The true University of these days is a Collection of Books
Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship
The news that so troubles me?
Columbia University has presented findings of a study that effectively provides strong evidence, if not clear proof for what author Nicholas Carr hypothesized in his book entitled
“‘The Shallows’: Is the Net fostering Stupidity?”, which made its debut in June 2010AD: The Internet is indeed “fostering stupidity”.
The research paper, which appeared in Science Journal under the title “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips” is authored by lead researcher Dr. Betsy Sparrow a psychologist by profession, who sums up her research simply, quote: “We are reorganizing the way we remember things. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.”
Dr. Betsy Sparrow study revealed that people were more likely to remember where to find information as opposed to the information itself, and their chief portal for that information was the Internet. This suggests that the ease of access to information is in essence, making us use our brains less and thus is “fostering stupidity” as Nicholas Carr posits.
Not surprising, I grudgingly admit uncomfortably, as I have personally been a chief exponent of this concept, as I find it pointless to memorize that much information in one’s head. Even in my work habits when I was a Network Maintenance Technician at C&W Jamaica Ltd (2001 to 2004) and later as a Radio Frequency Technician at Telecom Provider CLARO (2008 to 2009), I HEAVILY depend on Laptops, the company’s assigned Blackberry Bold smartphone and my written notes (best of all, as I still have them!!!) to remember things for me.
This as the tedious nature of Telecoms Engineering work meant a lot of island wide driving about and checking left you tired. So any research done would have to be via the Internet, being as it was the main mode of communication via email being as we were building out a islandwide HSDPA or 3G Compliant Data Network and GSM Voice Network with a tertiary CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) Voice and Data Network for Landline.
However Audia Granston, my short pint sized Seventh Day Adventist Princess and NCTVET certified Cosmetologist, who would be my Navigator as I drove about in my Suzuki Swift Jeep from Cell site to Cell site, would criticize me about this, labeling my poor memory as a side effect of too much computer use.
She is more on Nicholas Carr’s side of this argument, being as her job as a Cosmetologist, while alive, entailed more memorizing people’s names and faces and personalities, information which Google cannot provide us with……..yet!
Even this article is written using Google as the research portal, as opposed to checking books first then going to the Internet when I could not find the information in books.
Plus my raft of article mentioning “Cloud Computing” are easily searchable on
my personal Blog. So in my eyes, Nicholas Carr work is visionary as he sees the human side of a
Silicon Valley that want to “wow” you with gadgets that they themselves understand how to use and which have such a deep impact on how we think.
As for a solution to this problem, unlike
Dr. Betsy Sparrow of the
Columbia
University and Nicholas Carr
? Get used to it, as it is the eventual future of humanity as the article “Why it’s okay to outsource your memory to the cloud”, published July 15, 2011, 10:03am PT By Mathew Ingram, GigaOM encourages us to do.
This as the eventual extrapolation of both the work of Dr. Betsy Sparrow of the
Columbia
University and Nicholas Carr leads to a scenario not unlike that presented us in a benign way in the movie
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969) and more obviously with memory augmentation in the movie
Johnny Mnemonic (1995).
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