New Pew Research Center Survey on the Future of the Internet, Newsbreaks (Feb 22)
"The survey finds that most experts and stakeholders say the internet will enhance-not degrade-our intelligence. It will also change the functions of reading and writing and will be rebuilt around still-unanticipated gadgetry and applications."
The full report is at http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Future-of-the-Internet-IV.aspx
"Three out of four experts said our use of the Internet enhances and augments human intelligence, and two-thirds said use of the Internet has improved reading, writing and rendering of knowledge,” said Janna Anderson, study co-author and director of the Imagining the Internet Center. “There are still many people, however, who are critics of the impact of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools.”"
Many well known Internet observers and thinkers are quoted in the report. Here is Stephen Downes on changes in the nature of writing.
Posted by Gwen at February 22, 2010 02:19 PM"“The internet generation is being exposed to text and media in unprecedented quantities, and more, is not just consuming this media, but producing it as well. Practice tells. The improvement will be especially dramatic and apparent because new readers will be compared primarily with the previous generation, the television generation, which for the most part did not read at all. Unfortunately, this improvement will be apparent only to the newly literate generation; the older generation will continue to complain that young people cannot read, despite evidence to the contrary. Moreover, it will be apparent by 2020 that a multi-literate society has developed, one that can communicate with ease through a variety of media, including art and photography, animation, video, games and simulations, as well as text and code.” – Stephen Downes, National Research Council, Canada"