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Topic: Study: Google does a brain good (Read 6855 times) |
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Grimbal
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #1 on: Oct 15th, 2008, 8:39am » |
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OK, if that's what it takes to become smart, I will stop solving problems. I'll google the solutions. 
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| « Last Edit: Oct 15th, 2008, 8:40am by Grimbal » |
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towr
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #2 on: Oct 15th, 2008, 9:22am » |
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Well, you have to admit, for some of the more common riddles it'd be a relief if people did at least a cursory glance at the internet before throwing it down here.
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Noke Lieu
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #3 on: Oct 15th, 2008, 7:12pm » |
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on Oct 15th, 2008, 8:39am, Grimbal wrote:| OK, if that's what it takes to become smart, I will stop solving problems. I'll google the solutions. |
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ah, but figuring out what to search for IS the puzzle. Sometimes cut and paste into google works, other times it doesn't.
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Benny
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #4 on: Dec 14th, 2008, 4:24pm » |
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on Oct 15th, 2008, 8:23am, towr wrote:http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/10/14/google.brain/
Apparently googling is not only good for finding information, it's also good for your brain. |
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What do you think of this article
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
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If we want to understand our world — or how to change it — we must first understand the rational choices that shape it.
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towr
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #5 on: Dec 15th, 2008, 1:03am » |
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on Dec 14th, 2008, 4:24pm, BenVitale wrote:I think he's blaming signs of him aging on the internet. His only evidence is anecdotal reports from his friends, which are probably around the same age and experience the same deterioration.
In any case, an opinion piece is not science. I suppose it's possible he's outsourcing too many mental processes to the internet. It's not like most people's mental arithmetic doesn't suffer a blow the moment they get a calculator and don't need to do it in their head any more. But his problems don't seem to be of this kind (the net isn't taking over functionality from him; it's simply deterioration).
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rmsgrey
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #6 on: Dec 15th, 2008, 10:21am » |
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My big question is why he bothered with 90% of a lengthy article complaining that people are no longer capable of reading lengthy articles?
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Benny
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #7 on: Dec 16th, 2008, 11:08am » |
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Thank you rmsgrey and towr for your input.
The author Marshall McLuhan wrote, "We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us."
In the linked document the hypothesis of the author is:
Reading documents on the web has changed most people's brain structures. I got the sense that it has rewired our brains. We have lost the patience to read long documents. I did not grow up using the internet and web. I grew up reading books, most of them I borrowed from the library.
But, now, I use the internet for information. The only textbooks I use are math and physics textbooks. I am also interested in philosophy and psychology, but I have noticed that I don't have the patience to read books on these subjects, I just go to the internet to find the information I need -- and sometimes, the info I find is too long to read.
For example, few days ago, I was searching for the philosophy of mathematics, and in psychology, "Carl Jung's Typology"
Google search gave me thousands and thousands of hits, then I rephrased my question in order to reduce the number of entries.
Are our reading habits really different than the past generations?
I think so.
Have we become hardwired skimmers instead of careful readers?
It depends. Math and physics are the most important subjects to me. So I am a careful reader. But, as far as psychology and philosophy are concerned, I don't bother picking books from the library or buy books on these subject. My girlfriend bought me books on philosophy and psychology, but I didn't take the time and trouble to open these books, I just use the Net.
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If we want to understand our world — or how to change it — we must first understand the rational choices that shape it.
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towr
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #8 on: Dec 16th, 2008, 12:19pm » |
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It's all so overstated.
Our brain adapts to the skills we use. It always has. If you use your skills you tend to get better; if you don't use them, then they tend to decline. If you lose your patience to read long texts, then that's because you're not exercising that skill, not because "your brain has been changed by the internet".
I'm reading more books now than ten years ago, despite also using the internet more. In fact, one can safely say the internet has done a lot to increase my book-reading.
And I can't even comprehend how one could suggest we "become hardwired skimmers". Either you're born hardwired, or you aren't hardwired. If you become a skimmer then that in itself implies it isn't hardwired. And you can almost certainly un-become it, if it's worth the effort. And if it's not worth the effort, I don't want to hear any complaints about it.
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River Phoenix
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Re: Study: Google does a brain good
« Reply #9 on: Dec 21st, 2008, 3:37pm » |
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There's a very simple mental reason that Google is so successful on the Internet: psychological footprint. Websites generally strive to have low psychological footprint, meaning that it does not take any mental energy to decide to go to the website or use the features, you just go out of habit and comfort in the environment. In the best cases, like Youtube, the website achieves near weightlessness by becoming just a medium for the objects (in that case, Video) that they represent. Google seems to have accomplished a negative cognitive or memory footprint, since a user of Google is actually required to think less. It allows the user to dismiss thoughts from his normal workflow, knowing that he can just rely on the Google search. This paradigm was not obvious before the success of Google, as search engines like Yahoo were thought of more as directories or listings - the universality of the search action was actually a bit of a mental leap. Although, as towr says, it is no different from myriad other historical advances in the paradigms of thought due to technology.
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| « Last Edit: Dec 21st, 2008, 3:39pm by River Phoenix » |
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