What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

Uploader Description: "Most of us are on the Internet on a daily basis and whether we like it or not, the Internet is affecting us. It changes how we think, how we work, and it even changes our brains.

We interviewed Nicholas Carr, the author of, "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains," about how the Internet is influencing us, our creativity, our thought processes, our ideas, and how we think.

CHECK OUT THE BOOK
"The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains," by Nicholas Carr
http://amzn.to/138qSii "
MilkmanDansays...

The internet as a medium is neutral about whether or not you switch your focus from cat videos to panda attacks to Ron Paul every 3 seconds. If you so choose, you can just as easily concentrate on one singular point of interest on the internet for "a few minutes" (or a few hours), allowing your brain to "learn something" and transfer from your short term to your long term memory.

This guy is the 2000's versions of all the parents in the 60's, 70's, and 80's yelling at their kids to drag their asses outside and DO SOMETHING instead of sitting around watching the boob tube all day.

dystopianfuturetodaysays...

Makes so much sense. I find that I'm really creative in the car, in the shower, when taking a walk or anywhere else that I can't jack into the information superhighway. While I'm unconnected, I make great plans for when I get home. Of course, once I do get home to my consumer electronics playground.......

9547bissays...

This.
People were just as shallow when watching five hours of TV every day.
Besides, Carr's book has been debunked as being not much more than an appealing idea based on anecdotal evidence. It's just a Gladwellism. Which is why it's not surprising to see it being bought wholesale by so many.

(As a side note, another crowd that's an easy prey to Gladwellism: young adults with an annoying voice parroting ideas in Youtube videos.)

MilkmanDansaid:

The internet as a medium is neutral about whether or not you switch your focus from cat videos to panda attacks to Ron Paul every 3 seconds. If you so choose, you can just as easily concentrate on one singular point of interest on the internet for "a few minutes" (or a few hours), allowing your brain to "learn something" and transfer from your short term to your long term memory.

This guy is the 2000's versions of all the parents in the 60's, 70's, and 80's yelling at their kids to drag their asses outside and DO SOMETHING instead of sitting around watching the boob tube all day.

poolcleanersays...

You could also blame books and homing pigeons -- Encyclopedia sets? Libraries? I spent many hours of my time as a child reading in these original information databases. I feel like the internet just brought a bunch of base fucks into a spectrum of reality that has always existed. Fucks that normally wouldn't spend their time consuming information in a database. Fucks that would market the shit out of every aspect of it. The perception of this video is a direct result of our internet being ground into dust.

At its mid-range potential, the internet is not much different than a library. I recall a lot of book-learned facts which are plain WRONG, including false and biased information, and unlabeled, incorrectly scaled maps being fairly constant. Yay Christopher Columbus! Yay happy natives! Yay dropping nuclear bombs on people! Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy

The internet brings ourselves closer and closer to instant, multi-perspective, peer-reviewed information, because we no longer need to thumb through catalogs, shelves, and pages, and everyone can contribute in a trusted, merit-based environment. Identify the fuckers of the internet. They pollute us with their bullshit. (I posit that I am not a fucker, I am merely disgruntled.)

One of my best friends is a librarian and the major difference he sees between Wikipedia and published books is that published books require new editions to replace outdated and incorrect information, potentially screwing over human memory for as long as that book isn't burned. (Sorry, rofl, I thought it was a funny way to phrase that. Plz don't burn books.)

The key is to avoid nonstop popular culture and focus on the vast educational potential of the internet.

And don't use social media.

And keep your mobile device's sound and vibration OFF. I love technology but don't let it reverse your human potential, let it augment. Focus on augmentation and factual checks & balances of the information you take in.

No to the conclusions from this video. No. No. NO! The net doesn't make us more superficial, we do and we always have.

chingalerasays...

"And don't use social media.

And keep your mobile device's sound and vibration OFF. I love technology but don't let it reverse your human potential, let it augment. Focus on augmentation and factual checks & balances of the information you take in. "


Amen brother, amen.

For Most Peeps:
Social media = cerebral toxic waste
Masturbatory cellphone use = socially challenged retardation

criticalthudsays...

this video is retarded.

only good results from an increased access to information.
information is sifted and refined. More information leads to increased logical associations, which is the essence of invention and understanding.

As for the amount of information; we are an adaptive species. so fucking adapt already.

oritteroposays...

We adapt slowly, and given too much choice tend to become paralysed:

http://videosift.com/video/Sheena-Iyengar-The-art-of-choosing-TED-talks

Not sure whether to mark that post as related, it's more of a tangent.

criticalthudsaid:

this video is retarded.

only good results from an increased access to information.
information is sifted and refined. More information leads to increased logical associations, which is the essence of invention and understanding.

As for the amount of information; we are an adaptive species. so fucking adapt already.

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