Are our brains changing?

“Over the past 20 years, the net has changed from a thing one does to the way one lives.” – Doug Rushkoff, Digital Nation

I made it a point to sit myself down for 90 full minutes and watch PBS Frontline’s “Digital Nation”. The video played in full-screen so that I couldn’t even see my various notifications pop up. Aside from one stray text message to my girlfriend, I even stayed off the phone. Given the subject matter at hand, I think that this is an entirely commendable thing, given that the digital native- HEY LOOK A FUNNY CAT VIDEO!!1! OMGZADORBZ!!

Ahem. The subject matter of Digital Nation is familiar to us. Is the internet making us stupider or smarter, and depending on how you answer that, which kind of stupider or smarter is it making us? Is multitasking real, and are the Gen Y/Digital Native generations really prepared to make it in a world where talking on the phone, emailing, and IMing all happen at once? Aside from a too-long chapter at the end dealing with our military’s Predator drone fixation (dehumanizing combat through computers), the film really put together all the contemporary issues and laid them out before us, with nifty researchers and thought leaders all weighing in. Note: “Digital Nation” was released in February 2010 – a bazillion tweet-years ago – so even its scope of things is limited.

Is the future of the internet and our life on it scary?

Hells yes it’s scary. I was born near the far end of Gen Y (1983), where we really only dipped our toes into the web-water midway through adolescence. It wasn’t really until my junior/senior year in college that I developed a healthy addiction (not shy about using that word) to all things digital. Some of the Millennials interviewed during the film were the kind that I like to make fun of: folks who “can’t live without” their mobile device, students who have not recently, and probably never will again, read a full book, and game-addicted loners.

That being said, I have had gaming problems in the past, spend far too much time reading online when I should be buried in a book, and just recently took the plunge into smartphoneland. Check out my pre-Droid X post about the Incursion Lifestyle.

But the people in the film seemed to be taking this stuff way too far. They were asked “Are you a kick-ass multitasker?” Naturally, they all responded “YEAH!” because they can tweet, email, chat and read SparkNotes all at the same time. I call bullshit, and so do researcher at Stanford who show that the time that it takes for the brain to switch tracks slows the mind down so far as to make analytic reasoning more difficult.

The bright side of being connected

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, of course. Many of the guests (including the loopy creator of Second Life) extolled the virtues of the connected life. There was surprisingly little chat about the great ways in which the social web has helped us get to know one another. Even though the film has a big section on WoW and Everquest gamers connecting IRL, there was no discussion of the advent of social media and what it means for journalism, disaster response, and activism (sometimes all at once!).

The overarching tenor of the film, for me, seemed to be the idea that we truly are moving towards, if not a fully bifurcated existence, at least one where our internet selves take the place of our real selves very often. All in all, it was a remarkably simplistic overview, perfect for the casual viewer, but not enough to make me either smash my “personal computer” or fully wire up Lawnmower Man style.

I don’t know where it’s all headed. I just hope that we can get along responsibly and with integrity, online and off.

“Jumping brain” courtesy of Flickr user lapolab.

For the Internet generation, “quality of life” becomes as important as individual opportunity in fashioning a new dream for the 21st century.

The transition to biosphere consciousness has already begun. All over the world, a younger generation is beginning to realize that one’s daily consumption of energy and other resources ultimately affects the lives of every other human being and every other creature that inhabits the Earth.

The Empathic Civilization is emerging. A younger generation is fast extending its empathic embrace beyond religious affiliations and national identification to include the whole of humanity and the vast project of life that envelops the Earth. But our rush to universal empathic connectivity is running up against a rapidly accelerating entropic juggernaut in the form of climate change. Can we reach biosphere consciousness and global empathy in time to avert planetary collapse?

Whew. I can’t wait to read this one.

“the 1010 project”, penelope trunk, graduate school, recession, brauhn

I’ve often wondered if it’s some strange combination of “upper” hormones and sunlight, or if the post-rock Icelandic crooning that I’m listening to is somehow changing the way my mind orders priorities. In doing so, I’ve found that I don’t really care how it happens, how I can have these moments of stunningly happy clarity and sense of purpose. I do know that as I stand here typing this post, it takes every fiber of my being to not shout with joy and run outside toward the sun.

There’s nothing in my existence that suggests I lead anything less than a charmed life, and while there is always a part of me that says, “Stop talking so much about how happy you are!” the fact remains: Every day is an explosion.

Whew. I’ve got great friends, great family, pets (they live 900 miles away, sadly), my health, plenty of tea, and an overwhelming, perhaps uncomfortably, optimistic future-view.

I’m riding a smile-boat on an ocean of unicorns and stardust, and doing what I can to bring that feeling to those around me. Keep up the good work, everybody. We’re all in this together.

feelings, future, optimism, happy, unicorn

I’m pursuing a number of job opportunities right now. If I’m hired, I might move away from Denver. I’m casting my net wide, so I’m not really sure where I might end up, but I know that before I get there, I’ll try to build up my Twitter network with local contacts – people who might be able to help me navigate the move and so on.

As I thought about how I could best leverage my current and future network, it occurred to me that we can look at Twitter in three distinct ways: as training wheels, as an airbag, or as insurance.

Training wheels – The world moves at about a million miles a second nowadays. It can be frustrating and time-consuming to enter the stream all at once without help. One of the much-touted uses of Twitter is helping people. We need to know where to go for Kindle support, or what kind of RAM our computers need, or even how to use Twitter itself. Other users can act as training wheels to help speed us along into the web and in real life.

Airbag – Bad things happen. As an airbag, Twitter can help to insulate us against problems. Closely related to its use as training wheels, there are many ways that we’ve seen the community come together to help those in need, as it did when David Armano helped Daniela and her family. With many of our jobs in crisis, Twitter can be helpful for job-finders or even those seeking state and federal help to get by. An airbag is used to slow us down in an accident and prevent big hurts; Twitter, as a community of interesting and interested people, can be that airbag.

Insurance – Last but not least, we cannot ignore the power of microblogging to aid us in our most desperate…or our most powerful. Let me explain: Last April, a blogger tweeted about his arrest in Egypt. The message got out and so did he. Imagine witnessing a crime on a city street. Unable to stop the criminal, the best you can do is shoot out 140 characters describing his or her appearance. It’s a rough example, to be sure, and there’s no guarantee that it will necessarily help the situation, but at least it’s something. And in terms of power: a Twitter user snaps/uploads a Twitpic of an elected official engaging in questionable activity (let your mind wander). Boom! Lights out. Twitter in the hands of a disgruntled employee can also be wielded with frightful results, if that employee was so inclined.

Training wheels, airbag, or insurance. It can be one, all three, or none of these. How do you see Twitter?

Flickr photo from user kate at yr own risk

Still, it got me to thinking. Mashable’s recent-ish article about Twitter’s growth is enough to make one’s head spin. 752%? That’s insance, but even with ~6 million users, the distinction between “user” and “USER” should be clear to anyone who has spent a few months tweeting. My curiosity is this: What is the “saturation point” for Twitter, i.e. when does it become normalized in much the same way that searching with Google or finding friends on Facebook has become blasé?

Is it going to be 15 million in the US? 40 million worldwide? When does Twitter use become so commonplace that we take it as a sine qua non of our online experience?

Paddy (interviewer): Will we still be tweeting in 5 years time?

Guy Kawasaki: I hope that I’m not. Or at least that I’m just tweeting for the sheer pleasure of it–about stuff like my cat rolling over and the line at Starbucks.

It’s an innocuous comment, of course, but it got me wondering, “What comes next?” Are we bound to continue using Twitter for microblogging/marketing/discovery/etc. for all time, or will it be replaced by a more glorious service? Will Twitter become blase, and be discarded for something more personal or shiny? It’s an interesting thought. 5 years ago, few of us had any idea that the net, and indeed the world, would look like it does today. Without Facebook or Skype, things would be vastly different.

So what comes after Twitter? What’s the next big thing?

future, technology, twitter

I refer to @THE_REAL_SHAQ to further my what if. The guy tweeted for the first time back on November 18th, largely to tell the world that he was, in fact, the real Shaq. That’s less than a month ago. As of right now, he’s being followed by 21,356 people. That’s insane. Once we get enough case study data, I’m sure we’ll be able to chart exactly how quickly big names expand their follower count. So let’s say that Pacino hops on Twitter tonight and starts tweeting about whatever strikes his fancy. Within a few days he will have thousands of followers. We know that this happens, but it can’t be just as simply as celebrity worship. I follow @Ban Ki-moon, but I’m more interested in what the Secretary General of the UN is up to than merely curious about a big name’s daily plans.

In much the same fashion, once someone creates an especially engaging blog post/article (more than likely a list!), it circulates wildly throughout the social web. If we’re not keeping up with ourselves, it is almost impossible to figure out where our content ends up. People will cut it up, give credit where credit is due, and repost, retweet, and reshare it ad infinitum. It’s like casting a satellite out into space. Even if you point it in one specific direction, it’s still going to be affected by the gravitational pulls of other objects, i.e. stars, asteroids, planets. Its course will be determined by the larger (and smaller) bodies that inhabit space. In the social web, the role of gravity and social magnetism cannot be ignored. If we don’t pay attention, we may end up floating out into the social web alone.

social media, technology