The recent NPR story,The Aging Brain Is Less Quick, But More Shrewd, discusses the ways in which the human brain changes over a life time and how to embrace this change. The news is good for the generation of young people growing up with our current technologies, who are often accused of having a lack of focus due to digital distractions and multi-tasking. I propose a different perspective: the use of digital technology is a more accurate reflection of the manner in which the young mind operates and learns. As this becomes a part of our everyday routine, we will be better equipped for the day our brains slow and focus.
Or, for another perspective: the study measured middle-aged individuals who grew up without digital technology and were most likely educated in the traditional, structured pedagogical model. Perhaps the manner in which the young mind “learned how to learn” affected the manner in which it would develop later in life. If so, then the young mind of today will develop into something much different.
According to this article in Treehugger.com electro-magnetic waves, or EMF, are responsible for the growth patterns of certain maple trees.
Might this effect be slowly transforming humans as well?
Will a lifetime of wearing a Bluetooth headset cause the rest of one’s head to grow away from the device?
Will several generations of microwave ovens, cell phone signals, WiFi, ubiquitous computing, and a plethora of on-person electronic devices contribute to a genetic drift in our species?
Only time will tell.
The economic crisis is doing cities everywhere a huge favor: limiting funding for city planning. Rather than imposing a structure “from above” on actors, (as is the case in centralized planning), actors in all of their urban, suburban, exurban, and rural forms are building the built environment in the manner it is always constructed regardless of planning, “from the ground up”. This is not to say that government agencies shouldn’t participate in the processes constitutive of urban life. Rather, their interventions need to establish the means by which various forces may negotiate the development of space according to the terms established by said forces.
The city of the future will be built one brick at a time.
More… Don’t Plan On It