The new issue of Nieman Reports, the journal of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation of Journalism, offers a wide array of perspectives on the future of news in our age of instant information. I’ve just dipped into the contents, but it looks like there’s a lot of interesting stuff here:
James Paul Gee’s article about learning by gaming reminded me of Marc Prensky’s “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”. Prensky says: instead of sticking to old methodology and content of teaching we have to move on and start teaching people the way they understand things: by gaming, deciding, solving, trying and failing/winning.
Our brains are better at making choices and solving problems than at reading complex texts. It comes as no surprise: making choices and solving problems is often a matter of life and death. Our brains just have to be good at it.
No wonder we love internet: it let’s us do what we like to do – trying things, competing, choosing ways.
Thus, I would say that internet is not spoiling our brains. Internet allows our brains to do what our brains like to do: making choices and solving problems. So, *it’s not that internet succeeded, it’s rather that books failed*. After 500 years our brains are still committed to what is really crucial for human beings.
So, what should we think about is: how to make use of our preferences for action over reasoning, how to exploit it to our benefit, rather than trying to stop it or fight it.
Best regards,
Wojtek — old-school book-worm