iPads will silence us all

iPads are leading the decline of the human race, according to a fun Daily Mail article.

The piece begins with this Socratic headline, 

iPad generation 'will learn fewer words' as oral tradition of passing on knowledge is dying out 

(Socrates?  Yes, in the Phaedrus the philosopher complains about how this new technology of "writing" will erode human memory)

The nub of the article is one psychiatrist's claim that visual literacy is supplanting oral skills.  Which is interesting, if one ignores the vast range of sonic communication going on, from Skype to podcasts to game soundtracks, etc.

Also interesting is the way the article quietly emits this 'graf of net.fear:

Constant computer use has been blamed in the past for shorter attention spans, a culture of instant gratification and making young people more self-centred.   

That's some beautiful use of passive voice!

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

Comments

[Joe]

As usual with popular science reporting, the actual study is buried 4/5ths of the way through the article and summarized in 2 sentences:

"In a study, the brains of 27 volunteers were scanned as they learned made-up words. They found hearing and then verbally imitating speech was key to understanding."

I'd like to know more about how the words were taught. I've learned a lot of made-up words from books... animagus, mithril, Newspeak, tesseract, hydra... perhaps it's a measure of what's easy to engage with, but not a measure of how well learning happens when the learner is well-engaged.