Has the Internet Changed the Way We Think?

Every year, John Brockman, a New York publisher, editor, author and agent, queries thought leaders and scientists with his annual question. This year's question: How has the internet changed the way you think?

Answers this year range from explorations into gray matter, to personal musings. My answer explores the tension involved in navigating my physical and virtual lives. Other essays can be found here.

Navigating Physical and Virtual Lives

Before the Internet, I made more trips to the library and more phone calls. I read more books and my point of view was narrower and less informed. I walked more, biked more, hiked more, and played more. I made love more often.

The seductive online sages, scholars, and muses that joyfully take my curious mind wherever it needs to go, wherever it can imagine going, whenever it wants, are beguiling. All my beloved screens offer infinite, charming, playful, powerful, informative, social windows into the global human experience.

The Internet, the online virtual universe, is my jungle gym and I swing from bar to bar: learning about: how writing can be either isolating or social; DIY Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) at a Maker Faire; where to find a quantified self meetup; or how to make Sach moan sngo num pachok. I can use image search to look up hope or success or play. I can find a video on virtually anything; I learned how to safely open a young Thai coconut from this Internet of wonder.

As I stare out my window, at the unusually beautiful Seattle weather, I realize, I haven't been out to walk yet today -- sweet Internet juices still dripping down my chin. I'll mind the clock now, so I can emerge back into the physical world.

The physical world is where I not only see, I also feel -- a friend's loving gaze in conversation; the movement of my arms and legs and the breeze on my face as I walk outside; and the company of friends for a game night and potluck dinner. The Internet supports my thinking and the physical world supports that, as well as, rich sensing and feeling experiences.

It's no accident we're a culture increasingly obsessed with the Food Network and Farmer's Markets -- they engage our senses and bring us together with others.

How has the Internet changed my thinking? The more I've loved and known it, the clearer the contrast, the more intense the tension between a physical life and a virtual life. The Internet stole my body, now a lifeless form hunched in front of a glowing screen. My senses dulled as my greedy mind became one with the global brain we call the Internet.

I am confident that I can find out about nearly anything online and also confident that in my time offline, I can be more fully alive. The only tool I've found for this balancing act is intention.

The sense of contrast between my online and offline lives has turned me back toward prizing the pleasures of the physical world. I now move with more resolve between each of these worlds, choosing one, then the other -- surrendering neither.

How has the internet changed the way you think?

 

Follow Linda Stone on Twitter: www.twitter.com/LindaStone

Comments

[Linda Stone]

12:24 AM on 01/11/2010

Daphne,
It's likely feedback -- like the Toyota Prius offers or biofeedback, that will enable embodiment, breath, and a sense of presence while we're computing. My friend, JJ, says, "There's past tense, present tense, future tense, and internet tense." Where is this place we go when we're tethered to technology.

What I like about the Prius is that the feedback is ambient and non-invasive. Without punishment and finger pointing (naughty gas guzzler!), our driving habits evolve to use less fuel.

I think these type of technologies will strongly emerge over the next 15 years.

[Daphne Oz]

12:01 AM on 01/11/2010

i think you're absolutely right: we want experiences that engage our senses, we want information plus emotion. so how is the internet going to help us achieve both at once? or is this the last frontier that only 3D reality can fully oblige?

[Linda Stone]

07:09 PM on 01/10/2010

JGatsby - very much appreciate your mention of Douglas Engelbart, a true visionary, who contributed to shaping the industry.

jcd8822 - You might also enjoy a piece Brad Stone wrote for the NYT, January 9, The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by their 20's. What's a book for a child born today? Is it a Kindle? Is it on paper? Kids born today, called the iGeneration, seem "cable ready" to me. They have instincts for technology that are breathtaking.

Fiotheo - I hope you have a vampire-free lunch with a friend.

Dr. Laura T - People love getting thank you notes. It's a terrific tradition to keep!

Thanks for your comments!

[JGatsby]

11:22 AM on 01/10/2010

I just want to take this chance to give credit to one of the visionaries who imagined the Internet back when the rest of the world was programming computers via punch cards: Doug Englebart http://dougengelbart.org/ In the early 80's I saw a video of Mr. Engelbart doing a demo. He was communicating with a colleague via real time video conference. They had a shared screen (called What You See is What I See, a collaborative version of WYSIWYG) and were browsing various hypertext documents, lists of items that could be collapsed expanded, etc. All that probably makes us say big deal now but as I said when this demo was done not only was there no HTML and no videoconference, there weren't even graphic user interfaces, Monitors (and programming was often done via punch cards and printer read outs) that existed were character based with no graphics or mouse. Englebart imagined the Internet and his goal was always that it would help us think and create in new ways.

[Laura Trice]

02:22 AM on 01/10/2010

Great question, Linda. In the 20's it was the radio, then later the televsion, then the computer and now the internet. There is something cool and amazing about the new...each thing taking us more and more towards Stark Trek being realized! the impossible becoming reality. I like to take one day a week off from technology - actually use a landline and talk to friends and family when I am sitting at home versus driving. I love balancing the internet with basics, like taking the time to bake bread of do a math problem long hard. My back to basics act today was writing thank you notes for Christmas gufts and getting them in the mail.

[jcd8822]

12:54 AM on 01/10/2010

At the age of 68 I have finally started to mature and look at the other side of the coin. I no longer consider only my point of view. I am also more interested in learning. I just wish we had the Internet when I was 20 years old. I would have done better in school and gone further in my education. It is now a race to see how much I can learn before they finally throw the sod in my face.

[fiotheo]

12:53 AM on 01/10/2010

Hi Linda,
I almost didn't reply -- you know there is all the digital work involved in becoming a member, so as to log in... And then I realized, in a way, that is what your article is about -- that we have become these passive info-sponges that have lost touch with our own real lives. Thank you so much for saying something that I have never seen broached in all my hours combing the internet -- you have bravely offered up a portrait of the husks our real lives have become. I have wondered why I haven't had lunch with one of my best friends in years, why I have stopped using the phone much anymore, why there are so many things from my pre-internet life I have slowly felt fall away. You'd think it would be obvious what has happened, but the internet offers such an alter-life that you don't entirely notice it sucking the blood out of your real life. Maybe this is why we are so interested in vampires lately. I've always hated the whole contemporary obsession with addiction... but what happens when the whole culture is addicted. Yikes. Well, I'm gonna quit this post right now and get off the internet and brush my real teeth, and climb into bed with a book -- something I haven't done in a long time. Thanks for throwing water on my virtual face and waking me up!

[Linda Stone]

11:29 PM on 01/09/2010

Thanks for the comments. Soulmentor, I love Leonard Schlain's Alphabet vs. the Goddess, so much, that I bought a Ginny Ruffner glass sculpture inspired by the book. It's a fascinating and powerful exploration. Thanks for mentioning it. Amandastories, I hope you enjoyed Avatar 3D! Internet juices dripping down my chin! Time for a break. ;-)

[Soulmentor]

05:15 PM on 01/09/2010

Yes. If one understands the dynamics of left brain/right brain processes it becomes obvious that the internet is changing the way we think in a physical brain functioning manner. I encourage everyone to read "The Alphabet versus The Goddess" by Leanard Shlain, a surprisingly illuminating and heavily researched book about how our brain patterns are changing as we transition from the hand written word to dual hand usage combined with more flash visuals. That transition is changing even our spiritual perceptions as it leads us away from the right brain dominant male oriented generally competitive thinking to more evenly balanced thought processes. It's a fascinating read.

[amandastories]

04:57 PM on 01/09/2010

Wow. I LOL all the time on the internet, but I rarely LAUGH OUT LOUD with my physical voice while logged on. I just did, at your image of those sweet sweet internet juices! Here's one way the internet has changed my thinking: I'm looking forward to our family trip to Seattle Center today, and the kernel of enjoyment I anticipate most is getting temporarily sucked into the IMAX presentation of Avatar 3-D. I've heard it's so mentally and emotionally immersive that it's surprising to re-enter real life. Virtual worlds--including the internet of course--are awesome, and so is RL, and the transitions between them are roller coaster tunnels. Whee!