The Net Effect (and other stories)

The Net Effect
Is Google making us stupid? Is it making us smarter? Have we lost our ability to concentrate? Are we more social or more isolated as a result of our constantly interconnected lives? Brooke takes a look at some of the research that attempts to answer the question: how is the internet affecting our brains?



Smirch Engine
There’s a name for how cruel people can get given a little anonymity on the internet. It’s called “online disinhibition effect” and the resulting venom can ruin your day or worse, destroy your good name. Bob looks at the fraught relationship on the web between reputation, privacy and the law.



The Net's Mid-Life Crisis
The basic architecture of the Internet hasn't changed since it was conceived 40 years ago. But what was once the playground of wonks is now the main staging area for the global economy and open to an array of security vulnerabilities. Brooke talks with Internet experts who ponder a vexing conundrum: adjustments that increase security simultaneously hamper innovation.



The Future Brain
Technology is such an integral part of our lives but will it soon be part of our bodies as well? Computer scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil thinks so. He predicts that by 2045 we will have merged with our technology and that we'll be smarter, healthier and... well...immortal. Sounds implausible? Kurzweil explains that that's what people often say about his predictions until they come true.


Find all of them here.