"Oh, I'm very good at multi-tasking!"

[hopewrites]

Agreed. But I view the epidemic of ADD that is reported to be increasing rapidly among younger and successive generations not as a disease but an adaptation and evolution of the way the brain functions.

 

[j d worthington]

Agreed. But I view the epidemic of ADD that is reported to be increasing rapidly among younger and successive generations not as a disease but an adaptation and evolution of the way the brain functions.

Now, that's an interesting interpretation. I, myself, don't see it as a "disease", nor even a disfunction, but as a healthy normal reaction to exposure to too much simultaneous information, far beyond what the brain is structured to accommodate. In other words, to me, this is simply another example of how our technological abilities have outstripped our basic physical (and therefore mental, emotional, and moral) nature.

I do think that we will find methods of coping with this and adapting to it to a sustainable level, but the cost is going to be high, and perpetual for a very, very long time....

 

[hopewrites]

I find that for myself and for many of the others like me the "suffering" of ADD is more in the social unacceptance of our normality than in the normality itself.
Comparing my father's school experience to mine and my son's I can track the social evolution that makes it easier for deslexics to learn, not because they way we think and learn changed but because the way others think of us and accept the way our brains work changed. I am glad that my son will have a positive learning environment because understanding and acceptance have both increased. Just as my father was glad my learning difference would be worked with rather than beat out.

To bring this example back to topic, I hope that the social advancements we have made in understanding and accepting (rather than treating) other learning differences will help more of the stimuli driven changes in human makeup to be embraced and utilized.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

The skills and values taught in schools were different, people memorized data that is now databased, and upcoming generations are now taught how to access the databases rather than self-store them inside their heads.

And according to newspapers here, there are now (prototype) glasses that you can use to surf the internet (mutli-tasking mayhem while driving, anyone?), and (prototype) flexible plastic computers the thickness of a human hair, that can be worn like jewellery or clothing.

Easier to surf the databases. Less need to know anything.

The only thing we'll need to memorise is don't wear your Google Goggles in the shower.

 

[Ursa major]

I recall a music teacher - she was teaching general music classes, not helping us learn how to play an instrument - telling us all that it was more important to know how to access information, and to know where it might be found, than remembering it all.

This was in 1973, at the very latest.

 

[Vertigo]

I remember being annoyed about that at university doing electronics. I got so frustrated by the fact that we had to remember loads of formulae and were not allowed reference books in the exams. Now it seems to me that at the university level it should be all about knowning how to do things not remembering formulae that in real life you would just look up when needed. </rant>