Is the Internet melting our brains?

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/09/19/better_pencil/index.html

by cos • 17 years ago

14 12 17 years ago

yannis• 17 years ago

A very thoughtful analysis, however IMHO the comment that "we have all this apparatus to find the data we’re looking for" is only partially correct and an opportunity for hackers to develop applications to adequately filter the increasing noise of the web.

onreact-com2• 17 years ago

This is not an analysis, just a polemic full of words and expressions like "hysterical", "luddites", "hogwash".

th0ma5• 17 years ago

print version http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/09/19/better_pencil/prin...

TomOfTTB• 17 years ago

The problem here is he's misquoting history which is a big issue when your stated goal is to put things into historical context. I honestly don't have the time to critique this guy to the extent he deserves but I picked out a few points just to illustrate what I mean...

Quote #1: "I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony."

I encourage you to read Plato's actual words here: http://www.platonicrelationship.com/blogger.php/?p=411 Plato wasn't against writing (as the author says Plato used it himself) he was against thoughtful debate via writing. He's saying that people who learn by reading rather than by interacting tend to parrot what they learn rather than actually understand the concepts behind it (and he's right in many ways). So Plato wasn't against writing he was just trying to get people to realize where it should and should not be used.

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Quote #2: "Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. "

Thoreau wasn't objecting to the Telegraph at all. Read the quote: http://www.allsoulscommunity.org/sermons/2003/BetweenWaldenP... Then go here and read Martin Luther King's take on it (Search for "Improved means to an Unimproved End"): http://www.geocities.com/thoreaulogy/07sep.html

Thoreau was commenting on the illusion that technology improves the content of our communication not coming out against the technology itself.

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Quote #3: "Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. "

I can't even find this quote by Samuel Morse but I suspect what he was saying is that the Telegraph records communication between two people where as the Telephone can't so the telegraph isn't made useless by the telephone. Not that the telephone is itself useless.

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Hopefully I've made my overall point. All these people were simply trying to help society decide how to use these inventions not saying the inventions were bad. That's exactly what people are doing now with Twitter, Facebook, etc... and it's a good instinct. This author's aim seems to be embarrassing people with that instinct into silence with false quotes and that's just wrong.

mechanical_fish• 17 years ago

From Plato:

“You know, Phaedrus, writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The same is true of written words. You’d think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you question anything that has been said because you want to learn more, it continues to signify just that very same thing forever.

What's great about this quote is that it suggests that Plato might have liked the web very much. The web steadfastly refuses to say the same thing forever. (Indeed, it is absolutely terrible at archiving things.) But it supports updates, and revisions, and back-and-forth much better than print does. The two media compliment each other.

lucifer2• 17 years ago

It is a disservice to Plato to assume he lacks the ability to make a distinction between a (written) correspondence and text.

Plato's statement here is likely more subtle than superficially apparent. Specifically, note that he refers comparatively to painting, which (certainly in his day) required a subject (whether mental or natural).

"[W]riting shares a strange feature with painting", in that dimensions are collapsed; the subject is 'framed'; and viewer perspective (e.g. "if anyone asks them anything") is rendered irrelevant and "continues to signify just that very same thing forever".

marcusbooster• 17 years ago

"Far from heralding in a "2001: Space Odyssey" dystopia, Baron believes that social networking sites, blogs and the Internet are actually making us better writers and improving our ability to reach out to our fellow man."

That's an odd movie reference. Maybe the writer is referring to the scene where the astronaut is watching a video from his family and reacts very distant and aloof. I thought that was more of a comment on the vast physical distance and isolation involved in space travel, not necessarily by an evolution in attitude caused by technology - his family seems like they are having a good enough time at least.

So it doesn't matter how efficient our social networking sites get or how lovely Facebook chat is, there will still be an 18-minute lag getting the signal on a ship heading to Jupiter.

Maybe I missed the point, but I really like that flick :)

idm• 17 years ago

Also, HAL 9000 was "born" in Urbana, Illinois. I doubt that sheds any light on why the author included the reference, but it definitely overlaps. (EDIT: Dennis Baron, the author of the book discussed in the article, teaches at Urbana-Champaign).

I think you might be onto something with the way 2001 depicts communication. I think the film is so ingenious in its presentation of "future technologies" in a mundane context. The movie has aged so well; I think that's a pretty accurate representation of some video chatting I've done, even though it took more than 40 years to materialize.

It's pretty hyperbolic to call 2001 a dystopia, especially if they're referring to the apparent lack of enthusiasm that accompanied communication.

Yes, HAL went on a murdering spree, but if that's all the Rossmeier (the article's author) is talking about, then he's missing the point of 2001.

Anyway, I agree: it's an odd reference. I think 2001 is one of the best movies I've seen (no joke), so I have a few thoughts on the matter...

lucifer2• 17 years ago

Beyond the temporal distance, there is the fact that the astronauts were under constant surveillance by HAL. Perhaps Frank Poole did not care to be demonstrative under the circumstances.

onreact-com2• 17 years ago

No, it isn't. On the other hand there is no reason to blindly believe that the Web will make us communicate better than in real life. This guy hasn't been in flame war yet I guess.

teeja• 17 years ago

The internet empowers many with an opportunity to be part of the conversation - to the extent that they're able and willing. It brings together collaborators and ideas that might otherwise never have met. It opens opportunities to explore facts and ideas, and for self-expression, that have never existed.

"Destroying the English language"? I think not. More likely, there are those who are afraid of the empowerment of the many. So, as they so often do, they throw up FUD. The times, they continue to be changing, Mr. Jones.

mcantelon• 17 years ago

And it improves the conversation by adding metrics and filtering. In my personal experience it has induced me to improve my writing and become a more reasonable, less ideological, person.

Is the Internet melting our brains?

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