The Shallows by Nicholas Carr

This book is also sub-titled "How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember".

This was one of a couple of books I read on holiday this year and it has really opened my mind to how our technology is literally changing the way we think.

Carr's book shows how our brains have changed as each new technology has come along, not just the internet. All the way through this book he backs up his arguments by referencing appropriate scientific evidence. He works through the different technologies from the printed word to the latest digital media affirming Marshall McLuhan's theories along the way. He debunks each contrary theory including that our brains become rigid in adulthood and then start loosing brain cells at an alarming rate.

He shows that if we come to depend on the internet for our information we will loose our abilities to reason etc. Indeed he almost goes as far as to say we will loose our humanity. However he doesn't suggest we should stop using technology, just not depend on it, so all in moderation is the name of the game.

He also outlines that one of the core principles of the internet - that 'free & open access to information encourages innovation' is not working, that the use of search engines is actually reducing the number of citations in academic documents as the search engines will present the most popular answers at the top and people tend not to read as broadly and deeply as they once did and so the most popular wins and it produces an ever decreasing circle as only the most popular are referenced, so the link pool gets smaller & smaller. So rather than opening out and making access to a brad range of ideas and information the search engines and the internet are doing the exact reverse.

He presented evidence as to how we now read, especially on line, that we only read around 18% of the text on a web site and that we read like a letter F. So we read the top line for a bit, then jump down read in a little before jumping down to the bottom.  Scary or useful information for web designers.

He also makes a compelling case for the internet and our use of search engines reducing our time to think, review, and come to our own conclusions.

This has a real effect on creativity, where is the space for creativity in this ever faster "want it now" and "what's happening now" world?  Surely creativity often comes from those seemingly unproductive moments of peace and space. If we remove those deeper reading moments and time for contemplation and review, because they aren't immediately productive, then the world will become populated by machines irrespective as to whether they are carbon or silicon based and the world will be much the poorer for it.

So I do recommend this book, and if you use the links to buy it then I will get a small commission from Amazon.

Also please do comment and discuss these issues, I would be very interested in your thoughts on these issues.

Our own kind of digital disconnect

I have posted about other people's experiences of having a digital detox including an excellent book The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart  that took the concept of a digital detox to the extreme with a 6 month disconnect. But until now it has all been other people's experiences, not any more! Almost by accident we experienced our own disconnect experiment in quite an unexpected way.
Now our annual 2 week sumer holiday has been technology free for many years so no laptop, no email, phones turned off except for me checking the answer machine once a day for messages. However this year was different. We rented a villa just outside Alcudia in Marjorca and we found ourselves even more disconnected than usual. 

Our villa in Marjorca

This was the first time we had rented a villa. In the past we had holidayed in hotels and had access to some UK TV so we kept in touch with world affairs and also there was an internet cafe in case of emergencies. Our villa provided us with our own retreat. Also our iPhones reverted to being just phones, all the usual clever things they do to keep us connected wherever we are, didn't work here. The TV in the villa was digital terrestrial and all the channels were in Spanish except for the Disney Channel during the day. So no news unless you could follow Spanish, which we couldn't. After just 2 days we were feeling very disconnected, even isolated, we had no idea what was going on in the world . It was almost like withdrawal symptoms. On the 3rd day we went out for newspapers. We managed to get The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and we just devoured them from beginning to end. But it still felt quite 3rd party, no going on the internet to look at BBC News or being able to use Google Maps to help us navigate the maze of streets that made up the estate our villa was on.
However not all was bad, we talked, we played games, we reconnected as a family. At home we all use the internet and our various computers and smart phones as an integral part of our individual lives. That said we do eat together round the table at least once a day and we aim to have a 'sabbath' from Friday tea time to Saturday teatime with as little technology used as possible. But on holiday, especially this year in our retreat we really connected, all 4 of us chatting, playing volleyball in the pool, especially nice, as usually one of us absents themselves from family activities but on this holiday we were all together all of the time and it was brilliant.
So what was different? well no TV at all for starters, and no internet at all either. We may have been disconnected from the world but we were so much more connected to each other. Another factor for me was that my watch stopped on the plane on the way out and so I for one had no track of time and I became aware that I wanted to know what time it was to decide whether it was time to eat or go to bed. So instead I started to listen to my body and eat and sleep when it wanted to rather than follow some pre-determined schedule.
So will it last? well no not really, we all have come to depend on the internet and the digital world too much to disconnect ourselves permanently but it will definitely encourage us to keep our sabbath as clear as possible.

Socialnomics publish Top 10 brands on Facebook

Lauren Pelkey writes on the Socialnomics blog....

It appears Facebookers love their sweets and caffeinated beverages. Five of the top ten brands on Facebook are Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Oreo, Skittles and Red Bull. That means 50% of the top ten brands on Facebook are food and beverage. The other half include Facebook itself at number one, YouTube at number three, Victoria’s Secret at number eight, Disney at number nine, and iTunes at number ten.

For more you can read the full post on the Socialnomics blog.

UK drops down the world rankings in new broadband league table

The survey of 72 countries analysed by the Oxford Said Business School and the University of Oviedo from 40 million Speedtest.net tests ranked the UK joint 18th in broadband performance in 2010, one place down on 2009, and three behind its 2008 rank.  Download speeds show reasonable improvement, rising to an average of 6.4Mbit/s, and latency is now also a respectable 51ms, but upload improvements appear to have barely shifted at all, rising from 368kbit/s in 2008 to 2010's 596kbit/s. Although upload speeds are less important to subscribers today, tomorrow's applications such as consumer telepresence require, by Cisco's own admission, at least 3.5Mbits/s upload throughput to work correctly. At the current rate of improvement, it could be years before this is viable on current trends.

• Third annual study from Saïd Business School, Oxford University, looks at broadband quality in 72 countries and 239 cities
• 14 countries (1 in 5) already prepared for the Internet "applications of tomorrow", compared to only 1 country in 2008
• 38 countries, 53% of the total, have conquered the digital quality divide, with less evident differences between the broadband quality inside and outside their main cities, an improvement of 58% in just one year
• Study reaffirms positive link between broadband leadership and innovation economies
• Many emerging economies are 'leapfrogging' by focusing on bringing the best broadband to their cities, acknowledging their impact on the economy
• 38 cities already have the broadband quality required for the applications of tomorrow, ready to support smart and connected communities
• Mobile broadband quality has improved significantly, with 10% of mobile broadband users already enjoying similar quality experiences compared to those with fixed-line broadband
• Broadband consumption patterns are diverging, from a basic household requiring over 2 Mbps and consuming about 20 GB per month, to a smart and connected home commanding over 20 Mbps and a consumption of 500 GB per month

There is an interactive section to the Cisco report pages that enables you to look in more detail at the data for each country surveyed.

As someone who uploads work in progress and finished products the lack of upload speed is a constant niggle now.