WEBVTT - Is technology rotting our brains? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:18.120 text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everyone, 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.479 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette, and 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.200 I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:26.800 Sitting across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:30.200 I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.560 fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched seabeams glitter 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:35.920 in the dark near the tan Houser Gate. All those 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.960 moments will be lost in time, like tears and rain. Well, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:45.880 it's a great way to start this podcast, as usual. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.840 If you know the source of the quote, please feel 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.159 free to drop by uh Facebook or Twitter and let 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.200 us know. Yeah. I thought that one was appropriate because 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.120 the discussion we're going to have does play somewhat into 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.560 the realm of art of facial intelligence somewhat. We're going 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.520 to talk about technology and its effect on our noggins, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.399 specifically gray matter, that brain that's slashing around in that 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.200 cranium of yours. Yeah, this is this has been a 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.480 topic of some debate recently. Um, probably, I guess more 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.880 over the past year. Um, thanks to our not really 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:25.080 good friend but someone we follow closely, Nicholas Carry, the 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.759 technology writer. He wrote an interesting article for The Atlantic 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.440 back in two thousand eight. Uh, and it was titled 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.360 is Google Making Us Stupid? Wow? Is it that long? 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.960 And that was two thousand eight July August two thou 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.040 eight edition. I've got it up right now, so as 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.280 I'm sorry, I was just gonna say, yeah, he wrote 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.800 this article is Google Making Us Stupid? And it was 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:50.360 an interesting, um, just an interesting take on technology, the 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.400 way we consume information, in the way we think. Yes, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.360 and uh. He actually followed that up with a a 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:00.520 much longer format, a whole book called The Shallows Um, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:05.520 which some people have taken issue with the title suggesting 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.800 he's already decided that we're all stupid. But I'm not 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.600 so certain that he actually meant it that way. Yeah. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.040 That that's that sounds to me like the sort of 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:19.800 criticism one might make before fully uh reading a book, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:22.400 you know, one of those things where it's just your 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.120 initial reaction to a title and then so let me 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.960 let me give you a little story here, Chris, Yes, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.840 all right, Uh, Now, when I was going to school 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:37.840 the Internet was not really something I had access to 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.040 all the way up until until the point where I 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.640 got into college. Really, my sophomore year in college was 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.520 when I was starting to really get get access to 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.560 the Internet. I can relate to that. So up to 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.239 that point, I studied just the normal way you would 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.200 attend classes. You would read, uh study notes and read 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:00.120 books and that sort of thing, and that's how you 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:05.360 you would gain knowledge. Now today I work for a 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.519 company where I write articles and blog posts and do 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.440 podcasts where I have to research various topics new ones 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:17.520 each week. I'm doing so using the Internet. Meanwhile, I 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.320 also am tapped into various communication tools such as instant 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.680 messenger email. I've got text messaging on my phone when 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.960 it works. We're recording this on the day that my 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:33.040 android phone died. Anyway, normally I have access to multiple 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:37.640 means of communication, and this would presumably give me access 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.480 to to amounts of information I never would have had 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:50.520 access to before. Write a huge, deep, broad scope of information. However, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.480 despite this amazing ability to tap into lots of information, 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.760 I find that it is much more difficult to concentrate 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:00.800 on a single task for an any length of time 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.040 and so I have decided that technology is to blame, 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.920 and uh, it is ruining my brain. Now, what could 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.600 possibly be wrong with this argument? Well, I would say 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:19.880 that you're using anecdotal evidence. It's a good point. Yes, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.440 I am speaking from my own experience. I have not 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:28.599 conducted any any deep study of this, mainly because I 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.440 can't concentrate on that task for long enough to do it. Um, yeah, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.440 this is it is anecdotal. It's now that does not 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.200 mean that the information is wrong, right, Yeah, so this 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.360 is This is something that I wanted to address early 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.000 in this podcast because this is really going to be 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:49.039 an interesting philosophical discussion. It's not just technology, it's really philosophy. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:53.560 And part of that philosophy is that anecdotal evidence is 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.480 not really good evidence to base an argument off of. 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.400 But but that does not mean that it is in valid. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.720 It just means that, you know, there there are better 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.159 ways to support your argument. Now, I've read quite a 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.080 bit of agreement with Mr Carr's work, and I've also 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.839 read quite a bit of disagreement. Uh, most of the 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:20.679 disagreement I have read suggests that they all think, uh, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.520 you know, he's either afraid of technology or that he's 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.520 basing it on his own anecdotal evidence, which um, I 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.920 think the anecdotal evidence sort of started him down the path. 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.520 But in the Shallows he does explain, uh, a number 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:42.400 of studies that have been done on the attention span 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:48.480 of people who are using technology for work. Um And 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.200 and therefore, you know, I am inclined to say that 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.599 he's not. I'm why I'm not necessarily agreeing with his 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.239 arguments in both the article and the book. I would 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.440 say that um or is at least a kernel of 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.880 truth in it that it can be very difficult for 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:10.000 some people to manage the flow of information coming to 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.800 them from multiple sources, especially the Internet, where there are 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:17.479 so many different kinds of sources um to choose from. Yeah, 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:22.200 and going further than that, he car makes his argument 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.400 in in his article and I'm sure in the book 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.120 as well, but he makes his argument that reading and 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.480 the way we consume information shapes the way we think. 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.559 So the argument here is that there are two different 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.920 ways you can think about thinking. Okay, there's the the 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.719 method where you say our brains are structured in such 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.360 a way that thinking is a process that is going 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.680 to be the same no matter how you consume your 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.600 information like it's just it's just a device. In a way, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.680 we're just reducing it in complexity to call it a device. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.320 It's a device that can accept information and then process it, 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.520 and then we act on that information in some way. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.160 The other argument is that the brain is a very elastic, 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:13.040 flexible organ that's that will generate different ways of thinking 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:18.200 based upon the stimuli that it encounters. And in a 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.760 way that argument makes a lot of sense because one 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.120 of the the sources that car sites in his article 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.680 is Maryanne Wolf's Proost and the Squid, which is a 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:35.040 book about reading and learning, and Mary Ann Wolfe argues 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.239 that humans are not born with the ability to read. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.720 It's not an innate ability that we possess, unlike say 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.440 vision or hearing, where we can interpret the information in 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.320 the world around us using those sensory organs. That's something 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.520 that's innate that unless you have some sort of disability 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.960 or or disease or whatever, or some other form of 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.720 of impt a mint to those senses, you can. That's 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.600 one way you can gather information and learn about your environment. 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:09.800 Reading is a skill that we had to invent and 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:13.840 develop over time, and it's relatively recent. It's just a 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:18.800 couple of thousand years old. And that through reading, we 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:23.680 changed the way we thought. So the developing reading was 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.040 a skill that we had to learn. Through reading, we 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:31.880 changed the way we learn. We could preserve information unlike 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.440 we could before. Like before it was all folklore. Right, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:39.040 you passed it down by explaining to people what you knew, 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.760 and then they would take the words you said and 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.520 they would apply it so that they would understand the concept, 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.360 and then they would have to pass it on. But 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.280 there was no easy way to share that information. It 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.480 meant that knowledge was kept in small pools across the 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:58.800 human race. Writing allowed us to to keep that information 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.520 in a locked format so that future generations could benefit 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.080 from it. Right, it could be fixed in some way 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.079 for you know, perhaps hundreds of years, so that that 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.160 people could read an original account or at least a 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.640 particular account of an event, or you know, to tell 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.920 a story. Now. Car says actually has a very interesting 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:26.400 little passage where he talks about how so creates uh 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:32.319 sorry Socrates. How Socrates bemoaned the development of writing because 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:37.080 he thought that by writing things down you did two things. One, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.800 you reduced a person's ability to actually take in information, 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:46.160 understand it comprehended, and then build on it. Okright, because 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.920 now it's in a concrete format. And too, he was 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:51.800 afraid that it would give people a false sense of 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.360 knowledge that because there was a written thing down, there's 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.079 a written format of this information, that that would make 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.760 people feel like they knew more than they did. The 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.600 knowledge was written down, it wasn't necessarily in the person's head, 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.160 and so he was worried that people would become less 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.000 wise over time because they would be relying upon this 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.640 written information. They wouldn't really understand it, they would just 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.600 think they did. Hence cars argument exactly. Car takes that 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:23.800 to a further extent. Now. Um, like many many people, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.520 I've read David Allen's Getting Things Done because there are 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.520 just so many things I have to do in a day, 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.400 a typical day here at how Stuff Works dot Com 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.920 and my my own personal stuff that I wanted to 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.679 improve my productivity. And one of the things that uh 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.400 that Alan argues is that it is stressful to try 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:45.600 to remember all the things that you have to do. 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.680 M Um. So one of the things he says that 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:51.959 is important for you to do is to write something 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.200 down as soon as it occurs to you. Uh, so 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.240 that you have you know, have it written down that 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:58.880 you know you need to do it. You don't have 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.880 to remember it anymore. You need to put it in 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:02.960 some sort of system. Now, it could be a piece 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.079 of paper, it could be a smartphone, it could be whatever. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.720 It doesn't matter what the medium is in this case. Um, 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:11.800 but you need to write it down some way. And 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:16.280 that sort of plays into uh, you know Socrates slash 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.800 Cars argument, because if you're documenting everything, you don't have 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:24.160 to remember it anymore. For for Alan, that is a 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.120 sense of relief. You don't have to remember it anymore. 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.720 You can take a deep breath and relax knowing that 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:30.679 you're going to remember to do this thing because you've 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.360 written it down. Um. On the other hand, however, you 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.520 have the other argument that, well, you don't have to 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.640 remember it anymore, so you're not training your brain to 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:42.600 remember all the things that you have to do, and 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.400 you're not to focus on it. Yeah, you're not making connections. 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.199 That's another thing that Marian Wolf mentions in her book 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:54.160 is that the brain makes actual neuron connections kind of 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.000 like circuits really uh, for concepts, and you can start 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:03.360 to connect seemingly unrelated concepts in your brain just by 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.679 thinking about it, concentrating on it. Uh, it's not just 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.360 that you know you you encounter information and now you 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.520 know it. It's that you encounter information, you think about it, 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.040 you actually take the time to consider it, and you 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.360 start building connections from other information you've gathered previously, and 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:24.840 you form new knowledge based on that. It's it's similar 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:31.480 to a process a philosophy known as contemplative learning. In 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.840 contemplative learning, the goal is to actually take time to 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:39.400 consider the information that you have just encountered and to 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.319 incorporate that into your body of knowledge, not just to say, oh, 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.680 I encountered this fact, but to really have a deeper 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.800 understanding of what that fact means. What's what it's it's relevance, 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.000 it's context, that sort of thing. It's sort of an 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.800 element of critical thinking, but it's a particular, a particular 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.160 way to get to critical thinking. It also the think 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.400 on how much you read about contemplative learning, it can 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.800 start start sounding little touchy feely. It's got a lot 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.160 of elements of meditation in there, and there's a lot 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.160 of Uh, there's a lot of tie ins between contemplative 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.920 learning and spirituality, things that someone who may be more 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:20.240 skeptical might find a little um questionable. All right, But 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.400 the idea here is that you are allowing these connections 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.599 to be made, and you're not just encountering information, reacting 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.640 and then discarding, which is that That's kind of what 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.160 cars argument is that the way we encounter information now 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.280 on the web, we will look for some relevant facts 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:39.920 for whatever it is we're searching on, and if we 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.800 don't see it pretty quickly will bounce to another source, right, yes, 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.640 and we may never go back to that first source ever. Again, 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.200 We've mentioned that that study by the hands Britto Institute 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.000 in Germany several times on the podcast now Um, in 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.760 which they had studied what some people call the web 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:03.600 generation u UM and UH. Also another group in Britain 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.120 had had had done this, and I scrolled past the 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.120 name of it UM. The Center for Information Behavior and 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.600 the Evolution of Research cyber Cyber at the University College 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.720 London both did similar studies on young people who were 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.880 sort of expected to know how to use all the 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.440 ins and outs of the Internet because because they grew 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.320 up with it and they were they were born, they 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.800 were born after the Internet with public Yes. Um, I 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.400 studied this in my UH in pursuit of my Master 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.960 of Science and Information Sciences degree because I was looking 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:38.040 at and the way of people seek information, and those 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:42.080 studies both backup Car in that regard and that people 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.120 tend to look for information on the Internet. Now, this 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:46.680 doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it's 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:50.360 making you more or less intelligent. Uh, it's the way 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:52.920 seek people seek information on the Internet, and they do. 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.480 They skim from site to site, they hop around a lot. Um. 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:01.200 Very few people spend a lot of time on websites 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.760 when they are seeking information on a particular topic. Um. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.120 And uh, I should point out to that the people 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.320 who have been demonizing Car for making these arguments. Uh, 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.640 he says. Look, no, I'm a writer. I absolutely need 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.400 the Internet. The Internet is completely revolutionized the way I 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.320 search for information, and it's awesome and it's brilliant. It's 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:26.440 just seems to be anecdotally, it seems to be changing 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.280 the way I think, you know, which may not be 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.400 a bad thing. No, changing the way we think that. 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.840 This has been the history of technology and ways of 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.120 recording information. It's just one of those things where we 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.160 do start to adapt the way we think. It's something 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.520 that's really unavoidable. I mean, unless you become a Luddite 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:48.360 and you decide that you're going to go and adopt 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.640 Socrates as manner and try and gain information that way. 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.400 And even then it's just on an individual basis. You know, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.240 you're not going to stop the way the world is going. 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.800 Um and yeah, the study that you were referring to, 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.200 the cyber study, let me read exactly what they're finding was. 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.480 It was called that they called it horizontal information seeking. 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.920 This is a form of skimming activity where people view 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.280 just one or two pages from an academic site and 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.560 then bounce out, perhaps never to return. The figures are instructive. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.280 Around six of the journal users view no more than 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:27.920 three pages, and a majority up to never return. So 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.000 the suggestion there is that people are able to find information, 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:36.600 but they may not necessarily comprehend it fully. So it 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.040 becomes sort of like our brains become filters, right, we 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.840 start filtering out anything that's not relevant to whatever it 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.400 is we're searching, and we sort of we sort of 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.440 pinpoint anything that is relevant and then uh, even Carl 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.280 will mention um and and also Clive Thompson of Wired 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:55.440 who wrote about this as well. He he had an 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.760 interesting article about the Let's see why. He called it 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.240 your outboard brain knows All was the title of his article, 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.720 and he's written about the subject multiple times as well. 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.880 He writes about how he uses various things like the 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:16.119 email and Wikipedia and other Internet sites to rely on 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.280 information so that he no longer retains it himself, and 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.680 that he he thinks of it as a richer thinking experience, 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.320 that he can add really valuable information in arguments and 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.920 discussions by linking to it. Uh So it almost becomes like, oh, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.080 I know, I you know, I saw this, I found 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.520 this information. It's relevant to this discussion. Here you go. 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:42.120 But that's really all. That's incredibly different from understanding, retaining, 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:45.879 and being able to articulate information. It just means that 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:48.639 you're really good at searching. But that might be what 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.800 the new definition of intelligence is. It may not be 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.800 that's rotting our brains. You know. We kind of jokingly 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:59.480 titled the podcast that, but that it's it's changing the 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.320 the folk of how we think. Instead of thinking in 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.560 one way, we're now becoming really good at seeking out 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:11.000 and pulling up information. Although that that also takes practice 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:16.640 because the studies showed that students weren't necessarily uh innately 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:20.280 gifted with that ability. Now, there was an article called 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.240 uh and of course cars title has been echoed in 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.720 other titles, so this is kind of sound very familiar 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.600 an article style title Does Google Make Us Stupid? By 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:34.760 UM by Janet Quitney Anderson from Elon University and Lee 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.040 Rainey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. UM 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:45.480 and UH. They actually had UH referred to a rebuttal 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:51.560 from uh Jemy Cassio I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, UM, 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.840 who was an affiliate at the Institute for the Future 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.080 and a senior fellow at the Institute for Ethics and 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:01.719 Emerging Technologies UM. And in response to that, they had 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.280 spoken with Nicholas Carr, who said, you know, clarified a 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.720 little bit more to say, Uh, the answer to our 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.440 question are the question we pose in our podcast title 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.920 is no, it's not about whether your i Q was dropping. 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.240 Your intelligence quote has nothing to do with this. It's 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:20.080 because it's whether or not people are becoming utilitarian thinkers. UM. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:27.600 But Cassio UH, quoted neural physiologist William Calvin who basically 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.480 said that uh I was referring to an ancient volcanic 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.359 incident that that humanity learned from and in order in 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:40.040 order to survive. And UH. Basically the argument in the 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.560 UH in that article, which UH is really really awesome 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.680 also on the the Atlantic, basically is, look, this is 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.720 a new way of thinking. We'll adapt to it, and 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.520 we're gonna have to adapt to it if we're going 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.919 to survive because there's so much going on now, so 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.560 many different kinds of events. Technology has advanced to the 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:05.040 point where we are going to have to think differently 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.960 and we'll just have to get used to UH what 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.680 he calls fluid intelligence. Actually scientists call it fluid intelligence, 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.600 which is UH the ability to find meaning and confusion 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:20.120 and to solve new problems. As the quote there, UM, basically, 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.439 it's not memorizing and reciting facts. It's to sort of 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.760 think on your feet if you will. UM. And basically 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.400 his argument is, no, you know, it's it. It may 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.679 seem a little weird, it may seem a little funky 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.119 and and possibly even scary to some people to have 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:39.560 to think in this new paradigm, but um, we will 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.080 will learn and it will be able to use our 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.560 brains in this new technology. We just have to get 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.120 used to it. And we've kind of addressed this sort 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.400 of in our podcast about how to conduct research online. 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.200 It's kind of talking about how to use this tool 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.639 in the most effective way. And critical thinking is still 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.280 very important even in this new paradigm of thinking. It's 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.639 just that critical thinking, the definition of it may have 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.280 to be tweaked, rather than sitting there and saying, all right, well, 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:12.120 you have to really consider this information. It might be 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:17.600 you have to be able to evaluate things like the source. Uh, 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.720 it's validity, it's relevance. You may have to be able 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.040 to do that on a very tight schedule. You may 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:25.960 have to do it quickly because there's so much out 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.199 there that you have to be able to separate the 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.480 good from the bad quickly, or else you're just overwhelmed 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:38.240 with information, some of which may not be very valuable. UM. 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.119 I'm sorry, go ahead. I was going to say that. 0:21:40.600 --> 0:21:44.200 Car points out that the internet can be a very 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:48.320 interruptive medium too. That you know, if you have alerts 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.600 turned on, if you're an accuser and you have growl 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.520 turned on, or if you're using Windows and have UM 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.840 outlook open and you have the little uh windows popping 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.400 up for example here at work or throwing around story ideas, 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.480 and everyone else starts joining in. All of a sudden, 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:06.960 you have new alerts popping up on your desktop every 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.440 five or six minutes or more frequently, depending on how 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.600 how often you turn it on. So pat your working 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.360 jokes are being thrown in there. But yeah, if you're 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:18.720 working on a project and you have these constant interruptions 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.680 from I AM and Twitter and your email, they may 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.200 distract you. Depending on the way you're thinking, they may 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.120 distract you from what it is that you're working on. UM, 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:30.080 and that can be that can be disruptive, especially for 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:34.680 somebody who's used to thinking in a very linear fashion. Yeah, 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.560 that actually brings us to another study I wanted to 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.639 mention in passing at least as a psychonomic bulletin and 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:47.800 review article Supertaskers Profiles in Extraordinary multitasking Ability and a Yeah, 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.400 this was a study by Jason M. Watson and David L. Strayer, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.680 and they wanted to see, you know, people are getting 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.200 accustomed to having to multitask, but most of us aren't 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.560 very good at it. He wanted to kind of see 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:06.040 exactly how how well people could deal with handling more 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:08.639 than one task at a time. It also ties into 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.200 the the statement about how using a cell phone while 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:16.240 driving is equivalent to driving well under the influence of alcohol, 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.359 or actually worse than driving under the influence of alcohol, 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.199 depending upon the study. So what he did was he 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.120 and Strayer actually and he they did. They took two 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.720 hundred subjects, so small sample size. We should go ahead 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.480 and sure, yeah, you know, two hundred subjects scientific, but 0:23:33.560 --> 0:23:38.320 could be more scientific, right, you're not scientific enough. But 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.600 they took two hundred subjects and they they gave them 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.199 tasks where they had to juggle multiple tasks at the 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:48.639 same time. They found that all but two point five 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.960 percent of the subjects performed poorly when having to do 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:57.040 multiple tasks at once. So, uh, they could still perform 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:58.920 the tasks, but they couldn't do it with the level 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:01.320 of proficiency they could if they were concentering on just 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.280 one task at a time. Two point five percent of 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.879 those people could handle it without any demonstrative reduction in 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:12.920 their abilities. So they were apparently able to do multiple 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.200 tasks just as well as if they were concentering on 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:17.800