Smarter in Internet Age

By: CLIVE THOMPSON

Before the internet, people rarely wrote. Now, nearly everyone does — and they do it in public, online. We’re “public thinkers”, pouring out our ideas and observations and arguments, about 36 million books worth of prose a day. All this writing sharpens our thought… When we think in public, we quickly find people who share our passions — and then we collaborate on projects or problems too big for one person to tackle. All those little “status updates” add up to a lot… The constant stream of tiny updates gives you what psychologists call “ambient awareness” — an ESP-like sense of what’s going on in the minds and lives of others.

Using ambient awareness, families stay in closer contact, creative workers are able to find new ideas and Fortune 500 companies are becoming 25% more productive.

Living online allows us to keep in touch not only with our closest companions but with so-called “weak links”: people we only know slightly. Despite their name, weak links are incredibly useful: they bring the most useful and fresh information into our lives. Weak links bring us the best job offers, a wider array of political views and new opportunities. Studies show that people who are heavily active online are also more civic-minded, often doing offline work to help society. Online tools have helped drive the quest for justice worldwide — from Trayvon Martin in the US to the Arab Spring.

From “Ten Ways Technology is Making Us Smarter”