why my wife and I take our kids to the library weekly. I too was in disbelief that they are still around, but it turns out they are better than ever. The new, multi-million $ libraries in the North Scottsdale area are ridiculous!

 

However, they are filled with parents like me, foreigners, and the elderly.

Grades 3-12 we lived in the libraries, it's how you did your homework.

 

Even in college, I spent a good chunk of time there. I completed my education in 2000, and don't recall ever using the web to do research for homework.

 

It's fucked to see my friends' toddlers with iPhones and iPads. We need to be real careful about how our kids utilize the convenience of technology and balance it with old school elbow grease.

 

Typing any more here is a pain, since I'm on my iPhone and the wife is giving me 'that look' ... As she thinks this phone will morph into me like The Fly.

 

Will take the time to read this tomorrow, on a flight to Minne.

 

Technology people.

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Honestly soup money, i think if you just utilize the computer for research all is fine

 

and i could never agree with you on the music part.

 

The internet has actually empowered some artists, granted they are savvy enough.

Record labels used to literally own there musicians, but now with the advent of things like bandcamp,people can go the indi route and say fuck signing ones soul away.

 

also i can hear regional music without actually having to to travel... i know you're not gonna climb the Himalayas just to hear Himalayan monk throat music.

 

My main quip with the interturd are the social networks. because they are quite the opposite ,if anything artificial social networks. like 12 oz.. im not actually debating with you in some forum with columns, but im typing to you my thoughts, bypassing however many miles are between us.

 

On one hand they are awesome, i check the oontz's front page every morning before work. However, i will go to reddit and then /r/politics and see how people are stupid and just adopt whatever is regurgitated to them and say the same thing over. Also everyone on the internet complainin' not out demonstratin', i'm guilty of it too, this is one thing i think needs to end. the internet has definitely pacified activism because now you can safely express your views without having to be targeted.

 

Tron I respect your opinion because we've talked a lot and I know you think about what you say but i gotta disagree. Researching on the internet may seem faster than researching in a library but the information you end up with when you use the internet is so inferior to book learning that its truly a waste of fucking time. There are volumes of books written on the inadequacies of Google as a research tool, none of which you can read on the internet. And because I'd much rather everyone here read those books than read me I'll make a short and incomplete list of complaints with google.

 

1. How good your search results are completely depends on how well you can guess the title of the webpage you're searching for. If you guess wrong you're screwed. And if you dont know what it is you're looking for, IE researching something new to you, you're equally screwed.

 

2. Look into how google's search algorithm decides what are "top search results" they are completely superficial and absolutely ridiculous. For instance, if something is viral and popular it's considered a more trustworthy source of information. If it has had a recent graphic design update and the webpage looks "fresher" then it's more trustworthy. If it's had minor tweaks to the information, such as wikipedia, then it's more trustworthy. In other words, a fucking BOOK as defined by a google search algorithm, would the the LAST thing it recommends you use. There are websites that perfectly explain calculus in fun and memorable ways that will never be found on google because they were published ten years ago.

 

3. Look up how much of the internet has Google actually indexed. It's between 4-12%.

 

4. Ask google for a book on a subject that you'll enjoy but you've never heard of before. When that fails ask a professor or a librarian the same question. That's wat they're there for.

 

5. The reason why people today are SO BORING is because all they read and watch on the internet, television and what not, are associated with their four interests. If you try to talk to someone about something that isnt Baseball, Mass Media Hip hop, or Saturday Night live they have no fucking clue what to say. This is the absurd ramification of having all of the information we receive tailored to our interests: Nobody can learn anything NEW.

 

6. It's not the record industry's fault for monopolizing music. It's the cultural shift that happened with the radio and television where everybody started to listen to the same four bands. Kanye West isnt the most successful musician of all time, he's just a product of mass media. If you take music off radio, off television, and off the internet, you reopen all these venues in the world that are currently only played by the same 40 artists. There's a reason why the sound of music hasnt changed in 30 years when before the internet it would still change every decade. Music is meant to be physical and contextual. You're not supposed to listen to the same fucking song in your car, in your headphones, and at a club. It's supposed to be live and part of the atmosphere. Local art and music cultures are dying because they can't compete with technology. And if you're looking at youtube and thinking, "wow what a great medium for new artists to break out." That's fucking bullshit. Youtube is a solution to a problem that shouldnt exist.

 

Here's the thing about himilayan monk music, what the fucking point of himilayan monk music if you're not in the fucking himilayans? And why does himilayan monk music even exist? Because it's culturally isolated, away from mass media where the locals can cultivate a sound thats unique to their geopgraphy and actually feels contextual and relevant. Music without context is fucking pointless. Even the example you gave proves this point "himilayan monk music." You didnt say "some shit you himilayans play on the radio." You made a geographical and cultural connection to the music thats even more important than the music itself.

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Minor quibble about using the internet for researching.

 

There is a ton of good information that is very easily accessible to me at home on the internet that would just not be time effective for me to go search out in a library (or anyplace else). For me this information is not "so inferior to book learning that its truly a waste of fucking time." Because the papers I'm finding are in technical or academic journals written by authors who sometimes use these works as entire chapters later on in their books. It's very easy for me to quickly view these papers online and just see if the information contained in it will even be useful for me. The internet is an amazing time saver for me in this way.

 

That said, I've never had a Facebook account and I did consider putting Instagram on my phone but resisted that since I know how much time I would waste on it.

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Im going to have to come by the crossfire more, it's funny, I'm in college now and i can't even see myself talking about this with my friends there. The normal conversation spans exactly those four topics,which is a little sad seeing how this was supposed to be the institution where new ideas are formulated, discussed , and then possibly acted upon.

 

Once again I'm guilty for not proposing dynamic topics in discussion amongst my peers, but it's almost become a lost cause. The people i do that with are my friends i go on psychedelic journeys with and the conversations are usually mind blowing. (something that i dont understand why it's so illegal, which is a completely different topic for a different time, and may require tinfoil snapback)

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Dignan I'm curious what it is you're looking for on the internet. One of my main arguments against google is that efficiency is not a replacement for human intelligence and google will always be a bunch of algorithms, never a brain. And while you do have access to printed materials on the internet, your level of comprehension is lost when those printed materials aren't in their full context. Why would you only read a chapter out of a book if you liked the chapter?

 

I think you'd agree that calling most information you find on the internet a "complete chapter" is generous. Most of what you find is even more fragmented than that. If you ever really need to learn about something you always end up having to read the book, so why not just start with the book to begin with? Plus If you only ever read for answers to the questions you've already thought of, your knowledge on a subject will always be very narrow.

 

Most people say they dont read because they dont have time to read. Where is this time going? Chances are, among other things, its going to searching for things to read.

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For me google being a bunch of algorithms, never a brain is a non-starter. It does not matter to me that a computer is the tool for me to find particular items rather than use someone's physical brain.

 

As far as some comprehension being lost when the printed material aren't in their full context is again a non-starter for me. I specifically mentioned journal articles in my original comment, so the context is completely there, (I guess it does help that I have interest in the topics I'm searching for and have some of the background information already).

 

I'll try and give you an illustration of what I'm talking about and why I think google is an excellent tool.

 

I'm interested (sometimes more, sometimes less) in Plantinga and his idea of Reformed Epistemology, Basic Beliefs and Warrant. So, on somewhat of a whim, I cruise PhilPapers.org looking for some information. I find a paper by Plantinga but unfortunately it's printed in Noûs, Vulume 15, Number 1, 1981. Something that I don't have access to when I'm sitting on my ass after dinner at home.

 

But PhilPapers does link me to the cover page of the paper: Here

 

I then use google to further search and find a PDF of his entire paper from the journal: Here

 

I then use google find an Evan Fales (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 68, Issue 2, March 2004) repsonse: Here

 

I yet again use google to find Plantinga's (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 75, Issue 3, November 2007) response to Fales: Here

 

I find being able to view these papers as a PDF online helpful in another way as well. I can search the paper for specific wording extremely fast. Something I would not be able to do as well with a paper copy.

 

And all of this was not only fast but free to me as well. I did not have to pay any subscription fee's. I do not have to store any books (which I do like to own) I can just save any relevant information for my purposes in a folder on my computer.

 

I think this was a sufficient thumbnail to show how useful a tool I find google and the internet to be.

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Shai has talked a lot about tor. If you want real anonymity dont use the internet. Use usenet.

Anyway, we're doing a good job of keeping this thread on topic. Please dont derail it.

And thanks to that cartoon I gotta reformat my posts.

 

 

For me google being a bunch of algorithms, never a brain is a non-starter. It does

not matter to me that a computer is the tool for me to find particular items rather than use someone's physical brain.

 

As far as some comprehension being lost when the printed material aren't in their full context is again a non-starter

for me. I specifically mentioned journal articles in my original comment, so the context is completely there, (I guess

it does help that I have interest in the topics I'm searching for and have some of the background information already).

 

I'll try and give you an illustration of what I'm talking about and why I think google is an excellent tool.

 

I'm interested (sometimes more, sometimes less) in Plantinga and his idea of Reformed Epistemology, Basic Beliefs

and Warrant. So, on somewhat of a whim, I cruise PhilPapers.org looking for some information. I find a paper by

Plantinga but unfortunately it's printed in Noûs, Vulume 15, Number 1, 1981. Something that I don't have access to

when I'm sitting on my ass after dinner at home.

 

But PhilPapers does link me to the cover page of the paper: Here

 

I then use google to further search and find a PDF of his entire paper from the journal: Here

 

I then use google find an Evan Fales (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 68, Issue 2, March 2004) repsonse: Here

 

I yet again use google to find Plantinga's (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Volume 75, Issue 3, November 2007) response to Fales: Here

 

I find being able to view these papers as a PDF online helpful in another way as well. I can search the

paper for specific wording extremely fast. Something I would not be able to do as well with a paper copy.

 

And all of this was not only fast but free to me as well. I did not have to pay any subscription fee's. I do not

have to store any books (which I do like to own) I can just save any relevant information for my purposes in a folder on my computer.

 

I think this was a sufficient thumbnail to show how useful a tool I find google and the internet to be.

 

What you're talking about here is hypertext. Its one of the oldest and most original parts of the internet that

is woven into the fabric of every webpage there has ever been and will ever be. Hyperlinking, hypertext, or

HyperCard was invented by a software developer at Apple named Bill Atkinson which correctly predicted the

look and feel of the internet BEFORE web browsers or services like AOL online. Now I could tell you all about

it, but on the internet writing about anything at full-length is absurd when I can just tell you to click here.

From there you'll jump around the page, searching words, and looking for what you believe is the relevant

part of the text. You won't read the whole thing, which is actually part of the design, that everyone who uses

the internet can feel.

 

For the same reason I'll recommend that you read, "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr, so that you can learn

about the neurological effects of this kind of reading. Apart from destroying your ability to concentrate on

anything for any length of time, you're also changing the neurology of your brain. You're remapping the way

data is stored, and in fact you're replacing your ability to memorize what you read with a big map of the

internet so that you can navigate and find the information to read it again.

 

Another part of the problem is that people are addicted to searching for new things. They want new information,

regardless of how relevant it is to their lives. They spend hours upon hours a day on google, facebook, all these

websites searching for and consuming huge quantities of irrelevant information that the brain cannot store.

THe problem is that these people dont know the difference between relevant and irrelevant information anymore.

Everything on the internet is fragmented, and in fact it's lead to the coinage of the term "bits of information"

which an oxymoron, just like "multitasking." There's no such thing as either. Its either information or it's

 

fragmented garbage. You're either focused on your job or your attention is elsewhere.

 

Here's my question to you, when you were searching for reformed epistemology, why didnt you just go to the

library and pick up a book about reformed epistemology and start reading? There's a ton of them out there.

You could've very easily picked up any of them and just started reading.

 

 

I'll pause on this: book sales are drying up and ebook sales are becoming the big thing. We may think that

ebooks are the same as printed books but they're not. Apart from only existing on a screen instead on

paper you can touch and feel (things your brain likes and helps it to consign to long-term memory), the

Kindle has started to embed hypertext into books. Readers have the ability to click around a book, read

a synopsis of the plot or descriptions of each of the characters. The entire point of a book is that you read

it from beginning to end. There are no hyperlinks. Its supposed to be a stream of consciousness that flows

from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, beginning to end—Readers are supposed to follow the

book. Thats what reading comprehension IS.

 

So what will happen to books, information, streams of consciousness, and reading comprehension when

ebooks take over? What happens to information when it just becomes fragmented little hyperlinks?

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::sorry if this response sucks, I wrote another one & tried to post it just to be told I wasn't logged in, dammit::

 

Soup, I'm afraid we're talking past each other. I'm not sure how you came to the idea that I was talking about hyperlinks. I'll take half the blame tho, since I'm sure I'm a horrible at communicating online. That said, very little of what you wrote actually interacted with my comment so I will just leave it alone and not try and follow you down any rabbit holes.

 

But actually that is a nice meta-argument on why the internet sucks. I'm sure if we were talking about this in person we wouldn't have the same miscommunication.

 

As far as your question to me about why I don't go to the library (In both of my previous two comments I briefly sketched why this is not a good option to me) and pick up a book about reformed epistemology and how there are a ton of them out there that would be easy for me just start reading. That's just false. I just searched my cities public library catalog and got zero hits on that subject. I then tried searching a popular author on that subject and also got zero hits. So, I searched SF's library for that author and got one hit for something he wrote, (Actually that book is on my short list of things to purchase from amazon, paper not digital). I then searched Oakland's public library and also only got one hit by him, (I already own and have read this book tho).

 

If anything, your last comment seems to strengthen my idea that the internet and google are good tools for me to get relevant information I want in a convenient way.

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Ironically im using my iPhone to type this so it'll be breif.

I dont think i was talking past you. You were talking about how easy it is to jump from one text to the next rather than just focusing on one book, even when that book doesnt entirely focus on the key word youre searching for. Maybe i didnt explain hypercard or hypertext properly but the very concept of "searching" for "key word" comes from it. I would recommend going to a library and asking a librarian if they can help you. I know the san francisco public library has is pretty thorough. Searching for key words is good when youve already read the book, but when youre not sure what youre looking for its better to consult a professional. Thats what i meant by the inefficiencies Google compared to a person.

 

I didnt jnow you were local. I thought i met or knew all the locals.

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Mine was only a small disagreement to begin with.

 

I'm not local. I didn't mention my city by name and I just used two other cities near you to show that they might be deficient for my specific wants.

 

On another note, I have a good friend in Oakland and we were going to read that specific book they had in their library and get together to discuss it. However, it was always checked out when he tried to get it and that plan never happened. Google to the rescue, we emailed different papers back and forth, and read them all. Eventually when he came to town earlier this summer, we talked thru everything we read over beers in my backyard. Something we couldn't have done as easily without google.

 

The internet is like any other tool, helpful or destructive largely based on the way in which the individual uses it.

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Ok so how about the ways computers or technology changes the value system of society? Just like religion plays a role in a cultures epistemology, so did the clock, oral tradition, the writtenword, the wordpress, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, and the tv. With each new technology thats found its way into general use it becomes more than just part of the culture. It becomes the maker of metaphors and vales and redefines things like epistemology to suit the medium. Again im on my iphone so ill make this breif but i hope you think about the idea that the format Of the book had more to do with the content and creation of the bible, philosophy, math, history, the comstitution, congress....everything we take for granted...than anything else.

 

In other words the very way we tell the truth is determined by the medium a culture uses to communicate, and with every new technology comes a new medium. Think about how televisionchanged politics, news, education, philosophy, our ideologies, the nature of childhood and what is "adult content" in this country. Nowadays its normal for children to make adult-like consumer decisions. Children buying stuff or making consumer decisions wouldve be absurd before tv. Before tv purchases were family purchases, not purchases made by the individual and therefore had to be made with the utmost respect for rationality. Nowadays its absurd to think children cant be consumers. And for the most part its absurd to argue against it. The only format that allows real cultural critique is the book, and that critique only makes an impact on a book based society. We are not a book vased society. Weare a tv based society that rarely even reads a newspaper. We make decisions based on tv about politics, social ediquete, history, consumerism, and what our countrymen are like based on the tv.

 

And while i agree with you that its not the book, tv or the computer itself but how we use them, i argue that the medium i insists we use them in a certain way. A hammer has only one use, and its easy to see how our perception of the world is manipulated by it. A book has an author and all the infornation laid out in front of you so its about as easy to analyze as a hammer. People rarely if never see the tv or the computer and how it controls the content they consume. Theres a reason for the level of absurdity on tv and the internet that stems from the DNA of tv and computers.

 

 

I could go on forever so ill end with this, if youre spending time on reformed epistemology, look at the epistemology of technology as well. How do we tell whats true in a book compared to whats true on television or on the computer? What kind of society does each of these create and which one is better or worse than the others? When you look at reformed epistemology, how does each new technology reframe religion in society. The clock destroyed regligions metaphor for eternity. The television made religion look absurd because heaven, gods etc cannot be depicted visually. The content of the bible only exists in the printed word.

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I dunno if you noticed but those two ways are just one way: you assuming you must know more than me. Hows that working for you?

 

If you want to construct a response I can respond and I can explain whatever you don't understand. Alternatively you can check the CBT and just read all the books in ther. I started that thread EXACTLY so people like you couldn't start these pissing contests. If you want to be a smartass, mission accomplished.

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Alright I have a minute to use a real computer.

 

 

This is what I'm talking about:

Marshal McLuhan's "understanding media,"

Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World,"

Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves to death," "Technopoly," "Building a bridge to the 18th century"

Tim Wu, "The Master Switch"

Jaron Lanier "You Are Not A Gadget"

Nicholas Carr "The Shallows" and "The Big Switch."

 

Read up.

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There are only two ways to understand your last post.

 

1) You don't know what you're talking about.

 

2) You know what you're talking about and are misusing words and ideas intentionally. In other words, trolling.

 

Arguing with this fruit is worse than a waste of time.

 

You could literally state the same claim, provide the same facts, and share an opinion along the

frequency of his own, and he'd still come with some bullshit aboit how ''you dont know what you're talking about''.

 

Then again in that case, he'd be right for once.

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I reread the previous post and if you haven’t read any of the books I’ve offered then

admittedly you wont have a clue what I’m talking about. If you don’t want to read

the books because you're waiting for the movie, this is the best I can do for you.

 

 

 

"Medium is the message"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message

 

Marshal McLuhan suggests that what you communicate is far less important than

how you communicate. It doesn't matter what you say to someone through a

telephone, using a telephone says a lot more. “The medium is the message.”

 

 

 

Neil Postman revises this argument by suggesting, "medium is the metaphor" in

Amusing Ourselves To Death

 

 

Neil Postman argues that what you can communicate through a medium is defined

by the medium, which then redefines your entire relationship to people, society,

culture, and the world. People who read books have more value for objectivity than

people who watch TV, for instance.

 

Each new technology monopolizes communication and therefore monopolizes

culture. We see this today in a fall of literacy and reading comprehension compared

to the 18th century when literacy was somewhere around 98%. When the book held

a monopoly on public discourse, society demanded high-grade literacy to plug into

the culture. We are guided by logic and abstraction when we are reading print. Yet

we are presented with concrete images and crave for aesthetics when we watch

television. This influences our decisions like which president we would choose.

Media therefore influences the way we tell the truth. Each technology comes with its

own epistemology. A print based culture was objective and rational. The way they

expressed ideas was logical and sequential.

 

A television based epistemology turns politics, education, news etc into

channels/entertainment. Focusing on aesthetics rather than paying attention to

logic and rationale.

 

When print held a monopoly on discourse in America (until the 19th century),

everything was discussed by everyone in a serious and thoughtful manner. It

demanded high-grade literacy to plug into society. The Lyceum Movement started as

a form of adult education. By 1835, more than 3,000 Lyceum lecture halls in 15

states. Intellectuals, writers and humorists spoke there to audiences of all classes for

free.

 

Postman defines the “Typographic Man" as detached, analytical, devoted to logic,

abhorring contradiction.” He was also classless as reading was not regarded as an

elitist activity in America.

 

First printing press in US: 1638 at Harvard University. From 16th century on, all

knowledge began to be transferred to the printed page in America. Books were

imported from Britain. Soon after we had public libraries that provided all these

books free of charge to every American in the country. There has never been a more

open loop of communication in this country. We had the telegraph, penny-papers,

telephone, radio, newspapers, and television, all of which became government

sponsored monopolies controlled by companies like AT&T and Bell.

 

 

 

 

Since “Amusing ourselves to death” was written in 1984 we have to go to “The

Shallows” by Nicholas carr, written in 2007 to see compare TV and Typography to

Computers.

 

 

Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature

 

Much like the television tried to do, the computer is slowly replacing all mediums

that came before it. The way the Web has progressed as a medium replays, with

the velocity of a time-lapse film, the entire history of modern media. Hundreds of

years have been compressed into a couple of decages. The first information-

processing machine that the Net replicated was Gutenberg's press. Because text is

fairly simple to translate into software code and to share over networks — it

doesn't require a lot of memory to store, a lot of bandwith to transmit, or a lot of

processing power to render on a screen — early Web sites were usually

constructed entirely of typographical symbols. The very term we came to use to

describe what we look at online — pages — emphasized the connection printed

documents.

 

Next, the Web began to take over the work of our traditional sound-processing

equipment — radios and phonographs and tape decks. The earliest sounds to be

heard online were spoken words, but soon snippets of music, and then entire

songs and even symphonies, were streaming through sites, at ever-higher levels

of fidelity. The network's ability to handle audio streams was aided by the

development of software algorithms, such as the one used to produce MP3 files,

that erase from music and other recordings sounds that are heard for the human

ear to hear. The algorithms allowed sound files to be compressed to much smaller

sizes with only slight sacrifices in quality. Telephone calls also began to be routed

over the fiber-optic cables of the Internet, bypassing traditional phone lines.

 

Chapter 7: The Juggler's Brain

 

Our use of the Internet involves many paradoxes, but the one that promises to

have the greatest long-term influences over how we think is this one: the Net

seizes our attention only to scatter it.

 

Chapter 9: Search, Memory

 

...it's no longer terribly efficient for our brains to store information. Memory

should now function like a simple index, pointing us to places on the Web where

we can locate the information we need at the moment we need it. Why memorize

the content of a single book when you could be using your brain to hold a quick

guide to an entire library? Rather than memorize information, we now store it

digitally and just remember what we stored. As the Web teaches us to think like it

does, we'll end up keeping rather little deep knowledge in our own heads.

 

When a person fails to consolidate a fact, an idea, or an experience in long-term

memory, he's not "freeing up" space in his brain for other functions. In contrast

to working memory, with its constrained capacity, long-term memory expands

and contracts with almost unlimited elasticity, thanks to the brain's ability to

grow and prune synaptic terminals and continually adjust the strength of

synaptic connections. The brain never reaches a point at which experiences can

no longer be committed to memory; the brain cannot be full. The very act of

remembering appears to modify the brain in a way that can make it

easier to learn ideas and skills in the future.

 

We don't constrain our mental powers when we store new long-term memories.

We strengthen them. With each expansion of our memory comes an enlargement

of our intelligence. The Web provides a convenient and compelling supplement to

personal memory, but when we start using the Web as a substitute for personal

memory, bypassing the inner processes of consolidation, we risk emptying our

minds of their riches.

 

In the 1970s, when schools began allowing students to use portable calculators,

many parents objected. They worried that a reliance on the machines would

weaken their children's grasp of mathematical concepts. The fears, subsequent

studies showed, were largely unwarranted. No longer forced to spend a lot of time

on routine calculations, many students gained a deeper understanding of the

principles underlying their exercises. Today, in freeing us from the work of

remembering, it's said, the Web allows us to devote more time to creative

thought. As the experience of math students has shown, the calculator made it

easier for the brain to transfer ideas from working memory to long-term memory

and encode them in the conceptual schemas that are so important to building

knowledge. The Web has a very different effect. It places more pressure on our

working memory, not only diverting resources from our higher reasoning

faculties but obstructing the consolidation of long-term memories and the

development of schemas. The calculator, a powerful but highly specialized tool,

turned out to be an aid to memory. The Web is a technology of forgiveness.

 

The more we use the Web, the more we train our brain to be distracted — to

process information very quickly and very efficiently but without sustained

attention. That helps explain why many of us find it hard to concentrate even

when we're away from our computers. Our brains become adept at forgetting,

inept at remembering.

 

 

 

I’ll save the other half of those books for later. While so far this has been widely an

existentialist argument, the rest of the books go into the more economic and

politically motivated monopolies of information technology. And the pros and cons

of bundling vs unbundling information, monopolizing vs democratizing information

technology and so on.

 

Tim Wu - The Master Switch

Nicholas Carr - The Big Switch (couldnt find anything in particular that covers the whole book so here) http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nicholas+carr+the+big+switch&oq=nicholas+carr+the+big+switch&gs_l=youtube.3..0.1961.5963.0.6181.16.5.0.11.11.1.139.464.4j1.5.0...0.0...1ac.tamzZKAvmes

Neil Postman - Technopoly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbAPtGYiRvg

Neil Postman - Building a bridge to the 18th century http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JovJr_LmAP8

 

Couple more

 

Jaron Lanier - You Are not a gadget

Sherry Turkle - Alone Together

William Powers - Hamlet's Blackberry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IFhmw9YdoY

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Soup, I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you.

 

Here's a few things that I think may be helpful for you.

 

If you want to make a point, just make the point. (re-read this 5 times)

 

You shouldn't give out a list of books to read and think that we would understand you if only we would read books X, Y, and Z. If you understand the points in those books, just give us the points.

You shouldn't say things like "it's been scientifically proven" to try and make a point. You shouldn't appeal to authority, (just because someone says something doesn't make it true). You shouldn't

contradict yourself, (post #1 you say google has indexed .04% of the internet, post #37 you say google has indexed between 4-12%) You shouldn't overstate your case, it makes it that much easier

to falsify your claim, (e.g. post #48 "a hammer has only one use..." false, hammers have many uses including but not limited to: building, demolition, bottle opener, door stop etc. This is just one

simple example, but there are many like this you've made in this thread). You shouldn't stray off of your own topic, (this thread was about computer usage, no reason to bring in god, religion, eternity.

Whether any of these are true or false they aren't on topic and they don't further your idea). When someone makes a point, try to understand their point before responding to it.

 

There's more but I'm just going to stop for now. I'm sure I may come off as patronizing but that isn't my intention. I'm just trying to help you out.

 

And I still have no idea if you're trolling or just don't know what you're talking about.

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I'm glad you brought up Aristotles rules of logic. Your examples are a bit of a stretch but I agree with what you're trying to say, although what you're applying them to misses the points I was making. That could've been my fault but let me try explaining, since you're not really keen on asking questions and jump to a fuck-ton of conclusions.

 

"You shouldn't give out a list of books to read and think that we would understand you if only we would read books X, Y, and Z."

Because you went straight to being dismissive of my post instead of asking for clarification or posting anything constructive, I could only assume you were done with the discussion so I left it with a list of books you could read instead.

 

"If you understand the points in those books, just give us the points. "

I can definitely simplify those books into points. The question is why would I want do that? What value is there to breaking down a bunch of books in this thread when there is no real discussion here?

 

"You shouldn't say things like "it's been scientifically proven" to try and make a point."

You're confusing warrants for a claim with support. That's not an example of support. If you want the support i can provide it.

 

"You shouldn't appeal to authority, (just because someone says something doesn't make it true)."

True but I haven't. If you think i have let me know where. In fact I just told Spambot to stop appealing to the authority of his Austrian economists.

 

"You shouldn't contradict yourself, (post #1 you say Google has indexed .04% of the internet, post #37 you say Google has indexed between 4-12%)"

You're right, however I have found research papers that say both, while researchers can't agree on a number they support my claim that Google indexes only a fraction of the Internet.

 

"You shouldn't overstate your case, it makes it that much easier to falsify your claim, (e.g. post #48 "a hammer has only one use..." false, hammers have many uses including but not limited to: building, demolition, bottle opener, door stop etc."

Valid point but not a great example of it. The list of uses you gave can be given to a number of things, including your skull, but we're talking about the hammer as a sophisticated tool and technology. The the single purpose of the hammer, which defines the hammer as a hammer and not your skull or a rock or whatever, is that a hammer can put nails into a wall.

 

This technology changed people's entire relationship to the world. It created a new kind of building, a new way to think about nature, a new career and role in society, a new culture with a different value for everything around it. We see this with every new technology including agriculture, animal husbandry, the printed word, and so on. THAT was the point i was making. The role of the hammer—and all technology—in shaping modern society cannot be overstated.

 

"This is just one simple example, but there are many like this you've made in this thread). You shouldn't stray off of your own topic, (this thread was about computer usage, no reason to bring in god, religion, eternity.

Whether any of these are true or false they aren't on topic and they don't further your idea). "

 

I completely disagree with this. We are talking about computer as a technology and a medium. We are attempting to weigh the benefits against the costs and one part of this is to compare the computer to other technologies, to see how technology changes the metaphors/abstract concepts of our society. Since we see the world through abstract concepts like eternity, religion, and god—also capitalism, individualism, liberty, fairness, etc—its important to see how each new technology changes the meaning and our relationship to these metaphors. As we change everything over to the computer we must ask ourselves how our relationship to these metaphors and to the world is altered. Since you're clearly interested in epistemology, at least in the context of religion, you might also be interested in looking at technology as epistemology, and with every new technology the epistemology changes.

 

"When someone makes a point, try to understand their point before responding to it. "

Sage wisdom, Mr. "I’m just gonna assume you don’t know what you’re talking about."

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Actually you did.

 

There are only two ways to understand your last post.

 

1) You don't know what you're talking about.

 

2) You know what you're talking about and are misusing words and ideas intentionally. In other words, trolling.

And like i said that's really just one way to understand my post. You just added some flavor to #2.

 

How many of the people have come to a conclusion at all? The question is what's important here.

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There actually is context to my quote above.

 

As far as your question 'should we stop using computers?' I'm leaning towards not stopping.

 

Can you answer my question? How many people you listed above come to the conclusion we should stop using computers?

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ok

 

"If you understand the points in those books, just give us the points. "

I can definitely simplify those books into points. The question is why would I want do that? What value is there to breaking down a bunch of books in this thread when there is no real discussion here?"

 

Seems to me like there is some discussion here.

 

"You shouldn't say things like "it's been scientifically proven" to try and make a point."

You're confusing warrants for a claim with support."

 

I'm sort of used to using warrant in a particular way but recognize that people easily use it interchangeably with other words like justification. You're going to have to fill me in on how you use both those words for me to understand the point you're making here.

 

"You shouldn't overstate your case, it makes it that much easier to falsify your claim, (e.g. post #48 "a hammer has only one use..." false, hammers have many uses including but not limited to: building, demolition, bottle opener, door stop etc."

Valid point but not a great example of it. The list of uses you gave can be given to a number of things, including your skull, but we're talking about the hammer as a sophisticated tool and technology. The the single purpose of the hammer, which defines the hammer as a hammer and not your skull or a rock or whatever, is that a hammer can put nails into a wall."

 

I disagree that "the single purpose of the hammer, which defines the hammer...is that a hammer can put nails into a wall". I think what actually defines a hammer is common purpose and not single purpose. Thinking about it this way is more inclusive to how we actually use a hammer and still allows for the distinction between a hammer, my skull and a rock.

 

"This technology changed people's entire relationship to the world. It created a new kind of building, a new way to think about nature, a new career and role in society, a new culture with a different value for everything around it. We see this with every new technology including agriculture, animal husbandry, the printed word, and so on. THAT was the point i was making. The role of the hammer—and all technology—in shaping modern society cannot be overstated."

 

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Seems to me like you are overstating things here.

 

"I completely disagree with this. We are talking about computer as a technology and a medium. We are attempting to weigh the benefits against the costs and one part of this is to compare the computer to other technologies, to see how technology changes the metaphors/abstract concepts of our society. Since we see the world through abstract concepts like eternity, religion, and god—also capitalism, individualism, liberty, fairness, etc—its important to see how each new technology changes the meaning and our relationship to these metaphors."

 

You give a list of things (eternity, religion, and god—also capitalism, individualism, liberty, fairness) and call them metaphors, but are they all metaphors?

 

"Since you're clearly interested in epistemology, at least in the context of religion."

 

I am interested in epistemology but I didn't mean to give you the impression that it was only in the context of religion. One statement I noticed from you was "Researching on the internet may seem faster than researching in a library but the information you end up with when you use the internet is so inferior to book learning that its truly a waste of fucking time." and this is so blatantly incorrect that I wanted to comment in this thread. I let you know there is a ton of good information I find on the internet thru google. You asked me what kind and I gave you one example, but there are lots more we don't even need to bother getting into (meaning I've successfully searched for things many times over).

 

"Since you're clearly interested in epistemology...you might also be interested in looking at technology as epistemology, and with every new technology the epistemology changes."

 

I think I would be sure to never slip up here and to always keep distinction between how we actually "know" things internally vs. the way we come to find new things externally. That's sloppy but it's open to critique and revision.

 

"I'm sorry, what context did I miss?"

 

Really? The post before the post you quoted.

 

"None of them directly answered that question. Just like a hazard warning on a cigarette box doesn't directly tell you to stop smoking."

 

I know you aren't saying using computers directly causes cancer. So it's not just like a warning on cigarette label. In other words, you don't have to tell us what it's like you can just tell us what it is.

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I'm sort of used to using warrant in a particular way but

recognize that people easily use it interchangeably with other words like

justification. You're going to have to fill me in on how you use both those words for

me to understand the point you're making here.

 

Claim: What I want readers to believe'

 

Support: What I will use to support the claim

 

Warrant: A general principle that explains why I think me evidence is accurate, and

relevant to your claim.

 

 

 

Claim: Books allow for deeper concentration, contemplation, and memorization

than any other format.

 

Warrant: The claim is evident through scientific research

 

Support: Not given at the time because this is the internet and I don't feel like qualifying things unless someone asks me to, but here:

 

 

 

Taken from "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr

Keep in mind the entire book is devoted to this topic and this is only one section.

 

 

GARY SMALL, A professor of psychiatry at UCLA and the director of its Memory and

Aging Center, has been studying the physiological and neurological effects of the use of

digital media, and what he’s discovered backs up Merzenich’s belief that the Net causes

extensive brain changes. “The current explosion of digital technology not only is

changing the way we live and communicate but is rapidly and profoundly altering our

brains,” he says. The daily use of computers, smartphones, search engines, and other such

tools “stimulates brain cell alteration and neurotransmitter release, gradually

strengthening new neural pathways in our brains while weakening old ones.”7

 

In 2008, Small and two of his colleagues carried out the first experiment that actually

showed people’s brains changing in response to Internet use.8 The researchers recruited

twenty-four volunteers—a dozen experienced Web surfers and a dozen novices—and

scanned their brains as they performed searches on Google. (Since a computer won’t fit

inside a magnetic resonance imager, the subjects were equipped with goggles onto which

were projected images of Web pages, along with a small handheld touchpad to navigate

the pages.) The scans revealed that the brain activity of the experienced Googlers was

much broader than that of the novices. In particular, “the computer-savvy subjects used a

specific network in the left front part of the brain, known as the dorsolateral prefrontal

cortex, [while] the Internet-naïve subjects showed minimal, if any, activity in this area.”

As a control for the test, the researchers also had the subjects read straight text in a

simulation of book reading; in this case, scans revealed no significant difference in brain

activity between the two groups. Clearly, the experienced Net users’ distinctive neural

pathways had developed through their Internet use.

 

The most remarkable part of the experiment came when the tests were repeated six days

later. In the interim, the researchers had the novices spend an hour a day online, searching

the Net. The new scans revealed that the area in their prefrontal cortex that had been

largely dormant now showed extensive activity—just like the activity in the brains of the

veteran surfers. “After just five days of practice, the exact same neural circuitry in the

front part of the brain became active in the Internet-naïve subjects,” reports Small. “Five

hours on the Internet, and the naïve subjects had already rewired their brains.” He goes

on to ask, “If our brains are so sensitive to just an hour a day of computer exposure, what

happens when we spend more time [online]?” 9

 

One other finding of the study sheds light on the differences between reading Web pages

and reading books. The researchers found that when people search the Net they exhibit a

very different pattern of brain activity than they do when they read book-like text. Book

readers have a lot of activity in regions associated with language, memory, and visual

processing, but they don’t display much activity in the prefrontal regions associated with

decision making and problem solving. Experienced Net users, by contrast, display

extensive activity across all those brain regions when they scan and search Web pages.

The good news here is that Web surfing, because it engages so many brain functions,

may help keep older people’s minds sharp. Searching and browsing seem to “exercise”

the brain in a way similar to solving crossword puzzles, says Small.

 

But the extensive activity in the brains of surfers also points to why deep reading and

other acts of sustained concentration become so difficult online. The need to evaluate

links and make related navigational choices, while also processing a multiplicity of

fleeting sensory stimuli, requires constant mental coordination and decision making,

distracting the brain from the work of interpreting text or other information. Whenever

we, as readers, come upon a link, we have to pause, for at least a split second, to allow

our prefrontal cortex to evaluate whether or not we should click on it. The redirection of

our mental resources, from reading words to making judgments, may be imperceptible to

us—our brains are quick—but it’s been shown to impede comprehension and retention,

particularly when it’s repeated frequently. As the executive functions of the prefrontal

cortex kick in, our brains become not only exercised but overtaxed. In a very real way,

the Web returns us to the time of scriptura continua, when reading was a cognitively

strenuous act. In reading online, Maryanne Wolf says, we sacrifice the facility that makes

deep reading possible. We revert to being “mere decoders of information.”10Our ability to

make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction

remains largely disengaged.

 

Steven Johnson, in his 2005 book Everything Bad Is Good for You, contrasted the

widespread, teeming neural activity seen in the brains of computer users with the much

more muted activity evident in the brains of book readers. The comparison led him to

suggest that computer use provides more intense mental stimulation than does book

reading. The neural evidence could even, he wrote, lead a person to conclude that

“reading books chronically understimulates the senses.”11 But while Johnson’s diagnosis

is correct, his interpretation of the differing patterns of brain activity is misleading. It is

the very fact that book reading “understimulates the senses” that makes the activity so

intellectually rewarding. By allowing us to filter out distractions, to quiet the problem-

solving functions of the frontal lobes, deep reading becomes a form of deep thinking. The

mind of the experienced book reader is a calm mind, not a buzzing one. When it comes to

the firing of our neurons, it’s a mistake to assume that more is better.

 

John Sweller, an Australian educational psychologist, has spent three decades studying

how our minds process information and, in particular, how we learn. His work

illuminates how the Net and other media influence the style and the depth of our thinking.

Our brains, he explains, incorporate two very different kinds of memory: short-term and

long-term. We hold our immediate impressions, sensations, and thoughts as short-term

memories, which tend to last only a matter of seconds. All the things we’ve learned about

the world, whether consciously or unconsciously, are stored as long-term memories,

which can remain in our brains for a few days, a few years, or even a lifetime. One

particular type of short-term memory, called working memory, plays an instrumental role

in the transfer of information into long-term memory and hence in the creation of our

personal store of knowledge. Working memory forms, in a very real sense, the contents

of our consciousness at any given moment. “We are conscious of what is in working

memory and not conscious of anything else,” says Sweller.12

 

If working memory is the mind’s scratch pad, then long-term memory is its filing system.

The contents of our long-term memory lie mainly outside of our consciousness. In order

for us to think about something we’ve previously learned or experienced, our brain has to

transfer the memory from long-term memory back into working memory. “We are only

aware that something was stored in long-term memory when it is brought down into

working memory,” explains Sweller.13 It was once assumed that long-term memory

served merely as a big warehouse of facts, impressions, and events, that it “played little

part in complex cognitive processes such as thinking and problem-solving.”14 But brain

scientists have come to realize that long-term memory is actually the seat of

understanding. It stores not just facts but complex concepts, or “schemas.” By organizing

scattered bits of information into patterns of knowledge, schemas give depth and richness

to our thinking. “Our intellectual prowess is derived largely from the schemas we have

acquired over long periods of time,” says Sweller. “We are able to understand concepts in

our areas of expertise because we have schemas associated with those concepts.”15

 

The depth of our intelligence hinges on our ability to transfer information from working

memory to long-term memory and weave it into conceptual schemas. But the passage

from working memory to long-term memory also forms the major bottleneck in our brain.

Unlike long-term memory, which has a vast capacity, working memory is able to hold

only a very small amount of information. In a renowned 1956 paper, “The Magical

Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” Princeton psychologist George Miller observed that

working memory could typically hold just seven pieces, or “elements,” of information.

Even that is now considered an overstatement. According to Sweller, current evidence

suggests that “we can process no more than about two to four elements at any given time

with the actual number probably being at the lower [rather] than the higher end of this

scale.” Those elements that we are able to hold in working memory will, moreover,

quickly vanish “unless we are able to refresh them by rehearsal.”16

 

Imagine filling a bathtub with a thimble; that’s the challenge involved in transferring

information from working memory into long-term memory. By regulating the velocity

and intensity of information flow, media exert a strong influence on this process. When

we read a book, the information faucet provides a steady drip, which we can control by

the pace of our reading. Through our single-minded concentration on the text, we can

transfer all or most of the information, thimbleful by thimbleful, into long-term memory

and forge the rich associations essential to the creation of schemas. With the Net, we face

many information faucets, all going full blast. Our little thimble overflows as we rush

from one faucet to the next. We’re able to transfer only a small portion of the information

to long-term memory, and what we do transfer is a jumble of drops from different

faucets, not a continuous, coherent stream from one source.

 

The information flowing into our working memory at any given moment is called our

“cognitive load.” When the load exceeds our mind’s ability to store and process the

information—when the water overflows the thimble—we’re unable to retain the

information or to draw connections with the information already stored in our long-term

memory. We can’t translate the new information into schemas. Our ability to learn

suffers, and our understanding remains shallow. Because our ability to maintain our

attention also depends on our working memory—“we have to remember what it is we are

to concentrate on,” as Torkel Klingberg says—a high cognitive load amplifies the

distractedness we experience. When our brain is overtaxed, we find “distractions more

distracting.”17 (Some studies link attention deficit disorder, or ADD, to the overloading of

working memory.) Experiments indicate that as we reach the limits of our working

memory, it becomes harder to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant

information, signal from noise. We become mindless consumers of data.

 

Difficulties in developing an understanding of a subject or a concept appear to be

“heavily determined by working memory load,” writes Sweller, and the more complex

the material we’re trying to learn, the greater the penalty exacted by an overloaded

mind.18 There are many possible sources of cognitive overload, but two of the most

important, according to Sweller, are “extraneous problem-solving” and “divided

attention.” Those also happen to be two of the central features of the Net as an

informational medium. Using the Net may, as Gary Small suggests, exercise the brain the

way solving crossword puzzles does. But such intensive exercise, when it becomes our

primary mode of thought, can impede deep learning and thinking. Try reading a book

while doing a crossword puzzle; that’s the intellectual environment of the Internet.

 

 

 

 

 

7. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan, iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind (New York: Collins, 2008), 1.

8. G. W. Small, T. D. Moody, P. Siddarth, and S. Y. Bookheimer, “Your Brain on Google: Patterns of Cerebral Activation during Internet Searching,” American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17, no. 2 (February 2009): 116–26. See also Rachel Champeau, “UCLA Study Finds That Searching the Internet Increases Brain Function,” UCLA Newsroom, October 14, 2008, http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-study-finds-that-searching-64348.aspx.

9. Small and Vorgan, iBrain, 16–17.

10. Maryanne Wolf, interview with the author, March 28, 2008.

11. Steven Johnson, Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter(New York: Riverhead Books, 2005), 19.

12. John Sweller, Instructional Design in Technical Areas(Camberwell, Australia: Australian Council for Educational Research, 1999), 4.

13. Ibid., 7.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 11.

16. Ibid., 4–5. For a broad review of current thinking on the limits of working memory, see Nelson Cowan, Working Memory Capacity (New York: Psychology Press, 2005).

17. Klingberg, Overflowing Brain, 39 and 72–75.

18. Sweller, Instructional Design, 22.

 

 

 

 

I'll pause here to respond to the rest of your post.

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