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Where are we? In life, evolutionary, and progressivley, over the last twenty years our social landscape has changed completley. Traditonally, and through the dawn of time before the Internet, we have been and believed to be, linear, in both our brain capacity as evolutionary species,  and the way our brains themselves function, and consume information.

Since the birth of the Internet, and the inhererent hyperlinked associative nature of information, have our brains evolved to learn and consume information differentley than of those of our forfathers? Is it true that in fact, people have no capacity for indepth consumption of a single subject matter, instead allowing their brain to be bombarded by snippets of information from a wealth of related and unrelated topics. We get bored, we move on. We read a headline, watch the first 30 seconds of a video, and then move on, to the next headline, the next video, the next page, and the next link.

It is said Korea now leads the way in both Science and Mathamatics. Education officials suggest one reason is the early exposure to technology, the children their, for them, the Internet is all they have known.

All this leads me to ask how our ability to pair-bond, and form friendships and relationships, have changed over time with one of the biggest inventions born through the Internet, Social networking. This is in recent light of a interesting documentary I watched on the BBC about such a thing.

Professor Boson, suggests that the human brain and our conciousness, typically has up to but very rarely more, can cope associativley with 150 networked relationships in life, being that of friends, colleagues, partners and others. Traditionally, this would of been much much lower, until the Internet came along.  A constant feedback loop of real time informational feeds such as Twitter, Facebook Status, and similar, encourage us to seek and cosume information about others and our friends and family indirectly, and also seek validation about what we do, where we do it, and who we do it with! We post online not only to share our thoughts, but to brag, to broadcast, and to seek validation and approval from peers we not only know, but sometimes of those we dont. Peer evaluation has become normal, and required for our very own existence.

Are we changing? Its so convienient now to egage in multi format snippets of information across a range of platforms from smart phones, to netbooks and Internet access is provided by anything and everything from tablets, slates, secondary media screens, phones, watches, public access points, digital kiosks and public service equipment. Are we losing the ability to concentrate? Is our brain becoming adapative and learning through association as oposed to lineraly as previously, we understood it to work.

The highly penatrative aspect of the Internet to share and distribute information means we cannot escape it, and nor seemingly do we want to. I receive over 3000 emails a day, now whilst 1700 or more are sent from machines as part of my job, the rest are from real people, wanting real engagement. On top of that, there’s the pleathora of websites and blogs I regulary update, my Twitter account, my Facebook status and associated page, along with my podcasts, TV channel and programming that I choose to create and distribute. When was the last time you switched off? I cant remember.

Two weeks ago, and for the first time ever, I felt the need to reboot my brain. I was thinking of so much, so quickly, from websites that needed writing, to Twitter accounts that needed reading, to small segments of information from Facebook, online databases I’d read, the digital E book I was reading on the tube, the call I was taking simultaneously, my Blackberry was going non-stop polling my several email accounts, as I furiously resonded in real time, whilst with the other hand reading the Metro, I wasnt aware exactly how much and how quick not only I, but I suspect many people, consume information now. For the next few hours, my brain just stopped. Literally stopped. I felt in a daze, objects in front of me lost their focus, my mind throbbed, my motor skills seemingly reduced to that as if I had drunk several pints. Its as if my brain just shut off.

Its at this point, I realised my brain, was more than likley different to my parents evolutionary, in the way Iconsume and the way we consume everything around us.

They say the Internet gives us a voice, helps us to level society, we have become a global brain overall. Sharing, creating and consuming shared and hyperlinked media. Linking continents, societies, and people, past future and present.

The world is very much changing, this isnt the end. Its merely the beginning.