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Will the Internet Cause Dementia?
Liberals go here. Conservatives go there.
When I walk the dog in my neighborhood, I meet a lot of people. They don’t all look like me but — according to Bill Bishop in The Big Sort — they probably think like me. Bishop argues that we’ve sorted ourselves out less along ethnic lines and more along religious, political, and philosophical lines. We tend to live with and talk to people who agree with us. Bishop argues that’s bad for our country. It tends to exacerbate our differences. We think everybody thinks like us because we only speak to people who think like us. Anybody who doesn’t think like us must be a small group of weirdos who can safely be ignored.
Sorting ourselves out may also be bad for us as individuals. According to recent research, one of the best ways to keep the brain stimulated — and to avoid dementia — is to read or listen to contrary points of view. If we only listen to sources we agree with, we’re simply reinforcing existing pathways in the brain, not creating new ones. What does that have to do with the Internet? The Internet makes it much easier to find and consume only sources that we agree with. In the old days, we would read the family newspaper and be exposed to multiple points of view on the editorial page. With the Internet, it’s much easier to isolate ourselves in an echo chamber.
So, will the Internet cause dementia? It may already have. Watch the video.
11 Responses to Will the Internet Cause Dementia?
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Hi Travis,
I really was intrigued by your message this week. I’ve never thought about how learnng different opinions can stimulate the mind although I’ve always read about things just because they are different. Now I won’t feel like I’m wasting my time reading about what is often seen as usless trivia.
Thanks!
Sandy
I don’t know who you are but I agree with you. I am actually studying welsh to hopefully avoid getting dementia or as I might now say……….. yr wyf yn astudio’r iaith Gymraeg i gobeithio osgoi mynd dementia
Salomon cannot remember writer of this blog? Dementia, possibly. Salomon learning Welsh? There are other words that come to mind, but dementia is not among them… Thanks Travis for an interesting perspective.
In “Infotopia” Cass Sunstein discussed a study where separate liberal and conservative groups where asked to debate several controversial social issues. Not only did the groups become more homogeneous in there thinking, but “in almost every group, members ended up with more extreme positions after they spoke with one another.” Not only does seeking out like minds squash diversity, it makes us more extreme in our beliefs.
Great points! From my perspective, the decline in civility over the past couple decades has likewise diminished a healthy curiosity in opposing views, such curiosity not only affording enlightenment but also a better understanding [and perhaps validation] as to why we hold the views we do … It’s regrettable that so much of contemporary discourse is saturated with yelling, profanity and a profound absence of [paraphrasing Covey’s line] seeking first to understand or acceptance of the potential we’ll just have to agree to disagree …