Are you smarter or dumber? How computers changed the human brain

All scientists agree that the World Wide Web has reached the human brain, but they argue about what the result is Computers affect the way we think. The first computers took on simple tasks to increase human knowledge, and with great advances in science and engineering, these computers eventually improved to the extent that they made it possible to create the World Wide Web.

However, it is largely thanks to transistors that computers have become so widespread, allowing the Internet to penetrate everywhere. Before them, the world was very different, and now scientists are examining life, of which transistors, computers and the Internet have become an integral part, and asking questions. Scientists now know for sure that right now these technologies are shaping our brains.

Computer makes us smarter or dumber? In any scientific experiment, it is necessary that one group is exposed and the other remains unchanged for purposes of comparison. The second group is called the control group, and it serves as a reference point for the results of the experiment. But when measuring the impact of the internet, it's incredibly difficult to find someone who hasn't come into contact with it.

How to find the control group? Those who fit in one dimension may have other characteristics that make them unsuitable for comparison: for example, they speak a different language, live in poverty, or belong to a different culture, like the Amish, for example. Be that as it may, this dilemma does not prevent scientists, specialists and ordinary people from expressing logical or intuitive thoughts about the influence of the Internet.

The optimist camp believes that the World Wide Web makes us smarter. Just a couple of mouse clicks separates us from the data we are looking for, which is transferred at the speed of light through fiber optics directly to our screens. During the flapping of the wings of a hummingbird, we can find out the answers to questions, for example: where is Timbuktu? Which city is the capital of Utah? how many feet in one mile? Just a few decades ago, answering them would have taken longer than delivering a pizza. In the past, we had to take out a map, open an encyclopedia in a library, or use a calculator and conversion table. But others see the impact of the internet in less rosy terms.

For centuries, people got their knowledge from books, and our gray matter is used to sequential thinking, when one idea flows into another, and then into the next. But in the web, ideas don’t flow they swoop, pull, push, and shake.

Brain science says that with new habits, the brain develops precisely these skills. Some scientists and experts believe that because of the use of the Internet, a person develops learning skills that impair the ability to think deeply.

Scientists have found that our memory has divisions: short-term memory and long-term memory, where the first stores information for a few seconds, and the second for years.

But there is also a working memory that connects them, acting like note paper, where ideas drawn from long term memory are processed. When we're figuring out how much to tip at a restaurant, or remembering the next step in a recipe, or mentally rotating an object, it's all happening in RAM.

RAM capacity is limited. And at the beginning of the XX century. the telephone company was convinced of this when it needed to improve the switchboard. In the 1920s telephone numbers were seven-digit, which, from the point of view of mathematics, made it possible to give unique numbers to residents of large cities. Seven seemed like a good choice.

At first, telephone numbers were not purely numeric. They consisted of numbers and letters. For example, a number in New York could be: "PEN(nsylvania) 5000". But by the 1960s and 1970s all phone numbers already had seven digits. And there was a problem. People made mistakes when dialing a number because they remembered the numbers incorrectly.

Bell Labs sponsored a study of RAM capacity for long numbers like 15553141593. This helped to discover two important facts: first, if the number is broken into parts - for example, 1-555-314-1593, then it is remembered without errors, and therefore this is what American phone numbers look like now. Secondly, it turned out that RAM, like an express checkout, can process no more than a certain number of elements. And for RAM, this number is about seven.

The consumption of information is limited by the working memory of a person. What the Internet is doing to our brains, working memory seems to scoop up information with a cup and transfer it either from the lake of long-term memory or into it.

We have entered an age where bait headlines are vying for our attention from all sides, and there is no longer enough time to think deeply as we flutter from one story to another. Our knowledge is superficial. Reading a book, we are completely immersed in the details and subtleties of another world and swim in depth. But wandering the web is like fording the world.

We are floundering in the shallows because we have reached the critical point of brain capacity and because of this we are forced to move on to a new way of interacting with information. Hollywood has creatively explored this impasse by showing what the Internet has become for us.

In the 2000 film Memento, a man named Leonard Shelby wants to find his wife's killer. But there is a nuance. Leonard suffers from a memory impairment that prevents him from remembering new events (called "anterograde amnesia"). With the help of various objects, Leonard comes up with a way to remember what happened. He finds Polaroids in his pocket showing his hotel and people he "knows".

For musicians, this is one zone, for artists it is another, and for writers it is a third. We do not have exact ideas about how the brain creates, one thing is clear: the network influences it. And there are two opposite vectors of its impact on the ability to create. If creativity is defined as the combination of ideas, their separation and modification, then the Internet can help with such creativity.

There are several stages in the creative process - preparation, innovation and production. The Internet is a great tool for the first stage. The Internet can provide a researcher with information very quickly.

But there are also disadvantages. Creativity is not just a storage of ideas, but a process in which the brain needs time to think slowly about them. Creativity requires preparation, but it also takes time to mature. When a person is alone with himself and at the same time relaxed, he is often visited by bright creative ideas.

One classic example is Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. Perhaps if Newton had been checking his e-mail at that moment. Creative thoughts would not have arisen in his head. If his attention was completely absorbed by the smartphone, he might not notice the fallen apple.

The time we spend online and our tendency to do several things at the same time overwhelm our brains. In addition, when the RAM is crammed to the limit, it is much easier to distract us. Distractions are now more powerful, and the use of the Internet is addictive, and this prevents us from realizing the potential of the network.

In addition, we live in a modern world with our ancient brain. Our hunter gatherer minds exist in an age where there is no one to physically hunt and nothing to gather, so we find ourselves in a vicious circle hunting for followers and “likes” on social media. The Internet could be a tool for deep thinking, but the way we use it to distract ourselves with everything does not make us thinkers.

We understand that we are at a crossroads, and even the creators of these technologies themselves know that although we win something with them, we also lose something. In many private schools in Silicon Valley, where there is no shortage of money, the visitor may find that something is missing. There are no computers!

For centuries, people have rejected innovation. In ancient Greece, pundits lamented that when students take notes, their oral tradition skills suffer and they become stupid. Perhaps computers are just the high-tech equivalent of this problem. Finding the golden mean is a question of questions.

Certainly, we gain something from our technologies. Studies show that in the XX century. IQ test scores have gone up every year. We are smarter than our parents and their parents. We know more. We are able to do more than they. But there is nothing new here. We do in a few minutes what our grandfathers could not have done in a few days

The Internet, as well as our devices and computers, raises the question of what it means to be human, because what is important for the algorithm is not the same as what is important for us. The Web knows how fast it searches, how many results it returns, and what the most popular answers are. She cannot appreciate what is important for humanity.

Algorithms don't care about the quality of our sleep, holidays, language, empathy, prejudice, scientific discoveries, fireflies, the night sky, privacy, or even how a person thinks. Accordingly, we cannot demand that technologies solve these problems, because they cannot appreciate the importance of these intangible things.

All those ingredients that give flavor to life, such as music, movies, food, friendship, laughter, justice, peace, stories, festivals, chance encounters, flowers, travel, handwriting, love, truth, sports, fashion, hugs, sunrises, sunsets, vacations, fiction, caffeine, and books mean nothing to a computer. These are all human affairs, so they require human efforts to preserve and even protect them.

The computer processor was originally based on the principles of the human brain, but now we ourselves are becoming more and more like computers. However, not all aspects of mortal life can be associated with the machine. Our gray matter is more complex than a simple set of switches that quickly make yes or no decisions through complex programming code.

The human brain contains the mystery of genius, creativity, imagination. We are imperfect and not very efficient, but we are also flexible and courageous. We do things that defy logic, but we are also capable of inventing new things. We can create chaos, but we can also create beauty.

The rise of computers is making us think seriously about what makes us human. We are at a crossroads, and humanity must decide what to strive for - to create more advanced machines or to improve as a biological species. The present moment requires careful consideration of possible development paths. This moment also encourages us to be brave. If we do not like the direction in which we are going, we need to muster up the courage to.