Schuurman,
N. (2012). Tweet Me Your Talk: Geographical Learning and Knowledge Production
2.0.
The
Professional Geographer
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2012.693873
The ability to adapt to an ever
changing world is a trademark of the human species. Most notably, we adapt to
changes that we create as we become more technologically advanced. Throughout history, certain technological advances have been
momentous enough to alter the way people and societies learn and process
information. We are currently being thus altered as we shift from book-based to
computer-based information transfer. We are altered by this shift because the
human brain's plasticity allows us to adapt to it more fully than we may even
realize.
The brain's "plasticity"
refers to its physical and functional changeability. In other words, the way we
use our brains on a daily basis affects how our brains are wired, and this
wiring can be rewired as our habits change. Internet browsing creates a very
different kind of brain wiring than book reading does, so as we change the way
we transfer information we also change the way we learn to mentally process it.
Internet browsing is characterized by quick and concise presentations of
information which trains the brain to skim for only the key words, phrases and
ideas. In comparison, book reading requires that the brain follow a very linear
progression of ideas and synthesize them to form the main idea or bigger picture.
This shift towards internet browsing
and its effect on society is the subject of Nadine Schuurman’s 2012 article,
“Tweet Me Your Talk: Geographical Learning and Knowledge Production 2.0,”
published in The Professional Geographer.
Schuurman explains that, as our brains rewire to optimize web browsing, our
ability to focus our thoughts and concentrate on a certain topic for an
extended period of time diminishes. The media, and even academic institutions,
are catering to our distraction and shorter attention spans. Rather than
publishing entire news stories to a home page, online media networks post
one-liners to grab the attention of browsers and make frequent use of sites
like Twitter to disseminate small amounts of information. Similarly, academic
journals are publishing much shorter, condensed articles with more transparent
abstracts.  |
| Click for reactor update. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/world/asia/reactors-status.html |
Our brains' new wiring is also
important in the way it allows us to process spatial information. We are less
inclined now to relate information to specific geographic locations. The
implications of this and the other effects of our new information processing
are not yet known, but Schuurman suggests that, despite our distraction, we
should remain aware of the changes unfolding around us.
This is really fascinating and it is definitely relevant to our lives, especially as college students. With so much information available on the internet, it almost has to be condensed and summarized, because otherwise we'd be putting ourselves through information overload. I think that with this super-abundance of information it actually becomes a lot harder to find relevant information. I've noticed that, because information is so readily available, it becomes frustrating when information cannot be obtained right away and perhaps the internet has led to issues with attention span (as you mentioned) and maybe even instant gratification, because you can find information, talk to people, and buy things with the click of a button so people get used to getting everything right away.
ReplyDeletePeople's minds and cognitive abilities change with technology advancements. This debate about the impacts of technology on teaching and knowledge production is as old as the invention of writing. There is a good book and Ted Talk by Joshua Foer that you should check out. Basically what he presents is the loss of people's memories. Before the wide spread adoption of books, people use to memorize many things. Even when they had the chance to read a book they remembered it because books were very rare, and the idea of a reference library did not exist. You read, and memorized. Now a days if we meet someone who memorized everything they read we would consider them a genius, having a photographic memory. That was not always the case. Now the internet is making information even easier to find, thus less valuable. What will be the impacts of that?
ReplyDeleteBook: Moonwalking With Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.
http://atlas.southwestern.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=387658
Ted Talk: Joshua Foer - Feats of memory anyone can do
http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html
Many of the affects of technology and social media on the human brain are quantifiable and measurable. Here is an example of one study which tracked the use the "f" word within several hundred tweets around the U.S over a 10-day period and mapped their locations using a dynamic heatmap. Not only is this graphic representation of human interaction via social media fascinating, but the technology behind it is also applicable to many other areas of human life.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/how-america-swears-heres-a-heatmap-tracking-twitter-profanity/261438/
Delete