Ways that the internet is ruining children's brains, number 37
It used to be TV that was said to make mush out of children's brains, but now that role is passing most definitely to computers and the internet.
Baroness Susan Greenfield recently voiced the opinion that there could be a link between the attention span of children, the rise of attention deficit disorders and young children spending lengthy hours in front of the computer. It could be that the 'sedate pace' of school, or even of reading a book, has become alien to a generation of kids used to 'pressing a button and getting rapid responses from the screen'. [Rapid responses? I wish. Where exactly are those lightning speeds we're always being promised by the broadband providers? And has Susan tried doing anything on Second Life lately?]
I do sympathise with this view. However, wasn't it Susan Greenfield who a few months ago was putting her weight behind MindFit computer games, said to 'prevent the onset of cognitive decline ... and could in the long-term provide an alternative to drugs'?
Nicholas Carr asks whether Google is making us stupid. His recent essay in Atlantic Monthly sets out the argument that the medium shapes not only the way the message is presented, but the way our brains process that message. His worry is that the internet is moulding our brains into nothing more that information processors:
"In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive."
Is the human brain really that vulnerable? Is it possible that those monolithic, frustration-inducing, rubbish-riddled search engines are going to re-model our thinking processes in their likeness? I remember taking a course in Artificial Intelligence in the 1980s: I went in with so much excitement, so many expectations, and came out thoroughly convinced it wasn't going to happen. Not in my lifetime, for sure.
Kids who have grown up with technology aren't going to stop using it, so there doesn't seem to be any point worrying about it. But rather than being taken over by it, I can see them growing with it. Which I think will mean that future generations will be not just more familiar with a computer-driven world, but they'll have a better understanding of the possibilities and limitations of it all, and the cultural role of what we still call 'new media'. They'll become more naturally discerning about information they encounter, will be better equipped to ask questions, carry out research and make the most of the social web for both personal and professional growth. Most of all, they'll take for granted all the stuff that still amazes us.
Let's not forget that when the telephone was first invented there were dire warnings from sociologists and assorted experts who feared it would destroy the fabric of society. There were also those who said it would never have any application outside of the business world. Technology, schmeckmology.
I met with a prospective client the other day and in talking to him was reminded of all those serendipitous moments that happened to me about ten years ago, the start of my love affair with the internet.
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