How The Internet Is Changing Mental Habits

Nicholas Carr      Image via Wikipedia

"What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.  My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. "

So says Nicholas Carr in his excellent article, "Is Google making Us Stupid?".

AJ Jacobs took this further when he attempted to do something about his addiction to multi tasking.  His belief (and something that I support) is that our digital world can over stimulate and make it difficult to focus; a none too happy situation as creativiity is the lynch pin of business success.

So should corporate enterprises be worried?  The cognitive consequences of the internet are profound and may well be affecting your bottom line.  Enterprises and the  world need problem solvers who can spend quality time analysing and coming up with creative solutions.

The Net also tranforms culture and communications.  Social skills and face to face communications are learnt attributes.  Linus of Peanuts fame used a security blanket but this has been replaced in the modern generation by the iPhone and Messenger.

I have noted in Singapore that there is a tendency to to shy away from direct engagement with strangers and to retreat behind a mobile screen and a set of headphones.

The trick is to strike a balance between our online and off line activities.

There are those who say that we will be smarter within the next decade as a result of the Net.  Maybe so, but if we have lost the abilitiy to communicate effectively then this will count for nought.

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