Howdy, Bubba! Hey, if you're new around these parts, I just want to say how much I appreciate you dropping by! Oh, and you may want to subscribe to my feed. Thanks, and a tip o' the hat to ya!

Let’s take a journey today.

First, a hop across the pond for an article from the Times Online (in England, old bean) titled “Report: The next step in brain evolution” discusses how our brains may be changing, and the findings are, as Spock would say, “fascinating” (don’t forget to lift your eyebrow when you say it.) It’s a long article but I highly recommend it.

Then, pop over to David Armano’s L+E blog today where he adds some very interesting commentary.

Finally, I humbly add my own comments:

It’s a fascinating article and I like the additional thoughts added by David. But there may be some serious consequences to this phenomenon. Are we really ready for this? (Oops - did I just give myself away as an “immigrant”?)

For instance, could that “rapid digital change” continue to widen the gap between each of the three cultural groups mentioned (old world, immigrant, citizen) as the pace of change in the digital world continues to increase? Will the gap eventually get too great to bridge? Let’s hope not! Cultural divides are already the cause of many conflicts we experience right now.

The point about this being something of a “grand experiment” is a good one, though. But that begs the question: are you personally happy being a subject of such an experiment? Some people won’t mind, and some people will – and maybe that’s an even better illustration of the developing cultural gap mentioned above.

Orson Scott Card, in his excellent sci-fi series of books starting with “Enders Game” described a future Earth where “the Nets” were all pervasive computer networks of people. The main characters of the book built their influence by simply gaining a following among the participants. One character then leveraged his influence to control the world’s political power.

Isn’t that basically what is happening right now with blogging and other types of social networking? Well, not exactly “king of the world” stuff, but the person with something valuable to say develops a following, gains influence, and pretty soon, it’s just possible to change the world - all because of the connections made with people.

Pretty sobering stuff, when you see it happening right before your eyes!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!