Daniel Lyons: Obama right, devices like the iPad are rotting our brains

Or it could be that he just does not see how these new devices, which are today geared only to entertainment, could some day be used to further empower us. Perhaps, in the future we might see the iPad or other devices like it, be used in schools for delivering instructional, interactive content. They might serve as rich clipboards for carrying and streaming medical information in a hospital or other medical centers. As for Facebook and Twitter, while they are still mostly used for entertainment, they have also been useful for pushing up-to-minute status of things going on in places of political unrest or from the hospital rooms. When I was at the hospital with my daughter after her surgery, I used Facebook to provide continual updates to my friends and family about her condition.

So maybe Obama's comments simply lack imagination of how these devices could be more useful in the future. And I believe it's also true that some of the most significant technological innovations start out as toys.

Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.

Information can be a thing too. Sometimes information liberates us, and in other circumstances it weighs on us.

Obama is right.

could, perhaps, maybe

This is the problem; who is starting/making this paradigm shift? And can they cause such a shift to remove the bias towards entertainment and information overload.

Sure, there are lots of examples (Iran for example) of the utility of modern media. But currently the signal to noise ratio is pretty bad - and getting worse.

That, I think, is the point.

I think people are overly poopooing the iPad's effect on the world. I think people who buy them INSTEAD of a computer for anyone born since 1950 is being a moron. However I think 99% of people who use them view them as a device slightly more mobile as a laptop which is nice for certain activities, and is a nice auxiliary.

I know I personally have used it to answer quite a few emails (but then again, if I was buying it for just personal use, I likely wouldn't have; I'm a professional iPad dev), as well as keep up on rss feeds and used it as a pdf reader.

This readin' and writin' business is turning us into helpless idiots.

I mean what will become of our natural memory if all we have to do is write stuff down and read it later on. When I was kid you memorized what was important. And we were _strong_!!!

Then there's the effect on personal communication. What ever became of traveling days and weeks to go talk to someone else far away. We miss all that travel and and seeing what the world is like. (Not to mention the effect on the travel industry.) A written letter just doesn't have the same effect on someone as a face to face visit. And besides, if its in writing, how am I gonna wiggle out of terms and conditions I don't like?

I tell you, I don't like it.

And don't get me started on that damn printin' press...

edit:

Seriously (huuuur hur hur hur) people aren't getting stupider.

There've _always_ been stupid people in great numbers. Never been a shortage. Its just that its easier to see them or have to deal with them. Anyone can post a blog or get hits on youtube. That's a good thing. The problem isn't too much information technology, its too little filter and editorial technology. It'll happen. We're, what, 15, 20 years into this internet thingie. 40 years if you're generous. It took over a hundred years for the printing press to stabilize technologically and several hundred years for people to learn to deal with its societal implications (actually we're still working on that one...) Sites like this (hacker news) are just the beginning.

In the meantime, I've started doing a little grassroots filtering by no longer reading Newsweek technology articles...