Is Google making us stupid?

Carl challenges Jerry in his spending too much time on the Internet.

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Carl: And there’s a study been done that shows you young people have no concentration, you don’t have the attention span to finish a book.

Jerry: A study, huh?

Carl: A scientific study, mind you.

Jerry: Hmm.

Carl: And you know why? It’s because of Google. You go hop, hop, hop all over the place and haven’t the patience to pursue an argument to its logical concussion.

Jerry: I think you mean conclusion.

Carl: That’s what I said.

Jerry: Not so sure. Last night I was watching an old documentary, The Living Planet, and I got interested in lichens and cobras and who made it, David Attenborough, so I googled away and found his brother Richard Attenborough who directed Ghandi and pretty soon I felt I’d caught up on a lot of stuff.

Carl: You see, a whole of lot unrelated facts.

Jerry: Well twenty years ago, I’d have gone to sleep watching the documentary and finding out all that stuff would have needed a trip to the library and I wouldn’t have had time to go and I wouldn’t therefore have followed up and deepened and widened what I learned from the documentary.

Carl: Still say you only get trivia from Google.

Jerry: Depends. I can give other studies that show young doctors get a broader knowledge from Internet delivered materials with lots of links than long linear lectures. It’s a different generation and they learn differently.

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Voiceover

An article entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" has appeared in the July August 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly written by Nicholas Carr. It’s worth reading despite its conspiracy-theory flavor, it’s also an intriguing idea, although as the author cautions, “anecdotes alone don’t prove much.”

And that is how many such discussions, like those Carl and Jerry are engaging in, progress. Anecdote countered with anecdote.

Data is of course crucial but the hypotheses driving such studies are preceded by and formulated through introspection. It all begins with anecdotes.

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Altamira

Henri chats to Emilie along the Rue de Rivoli.

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Henri: You draw diagrams?

Emilie: For books, manuals, yes.

Henri: Art for instructional purposes.

Emilie: More instruction than art.

Henri: Do you ever paint just for pleasure?

Emilie: Sometimes. Recently I…

Henri: Yes?

Emilie: Oh, nothing.

Henri: Go on.

Emilie: Well, I painted a bison.

Henri: For…instructional purposes?

Emilie: The cave paintings at Altamira show how it’s done, to show what it was like, to capture the method and the dangers, of hunting. I was drawn to this first example of … an illustrated manual.

Henri: Nice.

Emilie: I don’t usually draw for pleasure.

Henri: Did you find, like Picasso, that after Altamira all is decadence?

Emilie: Picasso was given to overstatement.

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Voiceover

It helps clarify our minds to explain why we do something. Henri may be following the kind of conversation that might occur in a film by Truffaut or Bresson. But his probing and encouragement suggest something is at the back of his mind. One wonders whether his recollection of Picasso’s remark was truly spontaneous or germinated as a subscript.

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What's a story?

Eric’s nieces tell him what a good story is. Or is it the other way around?

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Sophie: Uncle Eric, tell us a story.
Eric: A story? What’s a story?
Sophie: Something happened.
Sarah: Something funny happened.
Eric: OK. Something happened. Who did this? Made it happen?
Sophie: Somebody.
Sarah: Somebody, somebody - with a big nose.
Eric: Mhmm. And when did this happen to this somebody with a big nose?
Sophie: Long ago…
Sarah: …like last week.
Eric: Ah-ha. And just where does this Mr Bignose live?
Sophie: Far away.
Sarah: I know! Next door.
Eric: And why do you think this happened long ago last week to Mr Bignose who lives faraway next door?
Sarah: Because it’s a story, that’s why.

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Voiceover
Questions are the answer. Leading his nieces to answer his wh- questions reveals Eric as an educator. Sophie's answers (long ago and faraway) indicate a preference for traditional tale-telling but Sarah's embellishments to "Who?" and "Where?" (Mr Bignose next door) suggest a creative mischievousness at work. She also has a clever sense of how to close and get the story back on track.
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Journey to the core

Zaphod regales Wanda with his experience of Core Duo.

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Zaphod: Started with a bang.

Wanda: The vacation?

Zaphod: Did a core duo.

Wanda: New computer?

Zaphod: No, no. Routine tests show some abnormalities, medspeak for looking GP looking serious and sucking his breath, and he recommends colonoscopy and I say I have a pain, topside not bottom, so he says, make that two, a colonoscopy and a gastroscopy to check the duodenum.

Wanda: Ouch. Skewering you top and bottom ?

Zaphod: The night before was more devastating. Drink three liters of PEG lavage, talk about swallowing soap, and take a laxative.

Wanda: Flush everything out?

Zaphod: Ten times all through the night. Check in 6:30 AM.

Wanda: Cruel hour.

Zaphod: Anyway, in the prep room nurse sticks a needle in my front paw, like putting down a cat or a dog. Some hours later I wake up in recovery and nurse comes with a cup of tea and says doc just got a couple things talk you through and I think, ha, three months or six, but he shows me the pix and gives me a DVD of what the camera saw all in subterranean Tuscan orange.

Wanda: Polyps?

Zaphod: Sorry, none. Patch of inflammation best he could find.

Wanda: And the fix?

Zaphod: Meds and no beer two weeks.

Wanda: How are you going to survive?

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Voiceover
Doctors do it during operations, pilots do it after crises. Joke around.

Making light of medical-related anxieties may be a similar defence mechanism for patients.
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Overheard

Voices of two silhouetted figures down a corridor are faintly heard.
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Taller: There was a rumor, don't know how true it is, think I read it in Forbes, that Steve has pancreatic cancer.

Shorter: No! He still bounces on stage and does his rock star thing launching new products.

Taller: Some say he hasn't been looking well but the PR division keeps saying he's fine.

Shorter: If it were true, and it's a big if, since people that rich have access to the best medical resources, and he, let's say, withdrew from the company, think what it'd do to the stock value.

Taller: It's all just conjecture. What would happen if word got around that you had something like that?

Shorter: I'd be fired and the company stock would rise.

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Voiceover
People hedge more when reporting a rumor. Qualifying phrases like "...don't know how true it is..." "...it's a big if..." protect the speaker from being scoffed at or even challenged with a supplementary rumor. And the future however it may turn out.
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Language learning

The Master speaks 50 languages. The student asks how he does it.

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Teacher: Start with the simple stuff: everyday objects, body parts. After nouns go to verbs, make sentences. Listen to the sounds.

Student: How long does it take to learn a new language?

Teacher: An hour for the essentials. A week for the complex grammar of a difficult language like Dutch.

Student: Any tricks?

Teacher: Use tools. Film subtitles are good. Oh, and leverage your resources. If you are learning one language, learn two or three others at the same time.

__________

Voiceover

Kenneth Hale put his language gifts to humanitarian use. He learned languages that were dying. Some he could rescue.

He reckoned that when we lose a language we lose “intellectual wealth, a work of art. It’s like dropping a bomb on the Louvre.”

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Memorizing Beethoven

Liz and Juliet on their way to a summer concert.

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Liz: You don’t use an iPod?

Juliet: No. I travel light.

Liz: So how do carry your music around with you?

Juliet: In my head. I memorize it.

Liz: You mean you hum?

Juliet: Not hum, I read the music in my head and I hear it in the back of my ears.

Liz: Sounds hard.

Juliet: Start with something simple. Like Beethoven’s Fifth. Da-da-da-DAH! Da-da-da-DAH!

Liz: I couldn’t get beyond ten bars.

Juliet: Why I suggest Beethoven’s Fifth is because it’s very visual. Imagine forests. Imagine storms.

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Voiceover

Why Beethoven indeed! What better word-picture-painter than E.M.Forster to add images to help the make the music mean something.

“…the music started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive creatures; it was that that made them so terrible to Helen. They merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude of elephants dancing, they returned and made the observation for the second time. Helen could not contradict them, for, once at all events, she had felt the same, and had seen the reliable walls of youth collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins were right. Her brother raised his finger; it was the transitional passage on the drum…”

After you have memorized Beethoven, you can tackle pieces which are more, shall we say, abstract?

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Language death

Emma wonders why Marka is interested in preserving Sorbian language.

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Emma: How many are regular users of Sorbian?

Marka: 15,000 in Upper Lusatia, particularly used in churches.

Emma: Do they use it in your church?

Marka: Of course. They don’t in Lower Lusatia, but here all the clergy speak Sorbian.

Emma: Who would care if Sorbian just, well, disappeared?

Marka: Linguists would care. Many young people in Upper Lusatia would care.

Emma: So why would they care? The numbers are declining.

Marka: It’s not a question of numbers. It’s not just a question of mere words going extinct. There’s the culture, the customs, the events, the stories.

Emma: Ah. To lose the stories!

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Voiceover

Language attrition leads to language death. Why is language death so important? Surely there are plenty of other languages in the world that are not threatened by extinction and do the job equally well?

If the Sorbs lose their language, it will be an intellectual disaster for their culture. In universal linguistic terms, perhaps a micro-disaster.

David Crystal uses the analogy of ecology, arguing that languages which are endangered should be at the top of environmental agenda.

He argues that a world which recognized English as the single global language which displaced all others would be the greatest intellectual disaster the world has ever known. Perhaps a macro-disaster.

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Torture

Voices off…

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Tell me.

Maybe tomorrow.

Come on. Don’t keep me in suspense. You’re torturing me.

Huh! Torture? Waterboarding? And worse? Like Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo?

Well…

Don’t get me started on semantics. You saw Taxi to the Dark Side, right?

Shocking. All those leaders and soldiers, people we trusted…

So maybe I’m teasing, I wouldn’t say I’m torturing you.

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Voiceover

Words become loaded when associated with shocking events. Nazis, Holocaust, ethnic cleansing are not words you can use lightly.

The generic expression “torture” seems to have joined that group, hung there by Alex Gibney’s documentary, a film in which there are no winners, especially among the leaders and soldiers but also among those whose patriotism triumphs over their reason.

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Optimists vs pessimists

The tourist boat has capsized and sunk but fortunately everyone is wearing lifejackets.

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Andy: Stay together. They’ll see us.

Bill: Lucky the water’s warm.

Chris: What’s that big shape coming up on us?

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Voiceover

In any group, what people say marks them as optimists or pessimists.

Andy hopes they will be rescued.

Bill is thankful exposure isn’t an issue.

And Chris has to imagine that something is roaring up from the depths at them.

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Journal writing and dieting

Penelope is incredulous that the simple act of journal writing reduces weight.

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Penelope: Journal writing helps dieting? You’re kidding me. Like writing a lot burns calories?

Ursula: It’s the psychological act of writing. If you write down everything you eat, you get shy, you watch it.

Penelope: You get inhibited.

Urusula: It works in other ways. If I know I’m going to have to report, even to myself, how many glasses of wine I’ve had, it slows me down. I maybe have one less.

Penelope: Red’s OK. Specially if you have it same time as you eat reindeer. Blocks the release of free radicals.

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Voiceover

Monitoring curbs excess. Turn a video camera on yourself when you’re being over-dramatic. You soon learn to act like a TV actor, not a stage actor.

Maybe this journal writing is a good monitoring device for more than checking food intake.

Spill the beans to your journal and see if you start edging closer to the ideal you.

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Ears

Beatrice hears her new friend Anna wants to specialize in medicine.

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Beatrice: It’s hard, getting to be a doctor.

Anna: I can do it.

Beatrice: I know you can study. But the hours, the crises, the commitment… What kind of a doctor?

Anna: Ears.

Beatrice: Hearing?

Anna: It goes back to my childhood. I’m deaf in my left ear.

Beatrice: No. You never said.

Anna: What’s there to say? I sit so people are on my right. I do fine.

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Voiceover

Simple wh- questions can yield surprise answers. At times, exposing some disability.

Yet hardship can be undervalued. Anna has a workaround for her left ear deafness. And it acts as a springboard to a decent career.

I had a friend who consistently pulled only average grades first two years in high school. Then his father died. Six months later my friend was getting top marks in all subjects, and was captain of the school tennis team. He went on to become a doctor, like his father. It was as if the torch had been passed.

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Asperger's Syndrome

Allan is Jerry’s counsel and wants to use mental illness as a defence.
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Allan: They say Albert Einstein might have had Asperger’s syndrome. Thomas Jefferson. Some say Bill Gates even exhibits certain signs of it. Very good company Jerry.

Jerry: It’s a relief actually.

Allan: Really?

Jerry: I always hated that I couldn’t be normal. Turns out, it’s because I’m not.

Allan: Jerry, it’s also a viable defence. We just need the psychiatrist to give you a diagnosis.

Jerry: No. No. With a diagnosis in court, it’ll be a matter of public record. I’ll be the autistic lawyer. Forget about disbarment. No one will ever hire a mental case, even though it's only a pervasive developmental disorder. I could certainly never be a lawyer again. No. No. No.
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Voiceover

Even though Asperger’s syndrome is not a serious disorder, Jerry knows that using this defence will jeopardize his employment prospects. The rights of those with physical disabilities are fairly well protected in law, but those with mental disorders, even when they do not diminish a person's ability to function, and may even enhance it, are still discriminated against.
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ABBA

Frida touches up Agnetha's hair prior to meeting Meryl at the film premier.

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Frida: So it says paste this bit of code and you'll see who came, saw and ...
Agnetha: And?
Frida: Well, left, I guess.
Agnetha: Right. That's what people do, innit. They click in, they click out.
Frida: Like you did.
Agnetha: Like me! Like you. Knowing me, knowing you. I had to leave, Seeing you going into oil and all.

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Voiceover

Those old songs. For any generation, the old songs were the best songs.

Nostalgia accompanies neuralgia. We may speak in tongues but what better way to say than to sing it? In the old words. Knowing me, knowing you. Nothing I could do.

In these times, you’d have to say Frida had her head screwed on the right way.
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Print obsessed

Muriel calls on Leonard in his notoriously overstuffed office.

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Leonard: Sorry for the mess.

Muriel: Er, was it ever tidy?

Leonard: Thirty years ago. I had no papers and no books then.

Muriel: Throw them out. Throw some out.

Leonard: I can’t. I’m worried I’ll lose something useful I grew up in hard times you know.

Muriel: Wouldn’t be that you have a fascination for print, would it?

Leonard: You mean, I’m obsessed by the power of the printed word?

Muriel: And you can’t let it go. Another facet of the endowment effect.

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Voiceover

The endowment effect, first proposed by Richard Thaler, is the idea that people value something more once they own it than something they do not yet own.

Although studies of the endowment effect have focused on objects, and the psychology of behavior in financial matters, it may be time to investigate which academics are prone to feathering their nests with printed matter.

Investment model

Emergency meeting in an investment brokerage. Chief of trading, Altman, requests help from chief of research, Zbigniew, but differences in communication are revealed between them.

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Altman: These are weird times. There are so many sell orders some traders are saying go short on futures. Yet prices are so cheap, others are taking long positions. We lack guidance.

Zbigniew: You need a new model.

Altman: We do. What factors were you thinking of including?

Zbigniew: Investors sell their shares, they buy gold, they sell their houses and rent a place to live.

Altman: OK. Model needs all those things. The traders want an interface, too.

Zbigniew: So you need a new program. Coding takes time and testing.

Altman: Can I suggest these steps. First, a new model taking account of the changed economic climate. Second, a new instrument for traders to interface with. Snazzy graphics to impress their cutomers. And third, a testing period to see if the thing works and we can tell the future and make some money.

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Voiceover

There are several ways to express ideas clearly. Zbigniew, the researcher, is a clear thinker, offers his bulleted suggestions in a list. He gleans ideas from data and is used to writing pithy reports. His talk is like a visual display.

Altman’s job is managing traders. He has to talk clearly. In an oral context, linkage (transition devices like first, second, third) map the road the ideas stand on. And causation expressions (to interface, to impress, to test) answer the whys.

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