Link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Rewiring the mind. I don't by the argument that the web is "messing with our brains." Sure, our behavior is changing with respect to how we use information in this medium as opposed to other mediums, but it is not because something fundamental is changing at a cognitive level, but rather that something fundamental is being re-awakened.
Yeah it's a post-post modern world (whatever that means) but it is all too easy to call something "new." We are processing information faster/different because that is all the bandwidth that we have to deal with it. This is not much different from processing information at 70-80 miles per hour, at rush hour, while driving on our favorite metro loop. Also, not all that much different than what hunter/gatherers did when trying to find food for the "family dinner." In short, you/them/us did not have the luxury to process information in any sort of "reflective manner" (you study long you study wrong and junior goes to bed hungry) but rather you literally had hundreds (if not more) of decisions to make in a relatively short period of time.
The wiring to do this has been around for a very long time...
