The Internet is actually changing our brains. It has become a primary form of external memory and our brains have become reliant on the virtually instant availability of information. Our brains are adapting, and some think that intelligence is improving.
When faced with questions, people rarely consider encyclopaedias or history books any more; they think about computers. It is a new impulse that now exists in the brain. With smartphones, the information is in their pocket. Rote memorisation wastes valuable brainpower. People do not need to remember addresses or phone numbers anymore, they can just look them up. Clearly, modern education should focus not on learning by rote any more, but on creative thinking.
Some think that multitasking – the phenomenon of continuous partial attention – causes an actual adaptation of the brain. Instead of focusing on tasks, incoming e-mail becomes a distraction and cannot be ignored.
Deep, focused reading is becoming increasingly difficult. Online browsing has created a new form of ‘reading’, in which people are not really reading, but rather power browsing. Instead of left-to-right, up-to-down reading, they seem to scan through titles, bullet points, and information that stands out. When it comes to reading more than a few minutes, the mind begins to wander. Certainly comprehension and attention are at risk.
When you are online, you are frequently attacked by bursts of information, which is highly stimulating and even overwhelming. Too much and you can become extremely distracted and unfocused. Even after logging off, your brain remains wired. The lack of focus and fractured thinking persists, interrupting work, family, and offline time.
Gradually, Internet use is changing neural pathways – it is addictive. Even after unplugging, habitual users feel a craving for the stimulation received from gadgets. This is caused by dopamine, which is delivered as response to the stimulation. Without it, boredom sets in; people get irritated till they get their ‘fix’. After spending time online, their brain wants to get back for more, making it difficult to unplug and concentrate on other tasks.
How do these effects of technology addiction extrapolate in the future?
The coming tech-led boom
The last century saw several transformations: electrification, telephony, automobiles, radio, electronics and TV, and the dawn of the Internet. In this new century, three grand technological transformations are being led by America: Big data, smart manufacturing and the wireless revolution. The era of near perfect computational design and production will unleash as big a change in how we make things as the agricultural revolution did in how we grew things. It will be defined by talent, not cheap labour.
Information technology has entered the big-data era. Processing power and data storage are virtually free. The iPhone has computing power that dwarfs the 1970s era IBM mainframe. The Internet is evolving into the cloud – a network of thousands of data centres, any one of which makes a 1990 supercomputer look like an antique. Astronomical feats of data crunching will enable previously unimaginable services and businesses. We are on the cusp of unimaginable new markets.
Smart manufacturing is the first structural shift since Henry Ford launched the economic power of mass production. We are just entering an era where the very fabrication of physical things is revolutionised by emerging materials science. Engineers will soon design and build from the molecular level, optimising features and even creating new materials, radically improving quality and reducing waste.
This era of new materials will be economically explosive when combined with 3D printing – literally ‘printing’ parts and devices using computer power, lasers and basic powdered metals and plastics, soon leading to ‘printing’ of entire final products.
Finally, there is the unfolding communications revolution where most humans on the planet will soon be connected wirelessly. Never before have a billion people, and soon billions more, been able to communicate, socialise and trade in real-time.
The implications of the radical collapse in the cost of wireless connectivity are as big as those following the dawn of telegraphy and telephony. Coupled with the cloud, the wireless world provides cheap connectivity, information and processing power to nearly everyone, everywhere. This introduces both rapid change and great opportunity.
Few deny that technology fuels economic growth as well as both social and lifestyle progress, the latter largely seen in health and environmental metrics. But consider three features that are essential for unleashing the promises of technological change: youthful demographics, dynamic culture and a diverse educational system.
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
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