BBC, UCLA study how internet changes brains

[stubby42]

www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/

Over the past couple of weeks the bbc released a program called virtual revolution (british people the episodes are up on the Iplayer) discussing how the internet is changing society.

The problem is that most of the arguements about are based an anecdotal evidence, not hard research.

One of the topics that has never been researched but is important to discuss is the idea that how we the internet generation fundametally think differently to how the baby boom generation thinks.

The series described our thought patterns as fox like meaning that we bounce from source to source to source and build up a picture where as older generations think like hedgehogs meaning they like the big picture, they go to one source they trust, thats been proven to be reliable.

Right now this is only a theory but the BBC and UCLA are attempting to test this the best thing is we can all help.

All we have to do is take the test that I put up there at the top of the page.

Thanks

Phil

[pwnytail]

It is an interesting theory and in all honest I think it is better to be a fox. Hedgehogs might rely to heavily on one source which makes them easier to trick. With foxes you get a multitude of opinions that our ancestors didn't have access to.

[stubby42]

I'm happy as a fox, (I actually came out as an elk but I didnt understand the rules of some of the games because I'm tired and my disabilities didnt help) but there is a lot of value to using sources that have been through an acredidation process.

Books and articles have had significant amounts of research put into them before they developed the final draft, ok so there isnt a conversation but a book or an article is a summary of a thought and research.

[raspukittin]

Fun test. I got web elephant. can't say it told me anything new, though:
Slow moving - Yes. I like to know what it is I'm clicking on.
Sociable - I know. That's what I use the internet for.
Adaptable - I should hope so, with all the tabs and programs I tend to have open at once.

I'm not sure if this test is entirely fair though. Younger generations tend to be more used to computers, of course their web behavior is going to be different. Does that mean we think fundamentally differently? I'm pretty skeptical about this test.

[bombmaniac]

internet...hmmm...me likey fried brain

[MattGilb3rt]

I watched this aswell! Very interesting.

[kaitlyn]

i got web leopard. is that good or bad?

[intothemoooon]

Web-elephant. Why does everyone think I'm an elephant? It's not just because my name is Eli (Ellie) because this thing didn't know my name. UGHH.

Results:

Slow-moving - Web Elephants like you browse the internet at a stately, methodical pace - just like real-world elephants who rarely see a reason to rush things.

Social - Real-world elephants and Web Elephants are both highly social. Real elephants are able to keep track of their own extended family trees and may even mourn love ones. As a Web Elephant, you often use social networking sites to keep track of your friends of family and are happy to rely on information from sites whose content is created by its users.

Adaptable - Real-world elephants owe their adaptability to their large brains and versatile trunks. As a Web Elephant you are similarly adaptable and are well-suited to carrying out several different tasks at the same time.