Human Development and Social Media.. Is it making us stupid?

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I would find that highly unlikly, inovation fuels the pace of change and if you plot major developments then the pace is actually increasing. Further more every generation says things like this and its still increasing. Learning and knowlage maybe different (for instance learning isnt about rote knowlage anymore, its about learning how to find infomation)

 

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Critical thinking is not for everyone since it is a skill and knack that takes time to master. Social media allows more people to approximate this skill with less effort. One can recieve the bottom lines or the prosthesis or scaffolding for thinking, processed and already to memorize.

Let me give an analogy. Before guns one needed to have strength, skill and stamina to fight with swords. It took skill and years of practice. Once the first gun was invented, now even the weak, out of shape and uncordinated could play. You point and fire.

But like the gun, the scope of war (of words) was able to expand, since you did not need the same types of skills. With only information, the actor playing the role of the doctor can appear to be a doctor It is up to the individual to separate reality and fantasy, with the individual able to memorize even this off the net. But it might come from an actor thereby making misinformation appear real.

Just as a good actor playing the role of the doctor, might create the impression his role is what you should expect of your own doctor. The critical thinker, in such a world, who may not give bottom lines to memorize, migh look less than correct, if the actor playing the intellectual, sells more bottom lines. The real doctor may not be what you expect.

 

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bells, i wonder if those studies also looked at women gosping with friends and buying womens weekly?

Different format, same activity. The only real difference is the speed i would guess

 

I think he does have a point but its because of the delivery of information. In the before time, in the long long ago, people had to digest more concentrated information in books and newspapers, they had time to think. Social media floods you with different kinds of information every few seconds and it doesn't allow you the time to think. Occupy had a chat on their website and the mods had to shut it down. Why? The chatter was coming in at such a chaotic rate that no one had any time to respond before more chatter came and about something completely different. Everyone spoke, no one listened, it was absurd. The information also has varying degrees of importance, it doesn't filter out the rubbish from the essential. When I am reading a news piece online and I am inundated with distractions, ads popping up offering a succession of zappos products because i happened to recently google a pair of Betsy Johnson pumps, pictures moving, little bits of information demanding attention, pictures of celebrities at the corner and god only knows what else. It takes me twice as long to read the article than if it had been printed out and i probably absorb half of the information. And meanwhile as all of that is going on someone will contact me on Skype and I talk to them as I search the web or tweet or text or fill in a sciforum post. No I think he definitely has a point. I disagree with one point he makes which is that people feel they don't have to think and opinions are packaged for them, I don't think this is accurate I believe that people cannot think due to the influx of information good and bad and the lack of digestion. I also notice that the web can build a consensus of good or bad, true of false premises based on how often it is repeated. Again the lack of silence or quiet contemplation over some material is an impediment to critical thinking. Its like when I noticed one day that I had no problem being online while also having the tv on and I finally stopped myself and thought, "how can I multitask in this way and pretend to fully be aware of any one thing?" Consequently I don't do that anymore. No facebook or myspace or tweeting and I don't chat either.

 

true for the first, however women are more social than men are generally. This is a good thing for the most part because it gives women a bigger social network to surport them when things go wrong. However it also can be a bad thing (look at how girls bully, by social isolation, rumors ect rather than by direct physical violence and intmidation).

As for the mags i wasnt generallising there, i was specifically refering to mags like womens weekly because they are gospip mags, cosmo, knitting mags, computer game mags and "mens mags" are much less so about gosip. Infact in the case of mens mags its more about naked bodies than anything else (could say the same about PC mags but the naked bodies arnt human

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)

Further more Fox news could be concidered to have the same effect, how many right wing nut jobs do you come across who still sprout that obama is osama and that he wasnt born in the US because fox tells them so.

 

As with anything else, symmetry rules. While the plethora of digital devices we have been flooded with helps folks "stay in touch", it remains to the user to choose what they attend to.

It appears to me that many - if not most - digital device users use same inappropriately. To wit: while driving a vehicle, standing in a que, at the checkout counter etc. Most of the conversations are banal, to say the least. Most amazing are the idiots who will stop and scream at another person for "eavesdropping" on a "private conversation" that they are carrying on loudly in a public place. :shrug:

While these devices have allowed folks to circumvent government attempts to prevent civil unrest and related actions in the name of "freedom", they have also enabled folks to commit crimes, illegal surveillance and the like. Many persons use them as a means to avoid "being here now" which often puts their safety at risk, as in a crosswalk in rush hour traffic. I am sure that we all know what I am referring to.

Personally, I have a cell phone..for emergencies. I do not use it otherwise, have only made a couple of calls this year. While I have this pc, I spend a lot more time 'socializing' with my real world friends in real world situations than I do here online. I do not participate in 'social networks' as the content is trivial and there are no people from my past that I wish to "reconnect" with. They are no longer a part of my life for good reasons.

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You have pretty much summarized my own observations, Stoniphi, and I likewise have a cell phone for outgoing calls only, and have never come close to utilizing the 'free' minutes that come with the most basic plan. Sometimes I begrudge the $41.00+/month that it costs (we have a monopoly service provider in these parts), yet because of the distances between population centers and an extreme winter climate, the back up has been appreciated and contributes to peace of mind.

 

I work in a building where there is a company that uses pretty young girls to sell shit(booth girls , bud girls whatever). When we first moved here us guys were like wtf jackpot!...but they have become wallpaper...literally. They DO NOT UNPLUG. They never stop it with their fuckin phones...it is like that Bizarre episode of startrek next gen where that "game" with the visor controlled everyone. I have seen these girls nearly run into moving cars they don't give a shit about anything except what's on their little viewscreens.

 

Yeah! it's tough when the thing your 5 year old wants most is his or her own phone. What the hell is going on here? Do the kids use these phone to cheat on tests in school? Or do they just provide a distraction to learning the school courses?

 

I think what he points at is part of a much bigger problem - namely, when people rely on others too much and become consumers of advice.


Here's an interesting article on this:

Are You Lifehacking Too Much?

Some books:

Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People

 

Oh naturally it proposes an array of problems - and you can see from the actions of the younger generation that this concept of "blogging" their lives as if everyone (who never actually talks to them) cares is all part of the "I'm most important and want everything now" generation.

Networking sites do have their conveniences though, and the more people join it the more you end up being sucked into it as the easiest means of communication. It's the only reason I have one, as much as I hate it - plus I receive event invites and it's a quick way to let someone know if you'll be there or not.
I see FB as but a tool to save time, although lately have enjoyed posting the odd witticism, interesting thing, or displaying something I feel strongly about. If people ignore it, so be it - but good god if one more person posts a pic of the menu they had their dinner from I will kill someone....

Twitter on the other hand is the most pointless invention I can think of, but high school never ends. :shrug:

 

Lucy -
"I also notice that the web can build a consensus of good or bad, true of false premises based on how often it is repeated."

This goes even further. Have a read.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-10/green-public-discussion/4002222?WT.svl=theDrum

I don't have much to add to that article. I don't in any way limit the effect to politics and talkback radio, either. I don't know if you've ever read "Ender's Game", but a part of it was devoted to a future online community in which the great issues of the day were discussed. It did certainly fire a young man's imagination.

That was the possibility.

This, is the reality.

 

You and me both.

But I was more concerned with this:
"...telling someone with no real knowledge of the issue beyond a gut feel that it rankles their deepest prejudices, that they are not entitled, under those terms, to enter the discussion."

This is the problem I discern with social media (particularly discussion forums). The notion that "everyone is entitled to an opinion" has evolved into something crass and insidious; the belief that every opinion has value; and moreover, that one should feel entitled to express it regardless of foundation, logic, or knowledge of that being discussed.

The resulting cacophony not only renders a relevant and informed opinion difficult to find, it deprives one of the will to do so.

 

I feel ya. I find it hard to read articles that aren't specifically citing journaled papers. I cannot stand anecdotal evidence being heralded as unrefuteable science by opinion-bloggers