Fascinating article on how digital culture is changing our brains

"Our brains are superlatively evolved to adapt to our environment: a process known as neuroplasticity. The connections between our brain cells will be shaped, strengthened and refined by our individual experiences. It is this personalisation of the physical brain, driven by unique interactions with the external world, that arguably constitutes the biological basis of each mind, so what will happen to that mind if the external world changes in unprecedented ways, for example, with an all-pervasive digital technology?

A recent survey in the US showed that more than half of teenagers aged 13 to 17 spend more than 30 hours a week, outside school, using computers and other web-connected devices. If their environment is being transformed for so much of the time into a fast-paced and highly interactive two-dimensional space, the brain will adapt, for good or ill. Professor Michael Merzenich, of the University of California, San Francisco, gives a typical neuroscientific perspective."

http://www.smh.com.a...0806-23q5p.html

So - Julia Gillard's broadband initiative, to give almost all Australians access to fast, easy computer contacts, will cause most Aussies to become incommunicate mindless idiots.

Will anyone notice?

So - Julia Gillard's broadband initiative, to give almost all Australians access to fast, easy computer contacts, will cause most Aussies to become incommunicate mindless idiots.

Will anyone notice?

Yeah, nuffin' new, Humph.

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

It's the beer that's rewiring mine.

It's the beer that's rewiring mine.

you mean unwiring

It's the beer that's rewiring mine.

you mean unwiring

See.

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

Thanks for sharing that Sirenou. That was indeed fascinating stuff!

The amount of data we are bombarded with daily is daunting, and to think of an evolutionary shift happening within my lifetime is quite amazing.

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

Thanks for sharing that Sirenou. That was indeed fascinating stuff!

The amount of data we are bombarded with daily is daunting, and to think of an evolutionary shift happening within my lifetime is quite amazing.

The evolutionary shift might have already happen we just did not have the technology to recognize it as of now.

An other evolutionary development might be "augmented reality" .

Never before in the history of human kind did we have such incredible accesses to information, While debating a subject on TV let's say , with you, I have open an other tab on my browser where , I can research any subject on Google, and with in minutes know more about it than ever before possible. This access to information, is only limited by the limitations of my interface with Google, which at this time is analog and manual.

Can you imagine the quantum evolutionary leap when such interface becomes digital and automatic?

This are some very crude first steps on that direction.

Can you imagine the implications of such technologies?

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

Thanks for sharing that Sirenou. That was indeed fascinating stuff!

The amount of data we are bombarded with daily is daunting, and to think of an evolutionary shift happening within my lifetime is quite amazing.

The evolutionary shift might have already happen we just did not have the technology to recognize it as of now.

An other evolutionary development might be "augmented reality" .

Never before in the history of human kind did we have such incredible accesses to information, While debating a subject on TV let's say , with you, I have open an other tab on my browser where , I can research any subject on Google, and with in minutes know more about it than ever before possible. This access to information, is only limited by the limitations of my interface with Google, which at this time is analog and manual.

Can you imagine the quantum evolutionary leap when such interface becomes digital and automatic?

This are some very crude first steps on that direction.

Can you imagine the implications of such technologies?

Yes I can, control for some and a lack of it for everyone else.

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

Thanks for sharing that Sirenou. That was indeed fascinating stuff!

The amount of data we are bombarded with daily is daunting, and to think of an evolutionary shift happening within my lifetime is quite amazing.

The evolutionary shift might have already happen we just did not have the technology to recognize it as of now.

An other evolutionary development might be "augmented reality" .

Never before in the history of human kind did we have such incredible accesses to information, While debating a subject on TV let's say , with you, I have open an other tab on my browser where , I can research any subject on Google, and with in minutes know more about it than ever before possible. This access to information, is only limited by the limitations of my interface with Google, which at this time is analog and manual.

Can you imagine the quantum evolutionary leap when such interface becomes digital and automatic?

This are some very crude first steps on that direction.

Can you imagine the implications of such technologies?

Depends how much you believe of what is put on the internet as 'fact'.

As Thad suggests, this may end up as a 1984 scenario, to the power of 'n'.

Yes I can, control for some and a lack of it for everyone else.

That is a scary thought but, I am afraid not everyone has equal access to technology today, or ever in the past, so why should we assume that we will in the future.

I guess the trick is to be one of the the "some".

since you are interested in the accelerated affect technology has on the evolution of the human brain, I thought you might find this Ted Talk I watched the other day interesting.

Thanks for sharing that Sirenou. That was indeed fascinating stuff!

The amount of data we are bombarded with daily is daunting, and to think of an evolutionary shift happening within my lifetime is quite amazing.

The evolutionary shift might have already happen we just did not have the technology to recognize it as of now.

An other evolutionary development might be "augmented reality" .

Never before in the history of human kind did we have such incredible accesses to information, While debating a subject on TV let's say , with you, I have open an other tab on my browser where , I can research any subject on Google, and with in minutes know more about it than ever before possible. This access to information, is only limited by the limitations of my interface with Google, which at this time is analog and manual.

Can you imagine the quantum evolutionary leap when such interface becomes digital and automatic?

This are some very crude first steps on that direction.

Can you imagine the implications of such technologies?

Another interesting clip.

Technology is moving so very fast as is the access to it: ipads only came out in 2010,. iphones in 2007. Look at how far smartphones have come in 5 years. All the information I need is at my fingertips.

Yet in ten years, maybe even 5, these devices could be superceded by who knows what?

I can easily imagine in ten years people having a powerful chip inserted somewhere in their body to act as a processor for information. It is maybe only that length of time away that the brain is able to be connected up as the memory storage and processor itself. Why use external devices when we have the bran, the eyes, the ears, all of which can e enhanced by small implants.

Not long away we wont need to even verbally communicate with each other. Streams of info will be passed across for others to access without a word spoken.

In the future i can see people having enormous hands to carry the ever increasing in size and amount of "hand held" devices they carry, and tiny slim fingers to operate the ever decreasing size of buttons on said devices!