This link has been bookmarked by 24 people . It was first bookmarked on 25 Aug 2008, by Todd Suomela.
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24 Feb 11
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12 Feb 10
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When in doubt, blame the latest technology.
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But the latest crop of curmudgeons fail to acknowledge that there is not much new in this parade of the preposterous. The US has a long and colorful history of being taken in by the erroneous and irrational: Salem witches, the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, phrenology, and eugenics are just a few choice examples. The truth is that Americans often approach information — online and off — with a particular mindset. "Antirational junk thought has gained social respectability in the United States during the past half century," notes Susan Jacoby in The Age of American Unreason. "It has proved resistant to the vast expansion of scientific knowledge that has taken place during the same period." Jacoby argues that long-standing American values like rugged individualism and the need to question authority have metastasized into reflexive anti-intellectualism and disdain for "eggheads," "elites," and pretty much anyone who might be described as credentialed. This cancerous irrationalism isn't pretty, but it isn't technology's fault, either.
On the contrary: The explosion of knowledge represented by the Internet and abetted by all sorts of digital technologies makes us more productive and gives us the opportunity to become smarter, not dumber. Think of Wikipedia and its emergent spinoffs, like Wiktionary. Imperfect as they may be, the collective brainpower contained within these kinds of sites — and the hunger for learning and accurate information they represent — is something human history has never known before. (Even Encyclopedia Britannica will soon be accepting user contributions.) Or consider the Public Library of Science: By breaking the publishing industry's choke hold on the circulation of scientific information, this powerful online resource arms scientists and the masses alike with the same data, accelerating new discoveries and breakthroughs. Not exactly the kind of effect one would expect from a technology that's threatening to turn us into philistines.
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12 Jul 09
Tom Krieglsteinan opinion piece on people's often misguided reaction to new technologies.
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When in doubt, blame the latest technology
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Socrates thought the advent of writing would wreak havoc on the powers of the mind. Christian theologians denounced the printing press as the work of the devil. The invention of the telephone was supposed to make letter-writing extinct, and the arrival of the train — and later the car and plane — was going to be the death of community.
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Lee Siegel's Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob suggests that the Web makes us both moronic and narcissistic
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Mark Bauerlein delivers a grim assessment of the state of young minds, rattling off statistics about faltering education and using such figures to buttress his assertion that the Internet, videogames, and IMs all serve to numb and dumb.
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there's the human tendency to seek out information that supports preexisting assumptions, a behavior psychologists have dubbed homophily. The Web magnifies this echo-chamber effect.
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Even Encyclopedia Britannica will soon be accepting user contributions.
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29 Sep 08
Adam Crowe"...there's the human tendency to seek out information that supports preexisting assumptions, a behavior psychologists have dubbed homophily. The Web magnifies this echo-chamber effect."
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20 Sep 08
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there's the human tendency to seek out information that supports preexisting assumptions, a behavior psychologists have dubbed homophily.
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Imperfect as they may be, the collective brainpower contained within these kinds of sites — and the hunger for learning and accurate information they represent — is something human history has never known before.
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15 Sep 08
Rob McCraeIt's naive to think that the digital age will magically remedy stupidity. We need better schools as well as a renewed commitment to reason and scientific rigor so that people can distinguish knowledge from garbage. The Web is not an
obstacle in this project. It's an unparalleled tool for generating, finding, and sharing sound information. What's moronic is to assume that it hurts us more than it helps. -
14 Sep 08
Dana HuffWired article addresses the critics who say the Internet makes us dumb.
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27 Aug 08
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26 Aug 08
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Jim McClellanWired kicks back at Carr, Siegel and other web 2.0 crits - in partic the googlebrain thesis that new tech makes us all dumber or, at least, changes the way we think
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25 Aug 08
Todd SuomelaWhen in doubt, blame the latest technology. Socrates thought the advent of writing would wreak havoc on the powers of the mind. Christian theologians denounced the printing press as the work of the devil. The invention of the telephone was supposed to mak
internet culture technology technology-effects moral-panic gloom-and-doom import-delicious
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21 Aug 08
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20 Aug 08
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shanucoreNow comes a technological bogeyman for the 21st century, this one responsible for a supposed sharp uptick in American shallowness and credulity: the Internet and its digital spawn.
internet education learning information intelligence stupidity culture fear kneejerkreactionaries
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19 Aug 08
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Jeff StewartWhen in doubt, blame the latest technology. Socrates thought the advent of writing would wreak havoc on the powers of the mind. Christian theologians denounced the printing press as the work of the devil. The invention of the telephone was supposed to mak
internet darkages technology ignorance stupidity america sociology intelligence
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Linda WallaceNow comes a technological bogeyman for the 21st century, this one responsible for a supposed sharp uptick in American shallowness and credulity: the Internet and its digital spawn. Witness the wave of books and essays implicating the wired world in a sudd
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