The digital era has brought us many things. We used to have address and phone books to remember our friends’ contact information. We used regular landline and letters to communicate with each other. Now we use Google to find out where everybody lives and Facebook to ask how they are doing. Every bit of information is right there, right now, only few clicks away. Also, before the Internet people would read books page after page for hours, but now it is more the rule than the exception for most of the people to just skim through numerous of web pages and absorb as much information as possible. Nobody really seems to concentrate on the actual reading instead of the information gathering process where the main goal is to accumulate as much as possible.
Usually reader uses an unconscious reading technique called “F-shaped pattern” for reading web content. The F-shape technique offers a very efficient way of finding necessary information from web pages. However, it has its downside. After the reader has accustomed to getting all the base information quickly from Wikipedia-like summaries, it becomes harder to concentrate on longer articles and books than before. For example most of the web sites that students use for reference in essays and sometimes even in their thesis are probably less than three pages long. (Technological citizen. 2009.)
The term called deep reading is a thing most of the readers should practice nowadays and even advanced readers have reported that they find deep reading much harder than for example ten years ago. And this has nothing to do with aging, since it has been observed at all ages. Deep reading is a process in which reader can think critically and understand the words read. Sometimes this means reading the same paragraph over and over until its content is understood completely. It is said that without truly understanding the texts we read, it is impossible to really learn or to understand the larger entities. Deep reading helps also to remember thing better. For example some students study for final exam of a course. They are trying to absorb everything as fast as possible. Probably they end up storing all the data in their short-term memory. This way all the information gets mixed up easily and it is hard to write long essays from that basis. Instead of taking enough time and really thinking through the material can benefit the actual learning process and therefore the information can be remembered at a later time and be of use. (Technological citizen. 2009.)
The ability to find information from the Internet quickly is not always a bad thing. We have learned to scan through long texts and find just the right key words and bits of information we need just a few seconds after we have entered the web page. The negative impact is, that we no longer have the ability to read long texts with thought. Usually reader loses interest after realizing that the article they are about to read is more than 6 paragraphs or over two pages long. The deep reading technique gives enough time for the reader to really digest the information and to understand the deeper contexts. This post-classical editing era in the movie industry has instilled two-second cuts to the ways of reading also. This way we do not really gain wisdom, we only read just for the purpose of reading. The human brain has been re-programmed not to know everything necessary but to know where and how to find all the information necessary for our cause the fastest way possible. (Carr. 2008.)
It seems like the definition of intelligence have also changed through the years. It seems that gaining actual wisdom and learning is not the priority anymore. Sometimes the few paragraphs found from some Internet article may provide the information needed at the fewest, but to actually digest that information and to develop analytical way of thinking. The actual process of thought still stays quite shallow and it gets harder and harder to blossom as an intellectual individual. Still, as Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren wrote in their book “How to Read a Book”, they actually advise the reader to first skim through the whole content and try to figure out the main points from the text. After that the reader should read through the text and find out what the author wants to say. And finally, reader should form their own opinions about the subject and read the text analytically. This seems to be the problem nowadays. The average reader knows how to skim through any article, but they do not know how to analyze and digest all the information the best way possible. Still, the reader should not be blamed for trying to get off light while reading. (Carr. 2008; Adler. 1940.)
Plato wrote in his book Phaedrus about reading and how it allows people to rely on written information rather than their own memory and intelligence. That part of Phaedrus can easily be scaled to 21st century where we are starting to rely on the information found from the Internet and which is accessible at all times. We start to forget the actual details of most of the subjects and the knowledge is replaced by the recollection of where to find the information. That is, how to Google it. (Carr. 2008.)
”…for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.” – Socrates in Phaedrus, written by Plato (Plato. 360 B.C.E)
Intelligence can be developed through conventional reading, but it does not have to be just paper print. We can achieve higher understanding from digital media, also. It seems to be more the rule than the exception to use horizontal reading method while browsing the information from the Internet. The horizontal reading allows the reader to compare different texts with each other and form opinions based on multiple sources. This means that the reader can follow links included in articles, or sees a book reference and finds that part from the original piece. Horizontal reading can be practiced in print media also, but the Internet makes this process easier than ever before.
The advantage of horizontal reading is at the same time its own peril. The reader can easily be distracted and go astray from the original topic and thought. Modern man is obliged to multitask all the time. The Internet itself creates distractions of all sorts. We have e-mail, Facebook and other communication services running in the background and they require our attention every now and then. Also most of the articles in the web sites are filled with third party advertisement to distract us even more. It is possible that at some point for the person to go from searching material for essay about carrots to watching video about Carrot Top the stand-up comedian.
Is technology making us stupid or ignorant then? Can we measure intelligence through technology? Technology is not making us stupid. Technology gives us tools to create something new, if only we knew how to use those tools. The human brain evolves from limited and unreliable data bank into a powerful search engine, which consists of intelligent algorithms. The most important thing to remember when using search engines and reading articles is to practice source criticism and trying to analyze the data thoroughly. (Brabandere. 2015.)
New technologies at their worst makes us quite unimaginative if we only add new innovations to the old technology. For example, we are able to fly when we forget about how birds fly. This is achieved by adapting a whole new mindset and breaking the rules of our thinking and expanding knowledge by trial and error. So, why not use creativity and create something totally different? This way, step by step, it is possible to shape our society into something new. (Brabandere. 2015.
It is very important to understand the benefits and disadvantages of digital era. It is easy to trust blindly in the opinions of others, to trust that they have worked on the thought long enough to publish it. Probably those authors themselves have trusted on the opinions of others and based their conclusion on the analysis of somebody else. International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (abbrev. IBDB) has a compulsory subject called Theory of knowledge. It would be very useful to implement this kind of subject in the whole school system, starting from elementary school. Theory on knowledge contains a variety of topics related to knowledge itself. The main components are Knowing about knowing, Ways of knowing and Areas of knowledge, which includes aread from different fields of science, for example the natural sciences, the human sciences, ethics and so on. In brief, Theory of knowledge challenges the person to think and to analyze the obtained information, which is something we all should do from an early age until the day we die. (IBDB. 2015.)
References
Author N/A. Web. 2009. What Is the Internet’s Effect on Deep Reading? The Technological Citizen. http://thetechnologicalcitizen.com/?p=414
Nicholas Carr. Web. 2008. Is Google Making Us Stupid? The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
Mortimer Adler, Charles Van Doren. Book. 1940. How to Read a Book. Publisher N/A.
Plato. Web. 360 B.C.E. Phaedrus. Publisher N/A. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html
Luc de Brabandere. Video. 2015. Is Technology Making Us Stupid? Digital-Life-Design15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guGzLUpLpE8
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Subject Brief. Web. 2015. http://www.ibo.org/globalassets/publications/recognition/core_tok.pdf
