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Nicholas Carr Foresees Brains Optimized For Browsing
An anonymous reader writes "In the next decade, our brains are going to become optimized for information browsing, says best-selling author Nicholas Carr. According to Carr, while the genetic nature of our brains isn't being changed by the Internet at all, our brains are adapting 'at a cellular level' and are weakening modes of thinking we no longer exercise. Therefore, in 10 years, if human beings are using the Internet even more than they do today, says Carr, "our brains will be even more optimized for information browsing, skimming and scanning, and multitasking — fast, scattered modes of thought — and even less capable of the kinds of more attentive, contemplative thinking that the net discourages."" While Carr isn't making a case for Lamarckian evolution, the argument here seems weak to me; the same kind of brain change could be attributed to books, or television, or the automobile, couldn't it?
Television and the automobile, certainly. However, it seems arguable that books encourage attentive, contemplative thinking. The automobile can be a bit fuzzier - but certainly highway driving requires extreme amounts of attention. City driving isn't usually done for long stretches - unless it's stop and go, in which case nothing is happening to make it require much brain exercise.
Also, how does this make the argument seem weak? I'm sure there's a large body of work arguing the same is indeed true of television.
Evolution requires death, selective pressure, serious things like that, and takes place over generations. This ain't evolution. It's just people getting into a habit.
Yes it probably does change our brains on a cellular level, just like the recent habit of no hard physical labor changed our muscles on a cellular level. It's easily reversible simply by doing the old things again.
While Carr isn't making a case for Lamarckian evolution, the argument here seems weak to me; the same kind of brain change could be attributed to books, or television, or the automobile, couldn't it?
Yes, the same kinds of changes could be attributed to the things you named. Which is likely why people who grew up with black and white television dreamed in black and white. Our brains are absolutely affected at a deep level by the things we spend our time on. It seems almost trivially obvious to say so. The real question is whether or not this is a bad thing. Yes, our modes of thinking may become dependent on "browsing" -- on having a ready cache of facts and trivia that don't need to be stored in gray matter. But if it is the case that browsing is indeed always available, might that not be a good thing? Couldn't that free up resources, currently devoted to memorizing state capitals, that could be better spent on higher level reasoning? Math classes can certainly teach more interesting topics now that calculators have obviated the need to memorize logarithm tables.
Whether humanity's method of information gathering is books and TV, the Internet, or (Heaven Forbid) interpersonal interaction, we'll all do it in some combination of long and short intervals. The Internet makes it possible to do both the high-frequency information gathering described here, and low-frequency contemplative activities such as gaming sessions, ./ articles and reading science papers. It's a lot easier now to learn about a single, narrow topic in depth than it has ever been in the past. Science has become more specialized. Less time spent searching for facts means more time to spend contemplating your favorite scientific issue. Consequently, given a period of time and a problem of a given complexity, scientists can now analyze an issue / solving a problem in greater detail and with better efficiency. Contemplate that, Carr.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Browsing concentration is sort of the opposite of "flow" concentration. Flow concentration is engaged when you're doing something engrossing - painting, writing, sudoku, coding. As long as we balance out our browsing habit with artistic and creative pursuits, we'll be fine.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
This is like Sony getting up and telling us all that the Xbox is making us stupid.
You have to question the source here. The guy is an editor for Encyclopedia Britannica - something that is likely being hurt by free information publications such as Wikipedia.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
But, the first time a cut was introduced, the audience was completely flummoxed.
More than that. The average shot length in movies has been decreasing over the years. There are up and down trends; 1971 had longer shots than 1974. But shot lengths today average around 2 seconds. The Bourne Ultimatum has a mean shot length of 800ms. This is the current record. MTV got people used to that rate of cuts.
Another thing that people have learned to tolerate is the demise of editorial geography. The best way to explain editorial geography is this (which I'm quoting from memory): "Bogart gets a phone call. He hangs up the phone. He puts on his coat, He opens his door and walks out. He walks down the front steps. He hails a cab. He gets in the cab and the cab drives away. We see a shot of him inside the cab. The cab stops in front of a building. Bogart gets out. He looks up at the tall building. We're shown the building. He walks into the lobby. He pushes the elevator button. He looks up at the elevator indicator. We're shown the elevator indicator moving down. The elevator doors open. Bogart gets in. We're shown the elevator indicator moving up. On another floor, we see the elevator doors open. Bogart gets out and walks down the hall. He knocks on a door, and Lauren Bacall opens the door. Bogart walks through the door into the apartment." Today, we'd see the phone call, and in the next scene, he'd be in the apartment.