iPad...iBrain. What's The Difference?

Well, I finally ordered my iPad. It should arrive in about 4 weeks, hopefully in time for an upcoming trip to California, since it would be easier to take than my laptop. I can't leave home anymore without my iPhone and it’s hard to travel anywhere without my laptop. 

We’ve all become dependent on our computers--in all of their various forms. Microchips are everywhere. They’re in our washing machines, our ovens, and our cars--not to mention our Blackberry’s and iPhones. In fact, the average cell phone today is one million times smaller, one million times cheaper, and one thousand times more powerful than the most advanced computer at MIT 40 years ago.

In many ways, computers are extensions of our brains. They allow us to transcend the limits of our memory in much the same way that automobiles and airplanes allow us to transcend our ability to get from place to place. They allow us to transcend our ability to gather information about the world around us and share that information with other people. 

The same can be said about the telephone and television but there is one crucial difference: using a computer to gather information, store information, retrieve information, and communicate information, actually re-wires the brain.

Functional MRI studies, for example, have demonstrated stable and long-lasting changes in circuits of the frontal cortex as a result of performing Google searches or playing video games. In fact, virtual reality video games are used by the military to help soldiers sharpen their focus, shorten reaction time, and improve hand-eye coordination in order to improve their combat ability. These changes in behavior are the result of changes in brain functioning and these changes in brain functioning are the result of changes in brain circuitry which may become permanent.

UCLA neuroscience professor, Dr. Gary Small, explores these and other issues in his book iBrain. He points out the many ways in which text messaging and other social media alter not only the way in which information is exchanged, but also the way in which basic elements of communication, such as posture, gesture, voice tone, and facial expression are eliminated or fundamentally altered in some way.


When I talked with my 20 year old son about this a couple of weeks ago, he knew exactly what I meant and said, “Yeah, there’s no question about it. My generation has a totally different way of communicating and interacting.”


This phenomenon, in which human interaction with computers causes stable and long-lasting changes in brain circuitry, has profound implications. This kind of human-computer interaction is already the norm for a whole generation and is rapidly changing  not only the way in which individuals think and interact with one another, but also the way in which large groups or entire societies think and interact with one another. 

On a small scale, we can see how online dating has changed the whole pattern and ritual of courtship, something that took millennia to evolve and which seemed, at least until now, to be “hard wired” into our brains. On a larger scale, there is the wave of social unrest currently spreading through the Middle East, partly as a result of Internet based social media. 

David Fincher’s new film, The Social Network, chronicles how Mark Zuckerberg, a lonely and disillusioned Harvard undergraduate student, accidentally started a communication revolution  and global social network that has grown to more than half a billion people in a little over 7 years. 

This is not an incremental change in the way we communicate with one another. It’s not like going from mimeographs to photocopies or from courier carried documents to faxes. This is a transformational change. It’s like going from hand written manuscripts to the printing press or from hand written “slow mail”  to instantaneous email. 

This kind of transformational change, is occurring at an exponential rate. 

With the world’s computing capability doubling every two years, many scientists predict that, within 30 years, we will have the means to create superhuman intelligence. 

The point at which this occurs is known as the Singularity. 

When this happens, human civilization will be completely and irreversibly transformed. According to most experts, the Singularity--and the end of human civilization as we know it--is about 35 years away...