Question Technology

New Book: The Dumbest Generation

The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) by Mark Bauerlein is released next week.

From the book's website:

The dawn of the digital age once aroused our hopes: the Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and ultra-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their know-how and understanding of technology to form the vanguard of this new, hyper-informed era.

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen.

The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their minds had the opposite effect.

According to recent reports from government agencies, foundations, survey firms, and scholarly institutions, most young people in the United States neither read literature (or fully know how), work reliably (just ask employers), visit cultural institutions (of any sort), nor vote (most can’t even understand a simple ballot). They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount foundations of American history, or name any of their local political representatives. What do they happen to excel at is – each other. They spend unbelievable amounts of time electronically passing stories, pictures, tunes, and texts back and forth, savoring the thrill of peer attention and dwelling in a world of puerile banter and coarse images.

Anyone who thinks this is mere intergenerational grousing, the time-worn tradition of an older generation wagging its finger at a younger one, should think again.

Drawing upon exhaustive research, detailed portraits, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents an uncompromisingly realistic study of the young American mind at this critical juncture. The book also lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.

To fail to do so may well mean sacrificing our future to the least curious and intellectual generation in national history.

Interested in a print version of the radio series "How to think about science"?

If you've checked out the CBC Ideas radio series (and podcast) called "How to think about science" I'd appreciate your thoughts on this question.

The show's host David Cayley sent out some email asking people if they think the CBC should produce printed transcripts and/or a book version of the series.  I think it's a great idea but I'm just one listener.  (See this earlier post for my thoughts on the show.)

If you have an opinion, please cast your vote in the newfangled widget thingy below and/or in the comments to this post.  (If you're reading this on a feed reader I doubt that the widget will work properly there, so please click through to the original page to vote.)  Thanks.

Techno Tuesday: Outdated Grandpa

Techno Tuesday is by Andy Rementer.

The Problem of Niches, or Do Internet Social Theorists Know Anything?

This weekend's edition of NPR's On The Media had an interesting item about the Web's niche problem, i.e. the problem that people might flock to groups and news sources online that cater specifically to their established interests and that this might make for a more narrow-minded citizenry.  They called this problem "homophily."  This was preceded by a story about a search engine tailored for black users called Rushmore Drive.

Transcripts and audio of the two stories are here: Search is the New Black and The Pleasure Principle.

Both are interesting interviews and worth listening to.  One observation I'd add is that there's a common assumption made in this discussion: that "regular" search (i.e. Google) is not biased and represents the all-inclusive truth against which to measure niche search engines.

Search engines index only a fraction of what's on the web, and the ranking they assign is based on metrics of popularity that surely suit some needs better than others (when they're not being gamed outright).*  Whether intentional or not, search engines always exhibit bias.  So really they're all niche search engines, in a way.

The main thing I wanted to write about, though, was a moment in the second story during Brooke Gladstone's interview with Ethan Zuckerman about homophily or "preaching to the choir" (which I do think is a real concern, but I'm no expert).  They're talking about Zuckerman's suggestions for getting people to pay attention online to stuff outside their comfort zone.  From the transcript:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now, how do you try to lure people into paying attention? You wrote that you have a short list of arguments – actually you have three appeals – to guilt, to fear and to greed.

ETHAN ZUCKERMAN: [... on using guilt, fear, and greed as appeals ...]

My hope is that there's another form of attention, which I refer to as xenophilia, basically this idea that what's most fascinating and what's most exciting out there is the diversity of the world, the diversity of perspectives.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: It's funny, but whenever I talk to deep thinkers about the Internet, you probe down a little and they always end up with these appeals to human nature. And [LAUGHS] it makes me sad.

ETHAN ZUCKERMAN: Well, I mean, there's the sort of Soylent Green response to this, right, which is to say, the Internet is people, because obviously it is. All these networks can do is bring us together. That's all they do. And what that means is that our behavior, the good and the bad, can get amplified within these networks.

When we're talking about the problem of homophily, this isn't an Internet problem. This is a human problem.

The way I heard Brooke Gladstone's statement, which I admit is probably not how she intended, is that internet theorists really don't have a clue about what's happening on the internet.  I mean if you're going to reduce these questions to "this isn't an Internet problem. This is a human problem" then why are we listening to you?

I have a lot of respect for the type of work that the Ethan Zuckermans, Clay Shirkys and danah boyds of the world are trying to do, but often there doesn't seem to be much real insight, just pop theories and anecdotes.  (To be fair, I don't read Zuckerman's rather verbose blog so maybe I'm missing out.)

Ethan Zuckerman has some comments about his On The Media appearance on his blog: Talking homophily with Brooke Gladstone and On The Media.

* On search engine coverage and bias, see Web Dragons by Witten et al.

Notes on the Underground

The MIT Press has published a new edition of Rosalind Williams's 1990 book Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination.  A description from the publisher's page:

The underground has always played a prominent role in human imaginings, both as a place of refuge and as a source of fear. The late nineteenth century saw a new fascination with the underground as Western societies tried to cope with the pervasive changes of a new social and technological order. In Notes on the Underground, Rosalind Williams takes us inside that critical historical moment, giving equal coverage to actual and imaginary undergrounds. She looks at the real-life invasions of the underground that occurred as modern urban infrastructures of sewers and subways were laid, and at the simultaneous archaeological excavations that were unearthing both human history and the planet’s deep past. She also examines the subterranean stories of Verne, Wells, Forster, Hugo, Bulwer-Lytton, and other writers who proposed alternative visions of the coming technological civilization.

Williams argues that these imagined and real underground environments provide models of human life in a world dominated by human presence and offer a prophetic look at today’s technology-dominated society. In a new afterword written for this edition, Williams points out that her book traces the emergence in the nineteenth century of what we would now call an environmental consciousness--an awareness that there will be consequences when humans live in a sealed, finite environment. Today we are more aware than ever of our limited biosphere and how vulnerable it is. Notes on the Underground, now even more than when it first appeared, offers a guide to the human, cultural, and technical consequences of what Williams calls "the human empire on earth."

I just picked up a copy of this today and am looking forward to reading it.  (Coincidentally, Williams is a past president of SHOT, which I wrote about in the previous post.)

Kranzberg's Laws of Technology and History

In his CHI 2008 keynote, Bill Buxton mentioned Melvin Kranzberg's Laws of Technology.  These are from a 1986 article in Technology and Culture called "Technology and History: Kranzberg's Laws" (available here for $10 and probably elsewhere).  These are the laws, via Wikipedia:

1. Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.
2. Invention is the mother of necessity.
3. Technology comes in packages, big and small.
4. Although technology might be a prime element in many public issues, nontechnical factors take precedence in technology-policy decisions.
5. All history is relevant, but the history of technology is the most relevant.
6. Technology is a very human activity - and so is the history of technology.

I don't think these are terribly useful without further explanation and context.  Here is an interview in which Kranzberg expands a bit on the first and fifth laws: Missionary: An interview with Melvin Kranzberg.  The same site has excerpts from Kranzberg's papers.

Melvin Kranzberg was a historian and one of the people who founded the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) in 1958.  He was also SHOT's first president.  The image above is from special posters that were made for SHOT's 2007 meeting that celebrated the society's 50th anniversary (a two-year celebration that continues at this year's meeting in October in Lisbon).  The above links are also from the 50th celebration pages.  There's a lot more on that site, too, though the navigation is a little lacking.

SHOT is worth joining, even if you're not a historian.  It's relatively cheap and comes with a print subscription to Technology and Culture, their quarterly journal.  I joined it a couple years ago for this reason.  Most of the articles are quite readable to a layperson like myself, and T&C attracts material from a wider group than just historians, such as sociologists and people in science and technology studies.  (Sadly, they don't have all their archives available to subscribers yet, which is why I haven't read the "Kranzberg's Laws" article -- well, that and other priorities).

The Gospel of Consumption

It probably won't shock anyone to find an article called "The Gospel of Consumption" in (environmentalist) magazine Orion, but this piece by Jeffrey Kaplan is better than your average anti-consumption rant, I think. 

He talks about the forces that created American consumer society in the last century.  In the 1920s the abundance brought about by "labor-saving" machinery could have led to short workdays and a more active citizenship (as championed by people such as W.K. Kellogg).  Instead, industrialists and politicians put economic growth at the forefront, leading to the wonders of advertising to manufacture need in consumers, thus leading to more production and even more work.

Jeffrey Kaplan is an activist and has an agenda, to be sure (see Take Back Your Time for more work along these lines).  I believe his history here to be fairly accurate, though.  It's an interesting contrast to Clay Shirky's story.

Link: The Gospel of Consumption (the sidebar has some interesting links to check out as well, such as the introduction to Kellogg's Six-Hour Day by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt).

Oh, and happy May Day (Wikipedia, Britannica).

TV, Cognitive Surplus, and Wikipedia

This past weekend Clay Shirky posted a transcript of a talk he gave called Gin, Television, and Social Surplus that's been getting a lot of links around the blogosphere.  Following on themes from his book, Here Comes Everybody, he tells a story that goes like this: We gained lots of free time (a "cognitive surplus") in the 40s and 50s because of shorter workweeks.  We squandered the surplus by watching TV sitcoms and the like.  Now we're finally waking up from this "collective bender" and putting our energies into better things, like editing Wikipedia.

I have a number of problems with this story.  First of all, did we gain free time in the 40s and 50s?  I'm not an expert, but what I've read about work life has said that Americans are working more hours now than they did at the beginning of the 20th century, not less.

Second, is the time now spent editing Wikipedia or doing other things online really coming from time formerly spent watching TV?  In other words, even if there's a negative correlation between TV viewing and online activity, correlation doesn't imply causality.

Third, who's to say which of these activities is more valuable?  Shirky has a couple of fairly simple rules for assigning value.  Producing is better than consuming -- so writing a blog or posting to a mailing list is better than watching TV or reading.  Activity is better than inactivity or passivity -- playing World of Warcraft is more valuable than watching a movie.

I think those rules are awfully simplistic and don't seem to get at the heart of what's valuable.  Some TV shows and movies are far more sophisticated works of art than are most video games.  Reading a book can be a much more efficient way to deepen one's understanding of a topic than debating it online.  Even an adolescence wasted watching Gilligan's Island (an example of Shirky's) might reward you later with the creative juice to launch a career writing postmodern novels.

It's wishful thinking to believe that all of these new technologies will bring forth some great creative and intellectual bounty.  We've already got hundreds of millions of blogs -- how much have they really changed things?  How important is Wikipedia, really? If it disappeared tomorrow would anyone be truly inconvenienced?  I doubt it -- Google would turn up another source or you'd go look in the library if it really mattered.  Yet think of all the energy and hours that have been put into Wikipedia.  The return on investment just doesn't seem that impressive.

Libraries and Denial

Over at Library Juice, Rory Litwin has started an interesting discussion about the mission of libraries today.  He begins:

I would like to propose that the current era in librarianship, which is normally characterized as a “period of rapid change,” is perhaps better described as a period of denial. It is a period in which librarians are scurrying to disassociate themselves from their own profession as it tends to be thought of, with a sense of desperate shame.

What am I talking about? I’ll exaggerate a bit to make my point. I’m talking about librarians who say,

We’re not about books! We’re about computers! Don’t associate us with books! We don’t want to be saddled with that! When people hear the word “library,” we want them to think words like “Future,” “Hi Tech,” “Information Age,” and “Shiny Gadget!” Fellow librarians, don’t even use the word Book! It’s a no-no! Bad word! Hurts! Pretend you don’t even know what one is!

Link: Librarian: Accept Yourself

Here in the Bay Area I just noticed that my local library is pushing a new campaign called Free2, which seems like a big effort to rebrand the library as pretty much anything but a place to borrow books (it's a "21st century community center").  The blurb:

This campaign is designed to raise awareness of libraries in the Bay Area (at least initially). It encourages you to visit more often, whether that means stopping by your local branch to check out the latest video game or accessing the online catalog or participating in a program or activity.

It challenges stereotypes of dusty bookshelves and shush-happy librarians. It promotes how libraries sit in the heart of our communities. It recognizes that our libraries are among our most revered public institutions. It honors their great legacy of innovative partnerships. And it demonstrates an important fact in the Digital Age -- that our libraries are the number one point of Internet access for millions without connectivity at home, school or work.

Indeed, the question is not whether libraries are relevant today. But whether they can keep pace with the increased demand for their services and materials. With your help, they can.

And if you can come up with a good slogan for the campaign you could win an iPod or a video camera!

To their credit, I did find some mention of books on the site.  The video on the front page is of library users saying what they like about their library -- turns out some of them go there for books (who'd have thought?).

Humans United Against Robots

Humans United Against Robots (HUAR) is a tongue-in-cheek campaign "designed to educate and aware the citizenry of the world of the impending attack that computers and robots will put into effect against humans."  I like the art, if not the grammar.

HUAR is apparently a side project of web comedians Keith and the Girl. 

I heard about it today when one of its members called in to an NPR Science Friday show about robots.

Techno Tuesday: Nomads

Techno Tuesday is by Andy Rementer.

Tom Slee on Here Comes Everybody

I'm still making my way through Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody.  So in lieu of my own review, I'll point you to Tom Slee's mixed review.  I also have mixed feelings about the book.  Shirky tells some great, convincing stories about the power of group organization through digital technology, like that of the protesters in Belarus whose use of mobile phones was crucial to their success.  But he also lapses into techno-fluff theorizing on topics like how the internet is changing the news media, where his ideas seem pretty shaky.

P.D. Smith on Scientists and Superweapons

Peter D. Smith, author of Doomsday Men, has a good article up at 3 Quarks Daily about mad scientists and related topics.  An excerpt:

The physicist [Freeman Dyson], who worked on weapons projects as well as the Project Orion atomic spaceship in the 1950s, thinks there’s more than a grain of truth in the Strangelove stereotype. "The mad scientist is not just a figure of speech," says Dyson, "there really are such people, and they love to play around with crazy schemes. Some of them may even be dangerous, so one is not altogether wrong in being scared of such people."

Recently, I was powerfully reminded of Dyson’s comment while reviewing the reissue of Dan O’Neill’s classic nuclear history The Firecracker Boys (1994). In 1958, physicist Edward Teller, the self-styled father of the H-bomb, turned up in Juneau, Alaska, and held an impromptu news conference. He was there to unveil Project Chariot, a plan to create a deep-water harbour at Cape Thompson in northwest Alaska using thermonuclear bombs. Seventy million cubic yards of earth would be shifted instantly using nuclear explosions equivalent to 2.4 million tons of TNT. That’s 40% of all the explosive energy expended in World War II. Some firecracker.

Locals said they didn’t need a harbour. They also raised understandable concerns about radioactivity. After all, the year before, Nevil Shute had published On the Beach, one of the best-selling of all nuclear fictions (four million copies by 1980), in which the world dies a lingering death caused by fallout from a nuclear war fought with cobalt bombs. Teller was unfazed by the criticisms. That year he had defended atmospheric nuclear tests, claiming such fallout was no more dangerous than “being an ounce overweight”. He tried to reassure the Alaskans: “We have learned to use these powers with safety”. He even promised them a harbour in the shape of a polar bear.

Link: Someday this crazy world will have to end.

AI Panic!

AI Panic! is a smart and funny blog by AI researcher and PhD student Robin Baumgarten:

What's AI Panic?

This site is dedicated to research and unveil the perils, imminence and probabilities of a hostile takeover of the world through artificial intelligence. I will stay on the lookout for you and post articles, research papers and break-throughs of everything that could affect this danger.

Who's panicing?

Not me. Not yet, at least. And you probably shouldn't, either. But staying alert and informed doesn't hurt.

Link: aipanic.com

Britannica Online Free for Bloggers

Encyclopedia Britannica has made an interesting move with their online presence: they're offering it free for all web publishers, including bloggers.  I learned about this at TechCrunch, which has a post detailing the program: Encyclopedia Britannica now free for bloggers.

Not only can bloggers access encyclopedia articles for free, their readers can access any article they link to.  For example, you should be able to read this entry on history of technology (you'll see ugly ads, though; it's ad-free when you sign in).

I signed up out of curiosity and because I'm unable to resist free books.  I can't say I use encyclopedias much these days, but I do look at (and link to) Wikipedia more and more, and this will probably sway me to check out Britannica in such cases.

Their welcome email alerted me to the "Google Subscribed Links" program, which I hadn't heard of before.  It tweaks Google to include results from "trusted providers" when you search.  That's a good idea and will probably also get me checking out Britannica more often, since I won't have to go directly to their site to search.