The National Geographic Assignment Blog is featuring a short excerpt from my book The Shallows, illustrated with some photographs from National Geographic photographers. In the excerpt, I look at the map as an early example of an intellectual technology that both reflects and disseminates a new way of thinking. Read it.

As software obviates the need for Chinese to sketch by hand the characters that make up their written language, they are coming to realize that those characters are being erased from their memories. Barbara Demick recently reported on this “long descent into forgetfulness” in the Los Angeles Times:

This is a strange new form of illiteracy — or, more exactly, dysgraphia, the inability to write — that is peculiar to China … The more gadgets people own — cellphones, smart phones, computers — the less often they go through the elaborate sequence of strokes that make up Chinese characters. Whether on their computers or texting on phones, most Chinese use a system where they type out the sound of the word in Pinyin, the most commonly used Romanization system — and presto, they are given a choice of characters to use.

Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language and literature at Penn, calls it an epidemic of “character amnesia”:

Because of their complexity and multiplicity, writing Chinese characters correctly is a highly neuromuscular task. One simply has to practice them hundreds and hundreds of times to master them. And, as with playing a musical instrument like a violin or a piano, one must practice writing them regularly or one’s control over them will simply evaporate … Unlike aphasia, a type of language disorder that usually occurs suddenly because of physical injury, the impairment brought about by frequent cellphone checking is gradual. Nonetheless, the attrition that results is just as real as that brought about by dysphasia (limited aphasia).

Some of the many commenters on Mair’s post suggest that the complex, character-based system of writing is cumbersome and ill-suited to our efficiency-hungry world. Its eventual replacement by a simpler system of Roman letters, they argue, would be an example of progress. Others worry about a loss of one of the foundations of Chinese culture: “Is it worth throwing out 3,000 years of knowledge and literature for some amount of greater efficiency?”

The shift in Chinese writing practices, and the cognitive skills that underpin them, may be particularly dramatic, but it is just the latest instance of a recurring pattern in human history: the arrival of a new tool for reading or writing changes language, which in turn (as Walter J. Ong, among others, pointed out) changes thought. We adopt the new tools for various good reasons – efficiency and convenience being prominent ones – and the changes in language and thinking come as side effects, unplanned and usually unanticipated.

I am scheduled to be on the Colbert Report this Wednesday, chatting with Stephen Colbert about The Shallows. Tune in, or program your Tivo appropriately. (I was on the show once before, about two years ago, and you can watch that interview, during which Stephen multitasked with his iPhone, here.)

In the meantime, I will be talking about the book at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., this evening [details], and at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., tomorrow evening [details].

James Sturm, the cartoonist who has taken a four-month sabbatical from the Internet, continues to write (and draw) about his experience as one of The Disconnected. Here’s a bit from the “halftime report” he recently issued, after having been offline for two months:

Whether it’s a sports score, a book I want to get my hands on, or tuning into Fresh Air anytime of day, I can no longer search online and find immediate satisfaction. I wait for the morning paper, a trip to the library, or, when I can’t be at my radio at 3 p.m., just do without. I thought this would drive me crazy, but it hasn’t. Anticipation itself is enjoyable and perhaps even mitigates disappointing results. I don’t seem to mind as much when the Mets don’t win (often) or Dave Davies is subbing for Terry Gross and is interviewing an obscure jazz producer.

In the two months since I’ve been unplugged, I have been experiencing more and more moments of synchronicity—coincidental events that seem to be meaningfully related. … I know this type of magical thinking is easily dismissed, but I keep having moments like this. So how do I explain it? Are meaningful connections easier to recognize when the fog of the Internet is lifted? Does it have to do with the difference between searching and waiting? Searching (which is what you do a lot of online) seems like an act of individual will. When things come to you while you’re waiting it feels more like fate. Instant gratification feels unearned. That random song, perfectly attuned to your mood, seems more profound when heard on a car radio than if you had called up the same tune via YouTube.

Sturm is onto something deep here. The Net – and it’s not just search – does seem to encourage the willful arrangement of experience, moment by moment. As he has rediscovered, sometimes it’s best to let the world have its way with you.

I will be giving a talk this evening on The Shallows at Town Hall Seattle, at 7:30 pm. Please stop by if you’re in the vicinity.

Also, a few more book reviews of note:

Ploughshares

Christian Science Monitor

Computerworld

USA Today

And, at Open Culture, an interview.

The National Bureau of Economic Research has begun circulating a report on what seems to be the largest study yet of what happens when you give a kid a computer. The news is not good, as has been reported in the last few days by David Wessel at the Wall Street Journal and by the Freakonomics crew at the New York Times.

The study, conducted by Jacob Vigdor and Helen Ladd at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, examined extensive data on all public school students in North Carolina between 2000 and 2005 (the data include students’ end-of-year exam scores in math and reading as well as information on how the students spend their time at home). Those years, as the authors note, were a time when home computer use and broadband access were both expanding rapidly. The focus of the research was on students in Grade 5 through Grade 8. The authors write:

The larger sample size available with administrative data – over half a million student/year observations – addresses one common concern with existing studies of the impact of home computer use: low power associated with small sample sizes. The longitudinal nature of the data also permit us to address concerns that students with computer access are a non-random sample of the population by comparing the test scores of students before and after they report gaining access to a home computer, or before and after their local area receives high-speed internet service.

The analysis reveals that home computers have “modest but statistically significant negative impacts” on academic performance as measured by math and reading test scores. In addition: “The introduction of high-speed internet service is similarly associated with significantly lower math and reading test scores in the middle grades.” Worse yet, “the introduction of broadband internet is associated with widening racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps.” Attempts to close the “digital divide” by, for example, subsidizing PC purchases may actually end up widening the divide between rich and poor in academic performance.

The authors are careful to note that there may be gains in other skills related to internet access in the home:

While we find no evidence that this access improves math and reading scores, it is possible that computer and internet access improves important skills that are not directly measured by standardized tests in math or reading. These skills, ranging from the ability to use basic office software to advanced programming or hardware maintenance skills, may be of considerable value in the labor market. While subsidies for home computer or internet access could still be advocated on the grounds that they improve these vocational skills, our results suggest that an additional consequence would be lower math and reading test scores, and wider test score gaps.

Previous studies have shown that students with home computers on average do better academically than students without computers. But that, according to the Vigdor/Ladd study, appears to reflect correlation rather than causation. A home computer is an indicator of general socio-economic advantages, many of which can contribute to relatively strong academic performance. When you look specifically at changes in the performance of individual students over time, Vigdor and Ladd write, “there is no evidence that home computer access improves test scores.” In fact:

Students who obtain access to a home computer sometime between 5th and 8th grade tend to score between 1% and 1.3% of a standard deviation lower on their subsequent math and reading tests. The positive cross-sectional association between home computer ownership and test scores thus reflects the digital divide: those who own computers are in general a positively selected group … Students in ZIP codes that transition from no broadband service to limited service from three or fewer providers post a statistically significant decline in math test scores. The estimated decline is a relatively strong 2.6% of a standard deviation. The impact on reading test scores is more modest and statistically insignificant. Students in ZIP codes that move beyond the four ISP threshold also exhibit modest declines in test scores. The effects are statistically significant, equivalent to 1.4% of a standard deviation in math and 1.6% of a standard deviation in reading.

Comments Vigdor on his blog: “It turns out that access to computers and broadband is, on balance, not good for kids. This is not a super-surprise for those who have followed earlier careful studies on the subject.” In the paper, he and Ladd conclude, “For school administrators interested in maximizing achievement test scores, or reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities in test scores, all evidence suggests that a program of broadening home computer access would be counterproductive.”

As the Freakonomics writers point out, the study is consistent with an earlier study that examined the effects of giving Romanian students access to computers. That study found that “having a computer at home helps kids develop computer skills … But it seems to lower their grades in math and reading.”

Vigdor and Hamm note that the negative consequences of computer use could be tempered if students began to use computers more for homework and less for goofing off. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that that’s happening. Indeed, as Vigdor points out, “We cut off the study in 2005, so we weren’t getting into the Facebook and Twitter generation.” The opportunities to goof off with computers have expanded rapidly in recent years (and that doesn’t even take into account the explosion of texting on phones). There’s nothing wrong with kids goofing off, of course; what seems to be happening, though, is that the growing amount of time dedicated to goofing off on computers and the net is crowding out time that might otherwise go to studying (or requiring more multitasking while studying).

It is interesting to compare the computer and internet research with new studies which indicate that having books in a home may strengthen children’s academic achievement. One of the studies, published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, reveals a strong connection between the number of books in a student’s home and the number of years of education the student completes – and the relationship seems to be more than just a matter of general socio-economic advantages. As the Chronicle of Higher Education reported:

What’s surprising … is just how strong the correlation is between a child’s academic achievement and the number of books his or her parents own. It’s even more important than whether the parents went to college or hold white-collar jobs. Books matter. A lot.

The study was conducted over 20 years, in 27 countries, and surveyed more than 70,000 people. Researchers found that children who grew up in a home with more than 500 books spent 3 years longer in school than children whose parents had only a few books. Also, a child whose parents have lots of books is nearly 20-percent more likely to finish college. For comparison purposes, the children of educated parents (defined as people with at least 15 years of schooling) were 16-percent more likely than the children of less-educated parents to get their college degrees. Formal education matters, but not as much as books.

The authors of the study conclude:

Thus it seems that scholarly culture, and the taste for books that it brings, flows from generation to generation largely of its own accord, little affected by education, occupational status, or other aspects of class … Parents give their infants toy books to play with in the bath; read stories to little children at bed-time; give books as presents to older children; talk, explain, imagine, fantasize, and play with words unceasingly. Their children get a taste for all this, learn the words, master the skills, buy the books. And that pays off handsomely in schools.

The other study, to be published later this year, also indicates a strong connection between having books at home and performing well in school, particularly for low-income students. As Salon’s Laura Miller reported, the study “found that simply giving low-income children 12 books (of their own choosing) on the first day of summer vacation ‘may be as effective as summer school’ in preventing ‘summer slide’ – the degree to which lower-income students slip behind their more affluent peers academically every year.”

We need to be concerned about the digital divide, to be sure. But perhaps we should also be thinking about the Gutenberg divide.

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:

Check it out.