Pew Survey: Does Technology Effect Young People's Brains Positively Or Negatively?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is a good chance young people growing up in today's always-wired world will eventually become bright, nimble decision makers - if they don't wind up intellectual lightweights unable to concentrate long enough to chew over a good book.

So say 1,021 technology insiders, critics and students surveyed by the Pew Research Center who were fairly evenly split about how always-on technology will impact the teenagers and twenty-somethings of "Generation Y."

In the survey, released on Wednesday, 55 percent agreed with a statement that in 2020 the brains of young people would be "wired" differently from those over 35, with good results for finding answers quickly and without shortcomings in their mental processes.

But 42 percent were pessimistic, agreeing with a second statement that in 2020 young technology users would be easily distracted, would lack deep thinking skills and would thirst only for instant gratification.

"There is this tension going on between the positive and the negative (aspects) that we foresee," said Janna Anderson, an associate professor at North Carolina's Elon University and one of the study's authors.

"Right now a lot of people (in the survey) are responding, 'That's already my life.' They are anticipating this," she told Reuters.

The survey's forecasts carry weight since a similar poll taken in the early 1990s accurately predicted conflicts that would arise between online technology and copyrights, privacy and established institutions, Anderson said.

THINK HARD

The survey participants gave consistent predictions on the key skills young people would need in 2020. They included public problem-solving through cooperative work, searching effectively for information online, and weighing the quality of information.

"In contrast, the ability to read one thing and think hard about it for hours will not be of no consequence, but it will be of far less consequence for most people," Jonathan Grudin, Microsoft Inc's top researcher and one of the survey's respondents, said in comments carried in the Pew report.

Barry Chudakov, a research fellow at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, said staying aware of technology's influence and intrusions would be at a premium.

"Is this my intention, or is the tool inciting me to feel and think this way?" he wrote.

Many of those surveyed backed educational reforms to make distracted young people better able to handle always-on technology and to focus. They included time-out zones, meditation, silence areas and going without Internet devices.

Alvaro Retena, distinguished technologist at Hewlett-Packard Co, forecast stagnation in technology and even in literature as attention spans shorten.

The Pew Research Center's survey was carried out online from August 28 to October 31, 2011, as part of Pew's ongoing project on the Internet and American life.

The study involved respondents ranging from such industry insiders as Bruce Nordman, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Hal Varian, Google Inc's top economist, to university and high school students.

Forty percent of those surveyed were research scientists or employed by a college or university, and 12 percent work for an information technology company, the poll said.

(Reporting By Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Thomasch)

Comments

[sonoffestus]

08:41 PM on 03/01/2012

A friend, a doctor who is a top researcher in the field of neural plasticity told me that they are now just starting to see the ill effects of computing on neural development. While computing makes one's life easier, it appears to be detrimental to neural development.

Simply put, the brain needs more exercise than clicking a mouse.

Though not a researcher , I see this happening around me especially when interacting with younger people, many of whom seem to have a VERY difficult time with verbal communication skills. How about simply answering a phone? Huh, and ya seem to be the extent of some of their skills. Maybe it's just parenting skills are lacking?

Just sharing........................Don't shoot the messenger.

[jojobinx]

07:50 PM on 03/01/2012

Well p8q2b8ng you are astute. So far the only one.

[Trebot]

04:36 PM on 03/01/2012

I'm personally waiting for the day when they can download how to fly a helicopter into my brain directly, like in The Matrix ;)

A new piece of technology is a stepping stone to a higher level of learning, not a replacement for thinking. Why spend 10 hours memorizing something I can look up in 30 seconds? Look it up and then use that 10 hours you saved to go further. New technology is supposed to make things easier and faster. This is not a bad thing. Or are we all using an abacus to figure out our bills?

[jojobinx]

04:21 PM on 03/01/2012

Who needs to read a book anymore?
Just pull up one of hundreds of papers already written or go to spark notes.

[nckjm]

01:19 PM on 03/01/2012

I would pose this question: there is no doubt that younger generations will have access to more information than we can imagine and will be likely be much more knowledgeable. But will they be better thinkers? Will they be wiser? Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge and information in a way that improves our quality of and appreciation of life. How do families, schools, and society foster and nurture budding "wisdom" in the children being reared in an instant gratification and surface-level thinking world?

[LightShadow62]

04:54 PM on 03/01/2012

Technology removes the goal of knowledge for knowledge sake. Even today most people do not bother to use critical thought they just take the first item in the web search as factual and move on.

[MichaelAKD]

01:06 PM on 03/01/2012

when we lose the ability to know how the things we use in our daily lives work we are as a whole diminished. i have this picture in my mind right now, it is from the original series hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and at the very end arthur dent is surrounded by the rejects from another world, the bureaucrats, hair dressers, etc. and they all sit round a pile of wood, just wood because none of them have the slightest idea or care of how to make a fire. i can see it now, a remake of that scene with all the survivors pointing their ipads at the ring of wood and telling siri, make fire.

[jojobinx]

12:24 PM on 03/01/2012

Look around you, it already has. Spelling and complete sentences are a
thing of the past, even with spell check.

[p8q2b8ng]

01:51 PM on 03/01/2012

You do realize you didn't use correct grammar to make that comment, right?

[Tsvi1]

11:25 AM on 03/01/2012

The sad thing here is that we can totally see the bias of out society. "Instant gratification" is considered a vice for some reason because we assume "instant" is a bad quality. For centuries people have been looking at how to make life more pleasurable, some of them fascinating philosophers like the Renaissance writer Lorenzo Valla. For large period of history, pleasure and self-sacrifice were two possibilities for the good life. However, today its all about work for work's sake. Whether communist or capitalist, the obsession with WORK as a form of salvation and the good life is absolutely ridiculous. It merely shows how strongly Protestant and Christian North America still is, even if you aren't Protestant you have been influenced by the culture they've created (consider that both Marxism (German) and Capitalism (English) are correlated with Protestants, even if the writers and thinkers did not mention that)

Of course, there is nothing wrong with work. Work is important and useful. However, it is not the end all greatest good, and searching for pleasure is not an evil or "intellectually lightweight".

[1kant2]

11:35 AM on 03/01/2012

You are going of on a tangent here that is not related to the article. The problem is that so many things in life are not immediately available without lots of hard work, work that can only realistically be done by concentrating on singular tasks for long periods of time. Examples would be the hours required poring over philosophical or legal or medical texts for graduate work to attain degrees and careers in those fields. That ability to study for uninterrupted hours on end is a learned behavior and too many people who can not sit still for more than 5 minutes without plugin in are at an extreme disadvantage in succeeding in those fields. And while you lament that western culture is too focused on work and not pleasure, the only jobs that people who are not able to unplug and concentrate on will be repetitive, task oriented, non critical thinking professions. They are limiting their opportunities to advance by not being able to focus for long periods of time. That is why they become intellectual lightweights. They simply do not have the capacity to learn at a certain level.

[Lorax 8]

12:33 PM on 03/01/2012

Instant gratification is about as gratifying as instant coffee.

[1kant2]

11:23 AM on 03/01/2012

Too many commentators are missing the point here.

The author is not vilifying technology. Handhelds, social media, etc. are revolutionary and can be a good thing, in moderation. The problem is that too many people are being consumed with always being plugged in and on that they are developing real problems with specific kinds of learning.

There are many kinds of things that can not be learned without having the ability to sit down for hours and concentrate on one thing. When you can not sit still for more than a few minutes without having to check fb (whether at the dinner table or in a class or trying to study) it has a detrimental effect. I see this first had. I am a gen x'er (35). I still like to take college classes when not at work and I see more and more kids who can not even sit through a 50 minute lecture without going for their phone. And it is these same kids who can not answer questions when asked or have trouble engaging in a back and forth with the teacher that requires thinking. They are not dumb, they just can't concentrate long enough.

[KarmaPatrol]

11:03 AM on 03/01/2012

Websites are great for a few pages but there's still better resolution on paper when reading actual books. Plus when you spill coffee or a beer, best that it be on a $14 book than a $500+ iPad

[sgillhoolley]

09:43 AM on 03/01/2012

Completely true, the invention of the hammer and saw made work so much faster that people stopped appreciating the pattern in a log or the way bark felt. What a terrible day for mankind. And the wheel, we just can't go fast enough because of those things. We need to destroy all technology so that we can hone our fantastic thinking abilities.

People and their fear of technology make me laugh. They are tools, nothing more.

[Lorax 8]

12:40 PM on 03/01/2012

It is not a fear of technology (you may have missed the point of the article). It is a concern about the (possible) lack of or non-development of, critical thinking skills in high-end tech users. Sure the answer to a question can be found in 0.45 seconds on Google, but what is the value of that answer if the info is faulty? Was the right question even asked? Technology is no substitute for knowing.
Like Wyatt Earp said "Fast is good, but accuracy is everything".

[writersbloc]

06:17 AM on 03/01/2012

I dunno. I seem to be forgetting more and more information over time for whatever reason. I think that researcher who wrote about the problem of too much information and data and how the essence of information is lost might be on to something. My colleagues and professors are well-aware of the problem they face when it comes to the opportunity-cost of information and learning. There's a de-emphasis on the fundamentals such that a comprehensive sense of knowledge, any knowledge, from it's foundations to the present, is lacking.

All I know is that it's 3 in the morning.

[Pectin]

10:46 PM on 02/29/2012

There were those who thought using the written word, rather than one's memory, would have a seriously detrimental effect on the world.

[guy girl]

10:17 PM on 02/29/2012

This is like saying that the Dewey Decimal System retarded philosophical thinking when just the opposite happened. Making information easier and quicker to find only enhances learning and thinking. Regarding focus, kids have never been able to concentrate very intently, but those same kids grow up to be adults who, given a task, consider it, delve in and accomplish it just fine. Just ask Ian Simpson.

[Peter Combs]

06:27 PM on 02/29/2012

Its becomming Rome..and the Tech Toys are the new "Bread and Circus"...

When the largest market cap company in the world is a toy maker..we're in trouble...

[Tsvi1]

11:30 AM on 03/01/2012

Your home and car are expensive toys.I sure hope you walk around everywhere and live in a cave. Anyhow, if you look back at history that largest companies tended to be those dealing with military hardware, slavery, and the exploitation of natural and other human resources. So clearly this is FAR better.

[Peter Combs]

06:21 PM on 03/01/2012

Sure their are some oil companies in the biggest Corporation list, but so is Proctor and Gamble, Wal Mart, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, Johnson and Johnson..etc..