How Digital Technology Has Changed the Brain

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Many experts contend that if young people try to absorb multiple streams of information at the same time, they'll make mistakes, slow down, and think less deeply and creatively. My observation of hundreds of Net Geners leads me to a different conclusion: Net Geners are faster than I am at switching tasks and better at blocking out background noise. They can work effectively with music playing and news coming in from Facebook. They can keep up their social networks while they concentrate on work—they seem to need this to feel comfortable. I think they've learned to live in a world where they're bombarded with information, so that they can block out the TV or other distractions while they focus on the task at hand. This is a powerful advantage in a digital environment that's buzzing with multiple streams of information.

New Form of Literacy

The digital world that Net Geners have been weaned on is profoundly interactive. Kids have grown up to expect a two-way conversation, not a one-way lecture. This interactive reflex has a profound effect on what one academic has called their "habits of mind." Instead of simply absorbing information—from a teacher or even a book—they go out and find it. As O'Shea's story illustrates, the Net Geners use Google when they want to find out something. When they do so, they construct their own story, their own idea, rather than following the line of thought drawn by someone else in a book. This obviously doesn't replace conventional book reading, nor should it. But what we're seeing is a new form of literacy that many experts say is just as intellectually challenging as reading a book.

Now some critics say that because Net Geners don't read books cover to cover, they don't get a chance to follow a fully developed argument. The result, according to these critics, is that they never learn to build a frame of reference that the intelligent reader needs to interpret the world. My own view is different: In the online hunt you can develop your own frame of reference, which is based on far more information than we ever had at their age. I think this makes the Net Generation smarter than they would have been had they just spent the time sitting on a couch watching TV.

Google, far from being an anesthetic that dulls young brains, can activate them and help them achieve spectacular results. Here's just one telling sign: The number of students taking Advanced Placement exams increased by 75% between 1999 and 2005, and their scores on those exams have been improving, too.

So maybe we shouldn't be so shocked when we hear a bright student such as Joe O'Shea say he doesn't read books. Googling—or using other digital probes to obtain information that you evaluate and analyze—can be a powerful way to learn and sharpen your mind. Perhaps Google can make you smart after all.

Don Tapscott, author of Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World, is the founder and chairman of nGenera Insight. Other books he has authored or co-authored include Wikinomics, Paradigm Shift, The Digital Economy, and Growing Up Digital.