I visited this breathless NYT business article and clicked the Safari 5 "Reader" button ...
Your Brain on Computers - Attached to Technology and Paying a Price - NYTimes.comSweet. Great font, highly readable, multiple pages in one place. Much faster to read. No ads.
My brain on computers is faster than ever. (No comment on the article, it's not worth the bother.)
Update 6/9/10: Tyler Cowen has expressed my opinions on the NYT computer-brain article.
To be sure, I expect our tools (books, clocks, measurement devices) alter our brains and minds. Brains are what allow long lived organisms to adapt to rapidly changing environments, and computation is increasingly our environment. So we expect our brains to be altered. We also expect that in a new environment formerly maladaptive traits may become adaptive, and adaptive traits may become maladaptive. That's 2nd tier natural selection in action.
I'm unimpressed, however, with the quality of the research and even less impressed with the quality of the discussions.
Update 6/9/10: Tyler Cowen has expressed my opinions on the NYT computer-brain article.
To be sure, I expect our tools (books, clocks, measurement devices) alter our brains and minds. Brains are what allow long lived organisms to adapt to rapidly changing environments, and computation is increasingly our environment. So we expect our brains to be altered. We also expect that in a new environment formerly maladaptive traits may become adaptive, and adaptive traits may become maladaptive. That's 2nd tier natural selection in action.
I'm unimpressed, however, with the quality of the research and even less impressed with the quality of the discussions.
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