Our Digital Selves

Published: Friday, November 26, 2010, 6:38 AM

Letters to the editor

Technological growth is exponential. After centuries of what seemed to be linear growth, we are now on the cusp of massive expansion. The growth curve is about to go nearly vertical. The assumption is that we will eventually need to replace our biological brains just to keep up. When that occurs, humans will have evolved into something else. I think this is inevitable.

What we will look like is difficult to say. For along with expansion of technology will come an exponential expansion of intelligence. Intelligence a million, a billion, a billion billion times our present level in the next 100 years is likely to evolve, but is simply something we can't comprehend, making speculation about it difficult. But between now and then will first come some very interesting adaptations. For not only will we begin to incorporate non-biologic enhancement, but our brains themselves will attempt to adapt.

Today's teenagers are the world's first digital generation. "The average teenager sends hundreds of text messages a day. Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task, but for jumping to the next thing. The worry is we are raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently," says Michael Rich, executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston.

I would take it one step further. Even adult brains are plastic and we now know we continue to make new neurons and to develop new neural nets our entire lives. All of us who are constantly surfing the net, texting and/or interacting with digital media are already rewiring our brains, making us a little more like our computers and digital devices and a little less "human." Not necessarily a bad thing.

Imagine where this could go.