tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35428618.post8814353127527078239..comments2024-01-20T00:59:08.689+00:00Comments on Brave New World: Rethinking the Future: The Digital DivideMartyn Danielshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02134633193540004531noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35428618.post-982145311417466952011-04-19T10:26:33.306+00:002011-04-19T10:26:33.306+00:00Next step: They strap my head down, because any mo...Next step: They strap my head down, because any movement distorts the<br />brain imaging. Ever try to read a book without facial movements?<br /><br />I feel as if I’m being shoved into the middle of a toilet paper roll,<br />the walls so close my eyelashes almost graze them.<br /><br />Then I hear a voice through the earphones I’m wearing. It’s Dr Marker.<br /><br />“You okay in there?” she asks.<br /><br />Graduate student Dan Smith, 52, tells me to relax before<br />running around to join the other scientists in the control room.<br /><br />With the invention of the fMRI only 20 years ago, along came the<br />ability to look at brain activity. Marker says that by understanding a<br />function as gigantic as reading, how the reading brain does its magic<br />dance, a response that hijacks all of<br />one’s attention, she might also learn how reading on screens could be<br />inferior to reading on paper.<br /><br />“The more we understand how the brain works,” she says, “the more we<br />will be able to help people modulate its activity.”<br /><br /><br /><br />As the machine switches on, it sounds like a jackhammer. I follow<br />Marker's instructions and as I do, the group watches my brain on<br />their computer monitors. I willl read passages from a novel, and then<br />later I will read<br />the same passages on a Kindle. I just hope the Kindle does not blow up<br />inside the brain scan machine!<br /><br />Research and teaching take up most of Marker's time, but when she has a<br />spare moment, she thinks about what all this might mean for the future<br />of humankind.<br /><br />During my first hour in the fMRI machine, researchers map my brain's<br />reading paths<br />to find out which parts correlate to<br />which regions of the brain.<br /><br /><br />“You have 10 minutes,” Marker says through my earphones near the end<br />of our test. “Keep reading."<br /><br />On the<br />other side of the glass pane, the scientists can see my brain lighting<br />up as I read on paper and as I read on a screen. Regions light up in<br />different ways, Marker says.<br /><br />Komisaruk discusses what her research could do for the future of<br />humankind. “We need to know<br />if reading on screens is going to be good if it replaces all our<br />reading on paper.”<br /><br />Marker's lab has paid me a<br />$100 subject fee, so I want to give them their money’s worth.<br /><br />After all, it’s not easy to get funding for this stuff — Marker<br />says she spends at least half of her time applying for grants.<br /><br />“There’s no premium on studying paper reading modes versus<br />screen-reading modes in this society,” she tells me<br />as Smith murmurs, “What do you expect? The gadgetheads want to take over.”<br /><br /><br />When the tests are over, Market tells me the data takes two hours to<br />convert, but it can take much longer to<br />make sense of it.<br /><br />“We’ll be at this for a while,” she says.<br /><br />One of the biggest conundrums turns out to be a nagging<br />question for all mankind: What if reading on screens is not good<br />for retention of data, emotional connections and critical thinking skills?<br /><br /><br />Marker begins slipping more and more<br />into her thoughts. “Neurons, little bags of chemicals, create<br />awareness,” he says, “but how? How does the brain create the mind?<br />What is reading, really?”<br /><br />I see that at the heart of all her research, there is a<br />philosopher trying not only to understand reading, but also figure out<br />the nuts and bolts that make up the human experience.<br /><br />“It’s the hard question I want to answer,” she says. “What creates<br />consciousness?<br /><br />“I find that,” she adds, “and I find the Nobel Prize.”<br /><br />Of course, the above is a fantasy, an imagined newspaper article from<br />the future.<br /><br />But what if it turns out that reading on screens is inferior to<br />reading on paper and all<br />print newspapers go belly up? What then? And it could happen.<br /><br />But just as nobody heeded the calls that radiation and cancer might impact cell<br />phone use, will the profit-seeking makers of device e-readers listen to people<br />like the imaginary Dr Marker above, or<br />even care if she is right?<br /><br />Not in 2011.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35428618.post-88738481851651889422011-04-18T20:25:46.706+00:002011-04-18T20:25:46.706+00:00Great post. Times really are changing as they alw...Great post. Times really are changing as they always do. I'm interested to see how the book industry will change ten years from now. Where's that crystal ball when I need it? :)Aron Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14182721389040575368noreply@blogger.com