Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"The Internet Will Make You Smarter"

A survey of 895 web users and experts found that more than three-fourths of respondents believe the Internet is improving people’s reading, writing and “the rendering of knowledge.”

Fascinating perspectives here:

[The study] was prompted in part by an August 2008 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly by technology writer Nicholas Carr headlined: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Carr suggested in the article that heavy use of the Web was chipping away at users’ capacity for concentration and deep thinking. Carr, who participated in the survey, told the authors he still agreed with the piece.

“What the ‘Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence,” Carr said in a release accompanying the study. “The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.”

But Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, “People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory.

“For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support and Google comes through for me,” he said in the release.

I’m with Craig on this one; being able to pull out my iPhone and do a quick Google search or pull up Wikipedia has profoundly changed the types of information I bother remembering. I don’t remember who said it (ha, case-in-point), but: “It’s not how much information you can remember, but it’s what you do with that information that matters.”

In that sense, the exact opposite of what Carr suggests is true (at least for me): The Internet has actually freed me from worrying about the superfluous to allow me to engage in those “bigger picture” things that do require concentration and deep thinking.

Feb 21, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

Parents Spying on Teens' Online Conversations?

A great perspective on the issue from Anastasia Goodstein and the ever-wonderful Henry Jenkins.

Jan 26, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

How Young Is Too Young for the Internet?

Rob Frappier responds to a recently posted question by CNN about children and the Internet, and points out that children now live in a political economy dependent on technology and the web; to cut them off from the Internet completely would be foolhardy. Instead, Frappier says a proactive approach of balance is required.

As the internet continues to grow, with social media leading the way, it is vital that we all take steps to make it a safer place through our actions. The current generation of children has a unique opportunity to set the tone for internet discourse over the next half century. If parents and educators take the time to teach them the right way to act, they can help usher in an era of responsibility and accountability online.

(Via Amy Pritchard.)

Nov 12, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Risks, Rights, and Responsibilities of Children in the Digital Age

Henry Jenkins recently interviewed Dr. Sonia Livingstone – a very bright and very wonderful person, if I may say – who has been at the forefront of research about children’s uses of and interaction with media, culture, and the Internet. Her latest book, Children and the Internet: Great Expectations and Challenging Realities, has just released abroad and will (apparently) be made available in the U.S. in September.

From Jenkins’ description of the book:

It combines quantitative and qualitative perspectives to give us a compelling picture of how the internet is impacting childhood and family life in the United Kingdom. It will be of immediate relevence for all of us doing work on new media literacies and digital learning and beyond, for all of you who are trying to make sense of the challenges and contradictions of parenting in the digital age. As always, what I admire most about Livingstone is her deft balance: she does find a way to speak to both half-full and half-empty types and help them to more fully appreciate the other’s perspective.

Jenkins has posted the first of a multi-part interview he conducted with Livingstone, and there’s some truly wonderful bits from her in it. She considers benefits and risks of children’s use of the Internet, the changing dynamics of ‘risk’ over history, and how we may avoid fueling a ‘moral panic’ around children and new media.

I’ve sought to show how young people’s enthusiasm, energies and interests are a great starting point for them to maximize the potential the internet could afford them, but they can’t do it on their own, for the internet is a resource largely of our – adult – making. And it’s full of false promises: it invites learning but is still more skill-and-drill than self-paced or alternative in its approach; it invites civic participation, but political groups still communicate one-way more than two-way, treating the internet more as a broadcast than an interactive medium; and adults celebrate young people’s engagement with online information and communication at the same time as seeking to restrict them, worrying about addiction, distraction, and loss of concentration, not to mention the many fears about pornography, race hate and inappropriate sexual contact.

She argues for a balanced approach to children and the Internet and new media, one which carefully weighs its “affordances” versus “impacts”:

Many of us have argued for some time now that the concept of ‘impacts’ seems to treat the internet (or any technology) as if it came from outer space, uninfluenced by human (or social and political) understandings. Of course it doesn’t. So, the concept of affordances usefully recognises that the online environment has been conceived, designed and marketed with certain uses and users in mind … Affordances also recognises that interfaces or technologies don’t determine consequences 100% … That’s not to say that I’d rule out all questions of consequences, more that we need to find more subtle ways of asking the questions here. Problematically too, there is still very little research that looks long-term at changes associated with the widespread use of the internet, making it surprisingly hard to say whether, for example, my children’s childhood is really so different from mine was, and why.

It’s one of those interviews that you can’t pull yourself away from, so rich it is with insights and possibilities. Dr. Livingstone’s work frames the issues of children, mediated culture, and the Internet on such a broader, infinitely better level than we’re used to; really, in essence, she’s providing the framework that we’ve always needed to first properly understand both the macro- and the micro-level pictures of children & media and then digest it in the bigger perspective of children’s lives and development.

Jul 01, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #