April 24, 2006
New technology may be changing the human brain
Is technology changing our brains? neuro-biologist Susan Greenfield asked this question of the House of Lord that affects all of us.
Excerpts from from The Guardian.
..." In just a couple of decades, we have slipped away from a culture based essentially on words to one based essentially on images, or pictures. This is probably one of the great shifts in the story of modern humans but we take it almost for granted.
... There can be little doubt that the structures, never mind the surface form, of the English language are changing fast.
... The process of traditional book-reading, which involves following an author through a series of interconnected steps in a logical fashion. We read other narratives and compare them, and so "build up a conceptual framework that enables us to evaluate further journeys... One might argue that this is the basis of education ... Traditional education, she says, enables us to "turn information into knowledge."
Put like that, it is obvious where her worries lie. The flickering up and flashing away again of multimedia images do not allow those connections, and therefore the context, to build up.
... But the main change is that even these shorthand sentences are surrounded by pictures. With mobile phone cameras, digital sticks and emailing, people no longer need to describe where they are but can just point, click and show a view, a friend's face or "happy slapping".
While not suggesting a revolt by mere democracies against the corporate power of the IT industries, Greenfield suggests this is an idea that should at least be investigated further. She wants more government funding for the scientists and educators trying to understand the impact of the digital-picture world on how children learn to think".
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