Mind expects to not go deep because of influence of the Net for many years
Linear mind in all eras!
Imaginative mind - renaissance
Rational mind - enlightenment
Inventive mind - Industrial Revolution
Subversive mind - modernism
Shift from paper to screen influences degree of attention & the depth of immersion because there's a connection between tactile & visual.
Hyperlinks are not the same as footnotes because they don't just point, they propel us & scatter attention
The gray text page of a magazine is gone
Promotes hurried & distracted thinking & superficial learning
Scanning web pages over reading books
Texts over sentences & paragraphs
Hopping across links over contemplation
Neural circuits break apart
Brain recycles disused neurons & synapses for more pressing work
Different pattern when searching Net and when reading book-like text
Book readers - language, memory, visual processing [not much activity in prefrontal regions of decision-making & problem solving as opposed to experienced Net users]
When cognitive load exceeds processing, not able to retain the info or draw connections with info already stored in long-term memory [no new info into schemas]
Net - only small bit of info to long-term
Complex concepts = schemas [these concepts add depth to thinking because able to organize scattered thinking into patterns of knowledge]
Web's connections are not ours
Culture is in the mind, not outsourced in the machine like the Net
When the phone is in the pocket or purse, still interrupts