Two Opposing Camps
Some advocates believe we can Google,
blog, Skype, and Twitter our way to
enlightenment. They assume that disorganized, radically democratized data
lead to useful information and thus to
real knowledge through some process of
collective, randomized, constant
connectivity. This argument rests on the
premise that we learn best through data
collection without the burdens of judgment and discernment. From an episte-
As the challenges facing the globe become
increasingly complex, our frames of reference
must be flexible, expansive, and adaptive.
mological point of view, this is a highly
questionable hypothesis. Learning
requires stable, flexible cognitive
frameworks and consistent forms of
adaptive assessment.
In opposition are the skeptics, such
as Mark Bauerlein, who argues in his
book The Dumbest Generation (Penguin,
2008) that this incessant communication is really a complex manifestation
of miscommunication that does not
lead to intellectual growth, but rather
to a stunting of genuine intellectual
development. The Internet culture
facilitates a kind of solipsistic, permanent adolescence that is profoundly
anti-intellectual. A quick walk through
the cultural landscape of the Internet
suggests that “being online” can
contribute to hyper-individualism and
a sense of unearned celebrity, not to
mention occasional weirdness.
The inventive curve of new technologies is so steep that the Internet
culture will undoubtedly become more
ubiquitous and communicatively dense
as it continues to challenge the intellectual and academic culture that has
come down to us from the European
Enlightenment and the Industrial
Revolution, both of which convinced
us that we can make a better world
through creating knowledge and
applying it to human needs. This
process requires literacy, a personal and
communal discipline that appears to be
in decline. As fewer of us are reading
books, more of us are surfing the Web
for fragments of thought. The collapse
of the conventional newspaper business is perhaps an early warning sign
of what is to come in the next 5 to 10
years.
Human society has experienced
three profound social, economic, and
cultural transformations—the agrarian
revolution, the Industrial Revolution,
and now the electronic revolution. We
need to be on the right side of history
if we are to survive and thrive. If we
harness them correctly, we can blend
the best of our traditional intellectual
linear culture—Socrates’ wisdom of the
5th century BCE—with the current
digital culture, creating a new learning
and intellectual environment consistent
with the cognitive and expressive
demands of the 21st century.
The 21st Century Mind
A child born today could live into the
22nd century. It’s difficult to imagine
all that could transpire between now
and then. One thing does seem
apparent: Technical fixes to our
outdated educational system are likely
to be inadequate. We need to adapt to
a rapidly changing world.
The 21st century mind will need to
successfully manage the complexity
and diversity of our world by
becoming more fluid, more flexible,
more focused on reality, and radically
more innovative. Four elements of the
