Recently, I read Susan Greenfield’s I.D.: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century. She takes a look at identity by looking right inside the brain (chemicals and all). I must admit the first few chapters contain a little too much science for me, but in the middle of the book things get kind of interesting. She talks about how our use of technology may in fact be rewiring our brains.
This book dovetailed nicely with a couple of other articles that I’ve read. Kevin Kelly’s article in the NYT Magazine talks about how we are moving away from textuality (a world informed by print) toward visuality (a world informed by images). The recent publication of a number of books focused on the concept of Digital Natives (first proposed by Marc Prensky) also detail a similar shift in how technology is changing how we learn.
This seems obvious–of course technology alters the learning experience. What’s interesting about Greenfield’s take is that she suggests that the connections and synapses in our minds may in fact be adapting to our hyper-technological world (maybe future generations of students will actually be good at multitasking–instead of just thinking that they’re good at it). Obviously, the findings aren’t conclusive, but the latest neuroscience research is very intriguing.
