Will constant access to the Internet make today's young people brilliant multitaskers or shallow, screen-bound hermits? A new opinion poll finds that technology experts believe the answer is "all of the above."
According to a new survey of 1, 021 technology experts and critics, hyperconnectivity is a mixed bag. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed agreed that the Internet has wired the under-35 crowd differently, and that this rewiring is a good thing, stimulating multitasking talent and an ability to find relevant information fast online. But 42 percent of experts believe that the hyperconnected brain is shallow, with an unhealthy dependence on the Internet and mobile devices.
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"Short attention spans resulting from quick interactions will be detrimental to focusing on the harder problems, and we will probably see a stagnation in many areas: technology, even social venues such as literature, " Alvaro Retana, a technologist at HP, responded in the survey. "The people who will strive and lead the charge will be the ones able to disconnect themselves to focus."
Dire predictions
According to the Elon University Imagining the Internet Center and the Pew Internet Project, which conducted the survey, the technology expert split is closer to 50-50 on whether the rise of the Internet is a boon or a bane. Many people who responded that Internet-savvy Generation Y is at a mental advantage tempered that opinion with warnings about the dark side of connectedness. [ 10 Facts About the Teen Brain]
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"While they said access to people and information is intensely improved in the mobile Internet age, they added that they are already witnessing deficiencies in younger people's abilities to focus their attention, be patient and think deeply, " Janna Anderson, director of Elon's Imagining the Internet Center and a co-author of the report detailing the findings, said in a statement. "Some expressed concerns that trends are leading to a future in which most people are shallow consumers of information, and several mentioned Orwell's '1984.'"
George Orwell's 1949 book described a dystopian society where information was strictly controlled. One respondent who mentioned the book was Paul Gardner-Stephen, a telecommunications fellow at Flinders University.
"[C]entralized powers that can control access to the Internet will be able to significantly control future generations, " Gardner-Stephen wrote. "It will be much as in Orwell's '1984', where control was achieved by using language to shape and limit thought, so future regimes may use control of access to the Internet to shape and limit thought."
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Online optimism
Many experts praised the talents needed to navigate the Internet, however, and suggested that people who have grown up connected will blossom.
"There is no doubt that brains are being rewired, " wrote danah boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research. "The techniques and mechanisms to engage in rapid-fire attention shifting will be extremely useful for the creative class."
Other experts said that the use of the Internet as an "external brain" where facts are stored frees up space for mental processes beyond memorization. [ Best Social Networking Sites Online]
"The replacement of memorization by analysis will be the biggest boon to society since the coming of mass literacy in the late 19th to early 20th century, " wrote Paul Jones, a new media expert at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
While there was disagreement about the benefits and costs of an increasingly important Internet, experts were agreed that certain skills and talents would be important for future generations online. Among those were the ability to cooperate to solve problems, also known as crowd-sourcing; the ability to effectively search for information; the ability to synthesize information from many sources; the ability to concentrate; and the ability to filter useful information from the digital "noise" of the Internet.
"There is a palpable concern among these experts that new social and economic divisions will emerge as those who are motivated and well-schooled reap rewards that are not matched by those who fail to master new media and tech literacies, " said report co-author Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. "They called for reinvention of public education to teach those skills and help learners avoid some of the obvious pitfalls of a hyperconnected lifestyle."
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互联网是福是祸
今天的年轻人一天到晚挂在互联网上，这会让他们成为优秀的“一心多用者”呢，还是成为肤浅的，依赖屏幕的隐士？一个新的民意调查发现，技术专家们认为，答案是“两者都对”。
根据对1021名技术专家和评论家进行的最新调查，我们跟互联网的超级连接有利有弊。55％的受访者同意，35岁以下的人群以不同的方式上互联网，人脑重新连线是件好事，有助于提高人们同时完成多项任务的能力，以及在线快速查找相关信息的能力。但是也有42％的专家认为，过分依赖互联网的超级连通，让人的大脑变得很肤浅，产生对互联网和各种移动通讯设备的不健康的依赖性。
博客问题：互联网会让人变得更聪明还是更笨蛋？
“快速的相互作用所产生的注意力短暂化，将不利于我们专注于困难的问题，我们可能会看到许多领域停滞不前，例如技术领域，甚至在社交场所，比如文学方面。” 惠普的技术专家，阿尔瓦罗-瑞塔那，对调查结果评论说， “将来能够做出成果和担任领导的人，将会是那些能够离开互联网而集中精力处理问题的人。”
对待上网的可怕预言
那么，互联网的兴起，是福还是祸？进行这项调查的伊隆大学的”想像互联网”中心和”皮尤互联网”项目人员指出，技术专家们的观点是一半对一半。许多相信互联网让Y世代的年轻人更精明的专家，在心理上淡化了关于过分依赖互联网所产生的负面影响的警告。
博客问题：上网是否有性别差异？
“他们补充说，虽然当前的移动互联网时代，大大地改善了我们对他人与信息的获取能力，他们已经看到了不少年轻人表现出的，集中注意力缺乏，耐心和深思苦想能力的不足，” 伊隆大学的”想象互联网中心”的主任珍娜-·安德森，同时也是这份详细调查结果的合著者，在一份声明中说。“有些人表示，他们注意到有这样一种趋势，未来的大多数人都会是肤浅的信息消费者。还有些人提到了奥威尔的书 - '1984年'。”
乔治·-奥威尔在1949年出版的这本书，描述了一个未来的反乌托邦的社会，那里的信息被严格控制着。提到这本书的一位受访者是弗林德斯大学电信研究员保罗·加德纳 - 斯蒂芬。
加德纳 - 斯蒂芬写道，“能够控制上网的集中化的权力，将也能够有力地控制下一代人。这与奥威尔的'1984年'的故事很相似，在那里，集权以控制语言使用的手段，来塑造和限制人们的思想，所以，未来的集权者，可以用控制使用互联网的手段，来塑造和限制的下一代人们的思想。”
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乐观看待上网
许多专家称赞说天才们需要浏览互联网，而且，使用互联网长大的一代人，也会从中受益。
微软研究院的高级研究员大奈石-博伊德写道：”毫无疑问，人们的大脑被重新连接了起来。让注意力快速转移的技术和机制，对于创意型工作非常有用。”
其他专家说，使用互联网作为“外脑”来存储事实和数据，可以腾出人脑里那部分用于记忆过程的空间。 北卡罗莱纳大学的媒体专家保罗·琼斯写道：“以分析来代替死记硬背，将是19世纪末至20世纪初开始的大众扫盲运动以后，人类社会收到的一件最大的福音。”
对于日益显得重要的互联网为我们带来的好处和成本，专家们意见分歧，但是，他们一致认为，对于我们的依赖互联网生存的子孙后代来说，这些技能将是重要的，包括: 合作解决问题(群策群力crowd-sourcing)的能力; 有效搜索信息的能力; 综合从不同来源搜集来的信息的能力； 聚精会神地专心解决问题的能力；以及，排除互联网的“数字噪音”，沙里淘金，筛选出有用信息的能力。
皮尤研究中心的”互联网与美国生活项目”主任, 报告的合著者, 李-杨丞琳说：”可以明显感到，这些专家们担心，那些积极学习上网，有良好教育机会的人会受益颇丰，而那些未能掌握新媒体，未经过网络高科技扫盲的人，会吃亏落后。这样一来，将造成新的社会和经济方面的巨大差别。” 他们呼吁政府应该再造公众教育，教会全体公民这些上网技能，并帮助学习者避免一些明显的陷井，使得全体人民都能适应互联网带来的超连通的新的生活方式。 |
