Today I’m having a philosophical moment and playing devil’s advocate 
Thoughts and comments welcome.
While we rush to embrace the wonders of the internet, it may be time to consider where we’re going with it. Do we control it, or does it control us? I would feel quite lost without access to the worldwide web now, but I’m concerned about the amount of cyber-babble and electronic white noise to which we are all increasingly subjected. The brain needs periods of quiet to rejuvenate and for creative thought to percolate. Are we reaching the point where virtual life is overtaking real life, to the detriment of our ability to relate to actual people? Are we in fact, to quote Pink Floyd, becomingly comfortably numb? These concerns are more and more becoming a subject for debate as scientific research appears to validate them. Here’s a thought-provoking article on the subject of brain overload by “Times” journalist John Naish, called ‘Warning: Brain Overload“
And on a lighter note, Bill Ralston shares his concerns in the latest issue of the “NZ Listener” (June 13-19, 2009). Those of the baby-boomer generation will relate to this article; for once I’m actually in sympathy with Bill Ralston – chalk it up! Please note that the full article will not be made available online until 4 July.
Cheers, Anne McFadgen
June 10, 2009 at 11:22 am |
I don’t think you are playing Devil’s advocate at all Anne. I think it’s a very important subject and that we have to consider how to make new technologies and media work for our intellectual, social, mental and societal benefit rather than letting it become a burden. I think it’s philosophical moments like yours that are the impetus behind big projects that simplify technologies – things like Federated searches.
I don’t have the internet at home, partially because I think I’d be tempted to do work in the evenings and the weekends and I know that’s not in my best interests – it’s a kind of technological Sabbath.
Louise
June 10, 2009 at 1:19 pm |
Thanks, Louise. I know myself how easy it is to get sucked into chatting online when I should be doing other stuff! And on the subject of overloaded brains, mine must be one of them as I haven’t yet worked out how to add my URLs as clickable links! if anyone wonders where the URLs have gone, I’m still playing with them and hope to add them again ASAP.
Anne M
June 10, 2009 at 1:34 pm |
Hi, Anne. Yes, I agree with Louise. An interesting sociological change for us to develop coping methods for. I’m interested in Louise’s technological Sabbath! I think the issue is related to information overload too, as copious amounts of data (not always the same thing as information as we all know!) pours down our accessways and we need to quickly be able to sort and prioritise it all. I’ve certainly been guilty of getting too many emails, RSS feeds and links and just not catching up with all the relevant information out there. In really progressive companies they schedule “creative thinking time” which I really like the idea of but given workloads have never in reality been able to implement. Once we work our way through the Richmond building project it’s be good to start a whole staff 6 monthly workshop to feed into strategic planning and future directions.
June 10, 2009 at 8:38 pm |
I think that’s the one of the points at issue, Catherine, that people are being swamped in so much information that the ability to discrimate between what is valuable and what is trivia is in danger of becoming lost. I think Louise is already making a stand with her technological Sabbath, and I swear that I will cut back on the amount of time I spend online, maybe starting tomorrow—
June 17, 2009 at 11:39 am |
As simple as it may sound to those far more into this technological age than me, I would like to say that some of the arts of handwork, conversation, reading, games etc are being lost because we are spending sparetime on chat session, flicker, blogs, facebook,computer games and goodness knows what else. Many good nights have been spend playing “spoons” or cards on the floor with the kids and nowdays the next generation are stuck with play stations ( often war intentions)and other computer items.Many do not want to join with the family activities of an evening. It’s time to take stock and organise our spare time in better ways.
June 20, 2009 at 1:23 pm |
That’s an interesting and valid point, Nancy. A reasonably typical scenario could see Dad watching sport on TV, Mum on the computer, daughter in her room on her mobile phone and son in his room on the playstation. What does it do to the ability of children to learn empathy when separatism is way of life for the family itself? This is the place where we learn to communicate and care for others, after all. Again, it’s not the electronica itself, but the way we manage (or don’t manage) our use of it which is the issue.
And on a slightly different tack, evidence of the value of the books and support for learning in the home has come to light in a recent study which shows that young people with fewer than 100 books in their homes are more likely to leave school early.
Programmes like the U-Read programme iare obviously very useful given this information, and congratulations to Takaka for achieving such a high uptake rate.