Saturday, July 19, 2008
Google > Stoopid?
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Most people (from whom one might expect a comment) have already posted responses to Nicholas Carr's The Atlantic article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" I wanted time to think before I wrote (remember I'm introverted ;) Many of the kneejerk responses have been along the lines of "Carr's right, and it's a disaster! Now let's move on to the next topic..." Demonstrating nicely that Carr is right, in part the phenomenon he discusses of shorter attention spans when reading, and often writing, and therefore thinking online not only exists, but afflicts most of us. Carr provides a nice example to illustrate the phenomenon:
But, is different worse? The authors of the study mentioned above wrote:
Reading differently is not necessarily reading worse.
Carr also argues that the structures and processes of the Internet shape and control how we think, claiming:
So Carr is in fine company. Like Socrates he is correct, memory has been eroded by writing and the capacity for sequential sustained reading is being eroded by the Internet. Also, like Socrates, he is wrong, the human capacity for living is not eroded so easily and the new mental states are not (most of us believe - since few today voluntarily give up writing and advocate burning libraries to the ground) worse ;)
Google need not make you stoopid, but it is making us think differently, and that needs serious practice and study.
Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”Reading online is different from reading print, think Jakob Nielsen's studies back in the 90s which showed that online readers scan. Then bring it up to date and apply it to "academic" readers as well as the metaphorical "ordinary user":
As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it.Factor in the fact that today we live online much more than we did then, and the result is obvious: "the Internet" is changing the way we think. Reducing our capacity to process lengthy complex writing. In short, making us stupid!
But, is different worse? The authors of the study mentioned above wrote:
It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.Carr's argument presupposes that "reading in the traditional sense" is both traditional and good. Yet for the purposes of the "readers" assessed by the study, academics researching prior literature on a topic, reading has perhaps never been the long drawn out sequential process Carr inagines. I have been trying to teach students "How to avoid reading books" for decades. Why? Because scanning not reading works, for researching prior literature scanning beats reading! As MarkG commented "
Reading differently is not necessarily reading worse.
Carr also argues that the structures and processes of the Internet shape and control how we think, claiming:
The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.In other words: reading differently is worse because we lose the capacity for sustained attention. This is like Socrates argument in Plato's Phaedrus that the new technology of alphabetic writing (to which ironically we owe our "memory" of Socrates) "will produce forgetfulness in those who have learned it. They will not need to exercise their memories, being able to rely on what is written."
So Carr is in fine company. Like Socrates he is correct, memory has been eroded by writing and the capacity for sequential sustained reading is being eroded by the Internet. Also, like Socrates, he is wrong, the human capacity for living is not eroded so easily and the new mental states are not (most of us believe - since few today voluntarily give up writing and advocate burning libraries to the ground) worse ;)
Google need not make you stoopid, but it is making us think differently, and that needs serious practice and study.
Labels: culture, internet, writing
¶ 8:17 AM
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Monday, July 07, 2008
Society for Biblical Literature International: Powhiri
SBL International has begun. The first papers are not due for another half hour, but the conference began yesterday with a powhiri (Māori welcome ceremony) and a reception. For the SBL International in Auckland, the challenge was "Kamate Kamate" somewhat oddly since this haka was judged too bloodthirsty for international rugby matches (ka mate means death!) - apparently International Rugby is wimpy compared to International Biblical Scholars ;-)
It was great to begin this first ever SBL in New Zealand in a culturally appropriate way with the visitors being welcomed to the University Marae, to the University and to the country. As so often though my delight in powwhiri was tinged with saddness, of only Māori custom could unbend enough to produce a geniuinely bicultural powhiri one for example in which the speeches were tailored to the presence of 90% of the participants who are not fluent in Te Reo (the Māori language) so shorter and accompanied by brief summary statements in English (like subtitles) so that the 90% could understand and appreciate the ceremony. Such a powhiri if regularly adopted for bicultural occasions, would I suspect take NZ by storm and become the only appropriate way to formally welcome visitors. Instead too often what we have is a mere cultural show - which ends up turning Māori into museum exhibits, rather than partners in a bicultural society.
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It was great to begin this first ever SBL in New Zealand in a culturally appropriate way with the visitors being welcomed to the University Marae, to the University and to the country. As so often though my delight in powwhiri was tinged with saddness, of only Māori custom could unbend enough to produce a geniuinely bicultural powhiri one for example in which the speeches were tailored to the presence of 90% of the participants who are not fluent in Te Reo (the Māori language) so shorter and accompanied by brief summary statements in English (like subtitles) so that the 90% could understand and appreciate the ceremony. Such a powhiri if regularly adopted for bicultural occasions, would I suspect take NZ by storm and become the only appropriate way to formally welcome visitors. Instead too often what we have is a mere cultural show - which ends up turning Māori into museum exhibits, rather than partners in a bicultural society.
Labels: culture, nz, sbl, video
¶ 7:57 AM
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Yes, Tim. I was right up the front of the crowd waiting to go through the arch onto the marae, so I heard the two Maori explaining to the SBL president what was going to happen and what his role was in it all, so I had some idea what was happening. There are also some similarities between the function of the powhiri and the function of an Aboriginal Australian message stick, which is carried by visitors into the country of other peoples, so I had some 'hooks' to hang the experience on, but it was still a bit odd not hearing what had happened until after it had happened. I do hope our hosts were right about the ability of the powhiri to improve the standard of our conference presentations!! :-)
By 
Judy Redman, at
July 7, 2008 9:35 PM
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Radiohead U-turn?
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It was Nichthus who alerted me to Radiohead's u-turn, though I can't agree with his title: So, the sense is returning? Perhaps because I'm not only older but more cynical! So I picked up slightly different aspects to note:
"...and the dwindling revenue pot from CD sales."
Yet when:
"In Rainbows was later released conventionally as a CD, and topped the US and UK charts."
All the free publicity and hype helped then, and others spotted it:
"Most recently fellow English rockers Coldplay said Monday that they would give away its new single Violet Hill free of charge, resulting in the group's website crashing the next day due to demand."
Smart move Radiohead, "give it away" so that you sell even more copies, and by maintaining or enhancing your fame as well rake in the bucks. But, as I asked back in October when the move was announced:
But how do people (say biblical scholars) who do not get paid mega-bucks for personal appearances and the like pay for the other people's work needed for a successful publication. Our own work is either a hobby or we are paid for it as part of our job, but whatever format we choose except the casual blog, we need proofreaders, designers, film editors etc... to help make the "product"... how do we pay them?
"...and the dwindling revenue pot from CD sales."
Yet when:
"In Rainbows was later released conventionally as a CD, and topped the US and UK charts."
All the free publicity and hype helped then, and others spotted it:
"Most recently fellow English rockers Coldplay said Monday that they would give away its new single Violet Hill free of charge, resulting in the group's website crashing the next day due to demand."
Smart move Radiohead, "give it away" so that you sell even more copies, and by maintaining or enhancing your fame as well rake in the bucks. But, as I asked back in October when the move was announced:
But how do people (say biblical scholars) who do not get paid mega-bucks for personal appearances and the like pay for the other people's work needed for a successful publication. Our own work is either a hobby or we are paid for it as part of our job, but whatever format we choose except the casual blog, we need proofreaders, designers, film editors etc... to help make the "product"... how do we pay them?
Labels: culture
¶ 7:46 AM
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Bottling clouds: or Why I am (still) not a biblioblogger
Jim West is seeking your help to imitate the (possibly mythical) legend of king Canute. He wants to hold back the tide of technology. The technology of blogging works by allowing several things - all of them available separately elsewhere, but which in conjunction make the form what it is:
Jim seeks to define an in-crowd, he does this honestly and exclusively by defining who is "out", while Duane rises to the bait and seeks to enlarge the borders through a Modest Suggestion. Now, if the biblical studies cloud round Abnormal Interests was the same as, or included the biblical studies cloud round Dr Jim West etc. etc... then we could neatly define the biblioblogsphere. But they are not, each writer includes some, but not others of the putative bibliobloggers. The attempt at definition, whether inclusive (Duane) or exclusive (Jim), fails. Or at best only offers an approximate answer, this blog is a bibiloblog with a 65% degree of probability! The technology itself resists the attempt.
The sub-title of this post may be explained by this old post.
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Jim West is seeking your help to imitate the (possibly mythical) legend of king Canute. He wants to hold back the tide of technology. The technology of blogging works by allowing several things - all of them available separately elsewhere, but which in conjunction make the form what it is:- the writable web - like a content management system blog software makes it easy to write webpages, and insert them into a working site
- RSS feeds - allowing a loose "community" of others to read what you write, as you add something new, thus making the system more time dependent than the conventional web but also adding focus and greater sense of "community"
- links to other blogs - while not an obligatory part of the "system" almost all blogs have a "blogroll" of (some of) the blogs the author(s) read and think "like" their own
- "conversation" - while comments are not obligatory as a software feature, the genre of "blog" works through a high proportion of material showing interaction between different people about the topic, where the comment feature is not provided (and sometimes when it is) this takes place through linked posts.
Jim seeks to define an in-crowd, he does this honestly and exclusively by defining who is "out", while Duane rises to the bait and seeks to enlarge the borders through a Modest Suggestion. Now, if the biblical studies cloud round Abnormal Interests was the same as, or included the biblical studies cloud round Dr Jim West etc. etc... then we could neatly define the biblioblogsphere. But they are not, each writer includes some, but not others of the putative bibliobloggers. The attempt at definition, whether inclusive (Duane) or exclusive (Jim), fails. Or at best only offers an approximate answer, this blog is a bibiloblog with a 65% degree of probability! The technology itself resists the attempt.
The sub-title of this post may be explained by this old post.
Labels: blog, culture, technology
¶ 8:44 AM
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Friday, September 28, 2007
Images of each other
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Thanks to 42 who: "found these: Clever, funny, insightful, and very very well done!
¶ 9:40 AM
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Thursday, March 29, 2007
Education for a change!
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Mark Nichols the E-BCNZer links to a fascinating and infuriating YouTube video. Which, since it was fascinating as well as infuriating (mainly because I wanted footnotes, so I could find out more or check up on their "facts") I will link here:
Now, there is much (If only it had footnotes!) that you or I might argue with. There is also much in the clip that looks strikingly different when viewed from NZ rather than USA. And we could, and perhaps should, argue for hours if this kind of "video" was the best format for the information. Where it seems to me there is no room for discussion is that we are educating students for change.
Well we aren't... Actually we are educating them for the 1990s (an average figure taking into account that we do, a little, expose them to 21st century ways of doing things, but that on the other hand we mainly expose them to traditional ways!), but, since the world in which they will live, work and share their learning, the world they will live in will have changed hugely almost before they graduate... We should be educating for change.
Education though is past focused. It repackages knowledge and understanding already gained. Theological education invites students to read books that summarise and restate previously acquired understanding. Inevitably theology, of all disciplines is past focused. Yet, there is something significant in the traditional claim that degree level education should be taught by active researchers. Because then it will also have a future edge... Education for a change!
Incidentally, students should also be encouraged to explore and research for themselves. Because that will prepare them to remain educated for the next decades of their lives.
But we don't. At just the period when future-focused, research-driven education is more vitally necessary than ever before, we are busy "dumbing down". The rise of distance learning (which I welcome and enjoy) has led to a mere packaging of information and ideas, which the student can "learn". (OK I know, we do try - quite hard sometimes - to do more, but in practice we seldom really achieve an exploratory future focus in our teaching.) And, the onsite students "benefit" too, because they also increasingly get these bite-sized, prepackaged chunks of information and ideas, rather than being stimulated to learn.
And "the culture" does not help, students (with growing debt burdens) need "qualifications", so they focus on passing courses. But a focus on passing courses hampers education for a change!
Now, there is much (If only it had footnotes!) that you or I might argue with. There is also much in the clip that looks strikingly different when viewed from NZ rather than USA. And we could, and perhaps should, argue for hours if this kind of "video" was the best format for the information. Where it seems to me there is no room for discussion is that we are educating students for change.
Well we aren't... Actually we are educating them for the 1990s (an average figure taking into account that we do, a little, expose them to 21st century ways of doing things, but that on the other hand we mainly expose them to traditional ways!), but, since the world in which they will live, work and share their learning, the world they will live in will have changed hugely almost before they graduate... We should be educating for change.
Education though is past focused. It repackages knowledge and understanding already gained. Theological education invites students to read books that summarise and restate previously acquired understanding. Inevitably theology, of all disciplines is past focused. Yet, there is something significant in the traditional claim that degree level education should be taught by active researchers. Because then it will also have a future edge... Education for a change!
Incidentally, students should also be encouraged to explore and research for themselves. Because that will prepare them to remain educated for the next decades of their lives.
But we don't. At just the period when future-focused, research-driven education is more vitally necessary than ever before, we are busy "dumbing down". The rise of distance learning (which I welcome and enjoy) has led to a mere packaging of information and ideas, which the student can "learn". (OK I know, we do try - quite hard sometimes - to do more, but in practice we seldom really achieve an exploratory future focus in our teaching.) And, the onsite students "benefit" too, because they also increasingly get these bite-sized, prepackaged chunks of information and ideas, rather than being stimulated to learn.
And "the culture" does not help, students (with growing debt burdens) need "qualifications", so they focus on passing courses. But a focus on passing courses hampers education for a change!
Labels: culture, education, internet
¶ 6:52 PM
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Friday, March 09, 2007
Illiterate students and the end of cyberpunk ::
One day computers and the networks we use to communicate will become ubiquitous, and we will forget the technology. As most of us forget the complex and once esoteric technologies of pen and paper.
That day was foreseen back in 1993 (the year I started at Carey) by a cyperpunk called "Stranger", and recognised as a significant insight by Nathan Cobb, "Cyberpunk -- Terminal Chic?," Boston Globe (24 November 1992, pp. 29, 32), now online in various places. [Hat tip to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang of The End of Cyberspace and his "former student Josh Buhs".]
Oh, for the day when networked communication technology is ubiquitous, and as invisible to us as the complex and esoteric technologies of alphabets, pens and paper have become. In the meanwhile, we'll muddle through, and try along with Job and Genesis to help you gain the basic skills for educated survival in the current century!
(Shame most of you cannot yet read this blog post, and God forbid I should podcast the ideas ;-)
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That day was foreseen back in 1993 (the year I started at Carey) by a cyperpunk called "Stranger", and recognised as a significant insight by Nathan Cobb, "Cyberpunk -- Terminal Chic?," Boston Globe (24 November 1992, pp. 29, 32), now online in various places. [Hat tip to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang of The End of Cyberspace and his "former student Josh Buhs".]
It was nearly midnight deep inside Venus de Milo, a dark and sweaty Boston dance emporium. The Shamen, a British musical duo augmented by an assortment of digital gewgaws, was unleashing a storm of high-energy technopop that was cyberpunk through and through. "We can see tomorrow in each other's eyes," they sang at one point as the bouncing crowd raised its collective fist, presumably in the direction of cyberspace.Meanwhile back on planet Carey... it's the start of the year, and students are facing the challenging world of networked electronic communication. Some arrive already literate, but others - mainly the over-forties - are illiterate by 21st century standards. Like 19th century factory workers or farmers who could not read or write a letter, they have difficulty reading and writing online. "Discussion forums" are frightening, online multi-choice tests terrify... today they are illiterate, even if their spelling and punctuation are hugely better than that of their, usually younger, literate peers.
...
A handful of computer jockeys have spawned a style and an attitude. It's no coincidence that Mondo 2000, a glossy quarterly magazine that trumpets the pop version of cyberpunk, likes to talk about "surfin' the new edge." Way cool.
And consider: Cyberpunk is only a corner of a much broader cyberculture- at-large, which includes an online worldwide population of middle-aged couch potatoes, wheezy academics, corporate pooh-bahs, govermnet drones, and on and one. "In the future it will be everywhere, but it won't be called cyberculture," says Stranger, a 17-year-old Miami high school senior who, like most hackers, prefers his computer handle to his real name. "It will just be called culture. A few years ago, people used to talk about 'the emerging TV cuture.' We no longer talk about a 'TV culture' today. It's a given. Somdeay soon, no one will talk about 'emerging cyberculture.' Because it will be a given, too."
Oh, for the day when networked communication technology is ubiquitous, and as invisible to us as the complex and esoteric technologies of alphabets, pens and paper have become. In the meanwhile, we'll muddle through, and try along with Job and Genesis to help you gain the basic skills for educated survival in the current century!
(Shame most of you cannot yet read this blog post, and God forbid I should podcast the ideas ;-)
Labels: culture, digital, literacy, network
¶ 10:58 AM
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And yet, when a technology becomes ubiquitous (and part of the environment) it ceases to be seen as a machine, or something that can be understood as a system; it becomes opaque. And that then opens the door to 'magic'. No longer do you have to understand a technology to use it, rather all you need to do is remember the incantations, rituals and actions required to make it work.
And, at that point, those actions become divorced from the actual technological understanding of the task at hand, and become instead part of a new narrative world and mythology about why things work the way they do.
By Stephen G, at
March 9, 2007 9:54 PM
There is a LOT of magical thinking around already about computers ;-) With many users learning the sort of rituals you describe. So, I suspect it is the opposite, few people treat driving a car as magic, we just do it, semi-unconsciously even. But stick the same person in front of a screen even a diddy telephone screen and they start to require incantations and rituals...
So, I think ubiquitous technologies (like paper) become transparent rather than opaque, we see through them and focus on the tasks...
By Tim, at
March 10, 2007 6:29 AM
And yet, the car is an opaque technology. It's a blackbox. You learn to fill it with petrol, have the 'priestly' mechanics service it, and the actions of driving are disconnected from how the machine actually works. More so in an age where the engine etc. is electronically monitored and controlled.
Perhaps, the problems you describe are more to do with some people being unwilling to learn the incantations to make something work without the other knowledge, while others are quite happy to do so.
By Stephen G, at
March 10, 2007 12:42 PM
Perhaps it's more that, as a technologist, you'd like people to understand how things work; while as a teacher I want people to use them - and if they can do that effectively then I'm happy whether they understand or not. In the age before the model T people needed to understand cars, and many (of the few who actually had access to cars) also had professional help to maintain and drive them. Now people drive them from A to B and back via C, and if (rarely even compared to the 70s, let alone the 30s) something goes wrong then mechanics are nearly ubiquitous.
I'll be delighted when networked communications become as black boxy as cars, and all most people need to know is how to put the petrol in, or as paper and once they leave primary school all they need to know is where to buy refills...
By Tim, at
March 10, 2007 3:58 PM
