I seem to be veering toward a Luddite’s perception of the Internet over the past few posts given their focus on some new and perhaps negative insights into either Facebook usage or Google searching. It’s a positive ‘veer’ though – I think it is clear that the glut of information that we now have washing over us brings with it a host of problematics that we could not have forecast or imagined. Now that we are starting to see how these problems may effect our use and analysis of information it is time to find and implement the solutions. Not a Luddite’s view but certainly a view that argues for the ongoing examination of  how we interact with new media. We have to change our approach to learning, critical analysis and information literacy almost as fast, if not as fast, as technology pushing that information toward us changes. If we need to throw out today what yesterday we heralded as the ‘new, new thing’ then that seems, given what we are facing, a valid adaptive learning process.

After yesterday’s post and video of  Tara Brabazon here are two more articles that look at the possible effects of the way we engage with information either presented to us as the result of searches or collected while working in a multi-tasking environment:

• Is Google Making Us Stupid? (Atlantic Magazine, July/August 2008)
• The Autumn of the Multitaskers (Atlantic Magazine, November 2007)