From Socrates to an iPad baby

Last week, a video of a baby attempting to apply her experience with an iPad to print magazines reached a million views on YouTube. The scene was a powerful example of how our tools and technology define our cognitive development, influencing the way we think.

The video starts with the baby playing around with the tablet PC from Apple. She reacts to changing visuals as her fingers slide across the iPad’s touch display. When she activates the gadget’s search function, clearing the icons from the screen, she bends down for a closer look.

When given a magazine, she immediately understands that there are pages to flip through. But she starts pressing on the magazine’s pictures, expecting something to happen. Of course nothing does, leaving the baby confused. She even checks if her finger is working properly, by pressing on her own thigh.

Many viewers found the baby’s struggles with the magazine cute. Her father notes with accuracy that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs “has coded a part of her OS [i.e., her mind].” Yet others found the situation “sad”. They criticized the baby’s parents for letting her play with the iPad, driving her away from the more traditional print medium.

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains is a 2011 book that won the Pulitzer Prize for US writer Nicholas Carr. It reads as a cautionary tale of how the online world — perhaps the most pervasive tool we have in modern society — may have negative effects on our thought processes, backed up by scientific studies and a brief history of communication mediums.

Carr writes that because information is so readily accessible on the Internet, from a wide variety of sources, our attention spans are growing shorter. Worse, we are losing the ability to think deeply, to take time and contemplate important things. I found myself laughing as I realized that I was struggling to finish the first chapter, as my mind constantly wondered about other things.

However, Carr’s also summarizes how communication has evolved, from the oral traditions of old societies to Johann Gutenberg’s printing press. That shows our shift in thinking and understanding through technology may also not be a bad thing. It’s just the latest chapter in our development as thinking beings who create new ways and opportunities through our tools.

In ancient Greece, two inventions faced criticism from contemporary observers: the alphabet and writing. In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, Socrates shares a story that supports his skepticism about committing information to paper (or in their case, the scroll or papyrus).

“Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.”

Fast forward two-thousand and three-hundred so years later: writing is now an essential part of our educational system. The potential benefits of the medium vastly outweigh the drawbacks pointed out by Socrates, because human civilization has long figured out how to squeeze the most out of this tool.

That’s why I think the iPad Baby has a head-start. On a basic level, she already understands the interactivity inherent in computers and the Internet. She’s already aware of a medium that isn’t set in stone, that changes depending how it’s interacted with. Who knows? She might be one of the first to maximize today’s rapid-fire information environment, a reality of constant change that rewards those who adapt first.

Yes, our growing reliance on the Internet and consumer electronics does cause problems. Why should we remember anything, when all information is just a Google search away? Why bother picking up a book, when entire libraries are accessible on devices like the iPad?

Yet the Internet helped me articulate my optimism for our future development in this column. Locating that passage from Phaedrus only required reading its entry on Wikipedia. I found the source material in the bibliography, and used it to share the ideas you’re reading now.

Imagine if I had to quote Socrates a decade ago. I’d have to drive to the library, consult the classification cards, look for the right shelf, then leaf through a book. Compare that with just typing out a few words on a website, and clicking through a couple of links.

Carr was correct: the tools we use, including the mediums we rely on, change us. And that transformation might not even be conducive to the way we do things now. But unless we experience a global cataclysm that will render modern technology useless, these changes are irreversible. Let us not dismiss the potential problems, but let us also not ignore the potential advantages and opportunities allowed by our new tools.