Written By: Joel Suss
We are the information generation.
We can all readily witness the power of the internet in terms of social communication: from catalyzing the toppling of dictators in the Arab world to the Indignados movement in Spain. But it is the unprecedented flow of information which constitutes the real revolution of our time.
Never before has information been so accessible. We are hyper-connected. Our very existence is being fundamentally re-shaped, our brains literally being re-wired. Recent scientific studies show how the human brain is actually evolving before our eyes in response to information technology (see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/07/13/science.1207745 to read a number of academic articles on the subject). Studies primarily demonstrate the connection between memory and the omnipresence of information, namely that we don’t need to commit anything to heart anymore since everything one wants to know is readily retrievable on the World Wide Web. What is less understood is how the information revolution is transforming our social selves.
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