Gord Hotchkiss from a
post on his blog:
At Xerox's PARC in the late 90's, Peter Pirolli was exploring how humans navigated hypertext linked information environments. The invention of hyperlinking introduced a new challenge in information retrieval. Throughout history, information was structured into an imposed taxonomy or hierarchy. We sorted it alphabetically or by the Dewey decimal system. And, because information was static, it stayed within the boundaries we built for it. But the creation of the hyperlink meant that information suddenly became unstructured and organic. Topical links from source to source meant that imposed editorial restrictions no longer worked. Links kept leaping above the boundaries we tried to impose on information. Given this new challenge, Pirolli wanted to explore the subconscious strategies we used to navigate this unstructured information environment. He wanted to reduce it to a predictable algorithm. Time after time, he was frustrated. Humans would start down a predictable path, only to suddenly take an expected turn. The patterns didn't seem logical. But, as chance would have it, he had recently read some work on biological foraging patterns and decided to overlay that on the behaviors he was observing. It was Pirolli's "A Ha" moment. Suddenly, the patterns made sense. Humans, Pirolli (along with Stuart Card and others) discovered, foraged for information. We used the same strategies to navigate the web that we use to look for food. And, just as is the case with calories, laziness (or efficiency) is a pretty good strategy for finding information.
And from another
post on his blog:
So, I've gone fairly far down the path of this analogy to make a point. According to Pirolli, we use exactly the same mechanisms to find online information. We go first to the fridge, or, in this case, Google, because nine times out of ten, or even 99 times out of a hundred, we find what we're looking for there. And, if we don't, we start to get frustrated because our brain is suddenly called into service and it isn't at all happy about it. There's no conscious conspiracy to screw Rupert Murdoch, there's just us following our own mental grooves. And these grooves dictate a huge percentage of our online activity. There's been little neuro-scanning research done on how our brains work during online activity, but the little that's been done seems to indicate a regular shifting of activity from the "reasoning" to the "autopilot" sections of the brain. I suspect strongly that this is especially true when we use search engines. If we can navigate on autopilot, we will.
So, back to Intel's brain chip. What if our thoughts, in their entirety, could instantly be communicated to Google, or Bing, or what ever flavor of search assistant you want to imagine? What if refining all the information that was presented was a split second closing of a synapse, rather than a laborious application of filters that sit on the interface? Faster and far more efficiently than talking to another human, we could quickly sift through all the information and functionality available to mankind to tailor it specifically to what we needed at that time. That starts to boggle the imagination. But, is it feasible?
And
one last one:
I think the Internet has jammed far too many numbered and bulleted lists down our gullet. I think someone has to provide content that a few people are willing to spend some time over and ponder. I want people to think a little. I don't want a grocery list of simple to implement ideas that you can tack to your fridge. That's what everyone does. I want to do something different. I think more people should do the same. I suspect the internet is carving our brain into tiny little pieces that are incapable of grappling with anything that requires an attention span longer than that of a gnat.
And if you've read this far I'll assume you don't have the attention span of a gnat, but I'll admit a dirty little secret, my attention span is very gnat like. I barely read actual books any more. I find myself skimming articles or using ctrl+f to find the exact morsel of information I need online -- often the same information I've searched for before. Sometimes a two minute youtube video is asking for too much of my time. I'll claim that the internet made me this way. Perhaps is started with too much TV. Likely it is my adaptation to the new "just in time" information economy that Gord talks about. I applaud Gord for bucking the trend and publishing blog posts that are interesting and substantive (and may cause me to read his book when it is published). But let me bulletize a synopsis of the four snippets above:
- Humans forage for information in the same way that they once foraged for food
- We search for information online on auto-pilot, that is to say, habitually.
- Future technology will let our brains interface directly with the web
- The internet has shortened our attentions spans
This all seems to lead to a bigger question, not of psychology, but of philosophy. If our brains can interface directly with the web, does so on autopilot, has no need to store information locally, can do so in a way that removes the act of foraging (by removing the external computer as an interface, this is likely) then the definition of what it is to be human has changed. And at what point do we simply cease to be human?
Posted via email from James's posterous
posted on
Monday, November 30, 2009 9:31 PM |