The Brain I Want —

And the society we want.

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr propelled me into technology. I first read this writing as an undergraduate in Journalism school. As someone learning about the science and arts of communications, the internet — I mean everything underneath the hood — seemed like such a far-off world. It bothered me what a paradox it was on how little I knew of the tool I use the most.

And so, five years later — I myself am now carving out a space to learn about technology as a software engineer.

I really do love this book because of the questions it draws out in my responsibility as practitioner in technology and a thinker in communications theory.

In the world of technology we like to think of most efficient transfer of data to and from systems.

Is the data usable? How long does it take to send the data? How do we intend the data be used? Is it easy for our users to access? What does it mean? What can we infer?

In the world of communication we like to think the community of ideas — the the transfer of ideas to and from individuals and society.

A question we like to ask in the world of communications is — who had access to the medium of communications? Who determined what was communicated?

Do we shape and mold our communication methods or do they shape and mold us?

This question is fun to ask because I do think at the end of the day — when it comes to computers and systems — it is the creator (usually driven by money) who is determining this.

What we decide to record and pass onto the next generation is a hallmark of what we value in our society. Our brains, the way we think, the things we measure… The Shallows brings up ideas and questions that is relevant now more than ever on a personal and societal level.

On neuroplasticity on our brains

Carr frames the book by introducing the idea of neuroplasticity — our brains are always changing and developing by how we use it.

I’m a neuroscience junkie. And in my endeavors of being a logical youth with chronic depression, learning about the science of the brain and body helped me develop better personal habits and peace of mind.

It goes without having to say I devoured this early section about the brain. The belief and the research in the Brain adjusting and adapting to change is everything that is keeping my depression from winning.

And I love the counterargument to the folks who see the brain as a machine. The brain is so much more than a machine of inputs and outputs. There’s a certain mystic to the brain — like how when one sensory is impaired, parts of your brain will rewire to adapt to compensate for the impairment.

But with the context of the internet, neuroplasticity means that the way we communicate and consume media is rewiring our brains. There is so much going on on an app, a webpage, a video.

As we train and practice sifting through all the noise, we’re training our brains to make hundreds of decisions at once to filter out what’s important and what is not.

That energy used to filter — is energy that is not used to think thoroughly through the very media we’re consuming.

Webpages today are designed to be addictive mainly because the source of income is ad revenue, or how many items are sold, or how many clicks can we get.

I think it’s not completely broken. It think rather — a redesign is in order.

What do we measure? How do we define success? What are the outcomes we want with our technology?

These questions are the questions I’d like to continue to pursue and shape.

It’s similar to how we think of GDP today.

I think many people can agree GDP is an outdated measure of success. In any other situation in nature — something that endlessly grows is a cancer. GDP is measuring success on data points that are irrelevant to the things that matter.

A bit of a tangent there, but being more aware of how things are designed and how it affects my mind has propelled me to reshape my relationship to technology.

A basic framework to visualize the spectrum that Carr proposes is, on one side we have the filtering processing part of our brain, the side that helps with multitasking and deciding at a quick glance what’s relevant. It’s almost like the surveying side of your head. On the other side we have the deep thinking part of the brain, the side that needs to tune everything out to focus on one specific thing and draw connections from one part of your experiences and thoughts to another.

I think thismodel is useful in trying to deduce which side would I like to exercise and when. What is healthy for me?

It does make me wonder what the brain of someone is like who completely grew up with social media as an extension of their communication.

What our medium of communication says about us

I recall an amazing article from my high school English class, the famous Body Ritual Among The Nacirema. It’s an anthropologist’s commentary on how future anthropologists will see Americans today (it’s on of the the nerdiest commentary I’ve ever read, still). My main takeaway from this is — that by creating this observer’s view on our contemporary culture, we’re able to examine ourselves with less bias.

So — today as we are leaving decision making to our algorithms, is this the society we want today?

We often hear of the algorithms that google and facebook use determine what we see. Amazon uses technologies in their platform to ensure their own products win. What we get is — a machine that a human created that determined what is communicated.

For example, Google is well known for their intense A/B testing. There is an anecdote in Carr’s writing about Google A/B testing just to see what shade of blue attracted to most clicks.

In this case the success means a click through.

Is it not possible to create a different kind of model of success? How do we measure something subjective? It certainly would be harder to measure. A click is about as concrete as a piece of data can get.

Do we value this new human brain that we’re creating with multimedia? Or perhaps we must be that much more intentional about it.

Our internet today is shaped by what our society values — money.

Once upon a time in American history, there was legislation to bring controversial topics of the public interest that were honest and informative called the Fairness Doctrine. It’s hard to imagine some sort of legislation like that would ever pass in today’s political environment.

It’s not completely impossible. Other nations do have things like it; Australia is a good example.

I want to highlight here that governments do have the power to decide the values in the nation.

A cross disciplinary look

I could dive deeper in all the ideas I wrote here today… but I figure an article to articulate everything I’ve learned in my Journalism theory class isn’t all too fun.

There are way more fun ways to learn about them now that these ideas are now mainstream. John Oliver does plenty of segments on journalism that describe all the theories I learned those years ago.

What I love most about this book is it’s appeal to people outside the world of communications.

With the other ladies in this book club — I was able to introduce them to a piece of my mind, the bread and butter of how my brain sees things, and learn peak inside their brain, what these words mean to them.

What is technology for those not creating it? What is communications for those not in the theory of it?

There are days where I know I’m out of touch with that…