Post CoolCarving up the new frontier of style

1August 2012

Rural>City>CyberspaceThe Biggest Migration In Human History

Anti-Smartphone ToolkitStay away from your phone and get 40 percent off your drinks

中文

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace Nicholas Carr

中文

A series of psychological studies over the past 20 years has revealed

that after spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature,

people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory, and generally

improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper. The

reason, according to attention restoration theory, or ART, is that when

people aren’t being bombarded by external stimuli, their brains can,

in effect, relax. They no longer have to tax their working memories by

processing a stream of bottom-up distractions. The resulting state of

contemplativeness strengthens their ability to control their mind.

RE-POST

>

Migrating into the digital era, are we cognitively more advanced?

The results of the most recent such study were published in

Psychological Science at the end of 2008. A team of University of

Michigan researchers, led by psychologist Marc Berman, recruited

some three dozen people and subjected them to a rigorous and

mentally fatiguing series of tests designed to measure the capacity

of their working memory and their ability to exert top-down control

over their attention. The subjects were divided into two groups. Half

of them spent about an hour walking through a secluded woodland

park, and the other half spent an equal amount of time walking

along busy downtown streets. Both groups then took the tests a

second time. Spending time in the park, the researchers found,

“significantly improved” people’s performance on the cognitive tests,

indicating a substantial increase in attentiveness. Walking in the city,

by contrast, led to no improvement in test results.

The researchers then conducted a similar experiment with another

set of people. Rather than taking walks between the rounds of

testing, these subjects simply looked at photographs of either calm

rural scenes or busy urban ones. The results were the same. The

people who looked at pictures of nature scenes were able to exert

substantially stronger control over their attention, while those who

looked at city scenes showed no improvement in their attentiveness.

“In sum,” concluded the researchers, “simple and brief interactions

with nature can produce marked increases in cognitive control.”

Spending time in the natural world seems to be of “vital importance”

to “effective cognitive functioning.”

There is no Sleepy Hollow on the internet, no peaceful spot where

contemplativeness can work its restorative magic. There is only the

endless, mesmerizing buzz of the urban street. The stimulations of

the web, like those of the city, can be invigorating and inspiring.

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace

中文

August 2012

RE-POST

>

These writers are certainly correct in arguing that we’re being molded

by our new information environment. Our mental adaptability, built

into the deepest workings of our brains, is a keynote of intellectual

history. But if there’s comfort in their reassurances, it’s of a very cold

sort. Adaptation leaves us better suited to our circumstances, but

qualitatively it’s a neutral process. What matters in the end is not

our becoming but what we become. In the 1950s, Martin Heidegger

observed that the looming “tide of technological revolution” could “so

captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking

may someday come to be accepted and practiced as the only way of

thinking.” Our ability to engage in “meditative thinking,” which he

saw as the very essence of our humanity, might become a victim of

headlong progress. The tumultuous advance of technology could, like

the arrival of the locomotive at the Concord station, drown out the

refined perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that arise only through

contemplation and reflection. The “frenziedness of technology,”

Heidegger wrote, threatens to “entrench itself everywhere.”

It may be that we are now entering the final stage of that entrench-

ment. We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls.

Nicholas Carr is the former

executive editor of the Harvard

Business Review. He is well-known

for his cover article in The Atlantic

which asked, “Is Google Making Us

Stupid?” He explored this question

in more depth in his latest book The

Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing

to Our Brains. Carr lives in Colorado

and blogs at roughtype.com

Excerpted from The Shallows:

What the Internet Is Doing to Our

Brains by Nicholas Carr (c) 2010 by

Nicholas Carr. Used with permission

of the publisher, W. W. Norton &

Company, Inc.

A prominent economist writes, cheerily, that

An Atlantic author suggests that our

“the web allows us to borrow cognitive strengths

from autism and to be better infovores.”

“technology-induced ADD” may be “a short-term

problem,” stemming from our reliance on “cognitive

habits evolved and perfected in an era of limited

information flow.” Developing new cognitive habits

is “the only viable approach to navigating the age of

constant connectivity.”

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace

中文

August 2012

RE-POST

Read more

digital paper

Post CoolCarving up the new frontier of style

1August 2012

Rural>City>CyberspaceThe Biggest Migration In Human History

Anti-Smartphone ToolkitStay away from your phone and get 40 percent off your drinks

中文

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace Nicholas Carr

中文

A series of psychological studies over the past 20

years has revealed that after spending time in a

quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit

greater attentiveness, stronger memory, and

generally improved cognition. Their brains become

both calmer and sharper. The reason, according to

RE-POST

attention restoration theory, or ART, is that when people

aren’t being bombarded by external stimuli, their brains

can, in effect, relax. They no longer have to tax their

working memories by processing a stream of bottom-

up distractions. The resulting state of contemplativeness

strengthens their ability to control their mind.

>

Migrating into the digital era, are we cognitively more advanced?

The results of the most recent such study were

published in Psychological Science at the end

of 2008. A team of University of Michigan

researchers, led by psychologist Marc Berman,

recruited some three dozen people and subjected

them to a rigorous and mentally fatiguing series

of tests designed to measure the capacity of their

working memory and their ability to exert top-

down control over their attention. The subjects were

divided into two groups. Half of them spent about

an hour walking through a secluded woodland

park, and the other half spent an equal amount

of time walking along busy downtown streets.

Both groups then took the tests a second time.

Spending time in the park, the researchers found,

“significantly improved” people’s performance on

the cognitive tests, indicating a substantial increase

in attentiveness. Walking in the city, by contrast, led

to no improvement in test results.

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace

中文

August 2012

RE-POST

The researchers then conducted a similar experiment

with another set of people. Rather than taking walks

between the rounds of testing, these subjects simply

looked at photographs of either calm rural scenes or busy

urban ones. The results were the same. The people who

looked at pictures of nature scenes were able to exert

substantially stronger control over their attention, while

those who looked at city scenes showed no improvement

in their attentiveness. “In sum,” concluded the researchers,

“simple and brief interactions with nature can produce

marked increases in cognitive control.” Spending time

in the natural world seems to be of “vital importance” to

“effective cognitive functioning.”

There is no Sleepy Hollow on the internet, no peaceful

spot where contemplativeness can work its restorative

magic. There is only the endless, mesmerizing buzz of the

urban street. The stimulations of the web, like those of

the city, can be invigorating and inspiring.

>

These writers are certainly correct in arguing

that we’re being molded by our new information

environment. Our mental adaptability, built into

the deepest workings of our brains, is a keynote of

intellectual history. But if there’s comfort in their

reassurances, it’s of a very cold sort. Adaptation

leaves us better suited to our circumstances, but

Nicholas Carr is the former executive editor of the

Harvard Business Review. He is well-known for his

cover article in The Atlantic which asked, “Is Google

Making Us Stupid?” He explored this question in

more depth in his latest book The Shallows: What

the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr lives in

A prominent economist writes, cheerily, that

An Atlantic author suggests that our

“the web allows us to borrow cognitive strengths

from autism and to be better infovores.”

“technology-induced ADD” may be “a short-term

problem,” stemming from our reliance on “cognitive

habits evolved and perfected in an era of limited

information flow.” Developing new cognitive habits

is “the only viable approach to navigating the age

of constant connectivity.”

R u r a l > City > Cyberspace

中文

August 2012

RE-POST

Read more

digital paper

qualitatively it’s a neutral process. What matters in the

end is not our becoming but what we become. In the

1950s, Martin Heidegger observed that the looming “tide

of technological revolution” could “so captivate, bewitch,

dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may

someday come to be accepted and practiced as the only

way of thinking.” Our ability to engage in “meditative

thinking,” which he saw as the very essence of our

humanity, might become a victim of headlong progress.

The tumultuous advance of technology could, like the

arrival of the locomotive at the Concord station, drown

out the refined perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that

arise only through contemplation and reflection. The

“frenziedness of technology,” Heidegger wrote, threatens

to “entrench itself everywhere.”

It may be that we are now entering the final stage of that

entrenchment. We are welcoming the frenziedness into

our souls.

Colorado and blogs at roughtype.com

Excerpted from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing

to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (c) 2010 by Nicholas Carr.

Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton &

Company, Inc.