In this issue:

EGO INFLATION
FEWER FRIENDS
MEMORY ATROPHY
COMPUTER ADDICTION

And much, much more...

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BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL BRAINMAIL
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*Feeding hungry minds since 2004 

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Issue 68 - October 2010
Special "Future Minds" edition!
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current and future trends,
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> How Culture Influences Seeing
A study led by Takahiko Masuda at
the University of Alberta
(Canada) has found that when
Westerners look at an image they
tend to isolate a central subject
whereas East Asians tend toward
seeing the image in its
contextual entirety. For
instance, when asked to look at a
picture of an individual and
judge his or her mood, a group of
Japanese took into account the
facial expressions of the
background group whereas Western
volunteers didn't consider the
expressions of the people in the
background.
Ref: Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology (US)

> Has Anyone Backed Up the
Internet?
A US think-tank says that
internet use is rising by about
60% each year worldwide. Unless
we can increase capacity,
brownouts (frozen screens,
download delays etc) could become
commonplace, relegating the
internet to the status of a toy
for many.
Ref: Nemertes Research (US)

> Ego Inflation
A study called 'Ego Inflating
Over Time: A Test of Two
Generational Theories of
Narcissism Using Cross-Temporal
Meta-Analysis' found a marked
increase in narcissism among US
students since 1982. The
40-question survey attracted
16,475 respondents and found more
individuals than ever agreeing
with statements like "I think I
am a special person." One
explanation put forward by
researchers to explain the
increased focus on the self is
Web 2.0 and sites like YouTube
and MySpace. 
Ref: Psychological Science (US)

> Life Is Not GR8
A study by the University of
Plymouth (UK) has found that
people who text rather than talk
are more likely to be lonely and
anxious.
Ref: The Australian (Aus)

> If You Don't Behave You Can't
Stay In
According to Prof. Simon Pearce
(University of Newcastle) kids
are now spending so much time
indoors watching TV and playing
with computers that they are not
being exposed to enough natural
sunlight. They are therefore
suffering from vitamin D
deficiency, which could be behind
the recent surge in cases of
rickets.
Ref: The Times (UK)

> Clever Companies
A study by McKinsey & Company
claims that 85% of new jobs
created in the US between 1998
and 2006 involved "knowledge
work".
Ref: McKinsey Quarterly (US)

> e-Tots
80% of toys now contain an
electronic component.
Ref: New York Times (US)

> Do I Know You?
A Stanford study has found that
physical face-to-face
interactions fall by 30 minutes
for every hour that people spend
on computers. Meanwhile, another
study has found that users of
social networks are 30% less
likely to know their next-door
neighbour compared with non-users.
Ref: PEW (US) / New Scientist (UK)

> Information Trust
A study by the University of
Connecticut has found that web
users are consistently poor at
judging whether web-based
information is trustworthy or
not. The study asked students to
look at a spoof web page,
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus,
about a rare Tree Octopus. 90% of
students thought the page a
trustworthy and reliable source.
Ref: International Herald Tribune
(US)

> Dreaming in Black and White
A study carried out at the
University of Dundee, in
Scotland, has found that people
aged under twenty-five generally
dream in colour but a large
proportion of people aged
fifty-five plus (i.e. those who
grew up with black and white
television in the 1950s and
1960s) regularly have monochrome
dreams.
Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK)

> Cyber-Security
All police stations in South
Korea now have a cyber-crime
unit, while in the US, Guardian
Angels (the volunteer group set
up to patrol subways) now has a
Cyber Angels unit to give support
and advice to the victims of
cyber-crime.
Ref: The Times (UK)

> RL versus VL
A study at the University of
Southern California found that
43% of surveyed internet users
"feel as strongly" about their
virtual community as they do
their real world community.
Ref: BBC News (UK)

> Fewer Friends
Research by sociologists at the
University of Arizona and Duke
University North Carolina has
found that Americans have fewer
close friends than they used to.
Back in 1985, the average
American had three people to
confide in about their problems.
Now they have only two.
Ref: USA Today (US)

> Technology Induced Memory
Atrophy Research by Trinity
College, Dublin, has found that
the more that we rely on
technology, the worse our memory
becomes. A quarter of people
surveyed couldn't remember their
own home phone number. On average
people juggle five passwords,
five PIN numbers, five security
IDs and two licence plate
numbers. 87% of over-50s could
remember family birthday dates
whereas only 40% of under-30s
could do the same. It's called
technology-induced memory atrophy.
Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK)

> Way Too Much Information
The world produces at least 5
exabytes of new information every
year. That's about 250 megabytes
for every man, woman and child on
earth, most of which is stored on
magnetic media, usually computer
hard drives.
Ref: Monocle (UK)

> Data Deluge 2.0
The US is responsible for
producing 40% of the world's new
stored information. The amount of
data being produced globally
increased by 30% from 1992-2002
(i.e. before the current
user-generated content and Web
2.0 explosion even started).
Ref: Wired (US)

> The Architecture of Thinking
A study by Mark and Czerwinski
has found that that the size of a
computer screen greatly
influences the working memory of
human operatives. In the study,
participants were given 125-inch
screens while a control group
received 42-inch screens.
Individuals with the 42-inch
screens completed tasks 10%
faster with some people being as
much as 44% more speedy.
Ref: New York Times (US)

> The Shape of Things to Come?
According to its government,
about 2 million South Koreans
(almost 10% of people online in
South Korea) are addicted to the
internet. The consequences of
this can be deadly. Last year a
couple caused the death by
starvation of their
three-month-old child because
they became addicted to raising a
virtual child in a game called
Prius Online, from an internet
cafe in a suburb of Seoul.
Ref: Guardian (UK)

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: FAST FACTS

Only 1% of Google searches get
past page one of results.
Ref: Dumbest Generation by Mark
Bauerlein

50% of UK children aged 5-9 and
75% of 7-15 year olds now own a
mobile phone.
Ref: Manchester University Social
Attitudes Study (UK)

Only 3 out of 220 US students
were able to turn off their cell
phones for 72 hours.
Ref: Fox News (US)

63% of Australians feel that they
are overloaded with information.
Ref: Daily Telegraph (Aus)

52% of Korean infants aged 3-5
regularly use the Internet,
spending on average 4 hours every
week online.
Ref: Korean Herald (South Korea)

In the UK young people average
almost 6 hours per day in front
of a screen.
Ref: Childwise study quoted by
the Guardian (UK)

Between 8-10% of Internet users
are "addicted".
Ref: McLean Hospital (US)

Teens send, on average, 2,272
text messages a month.
Ref: Information Week (US)

Between the ages of 10-11, the
average British child spends 900
hours at school, 1,300 hours with
their parents and 2,000 hours in
front of a screen.
Ref: Sydney Morning Herald (Aus)

5.2 million workers in the UK are
functionally illiterate.
Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK)

49% of British children are
banned by their parents from
climbing trees.
Ref: Daily Mail (UK)

In the UK, non-working women
spend almost half their time
online.
Ref: Guardian (UK)

The average intake of information
in the US was 300% higher in 2008
than in 1960.
Ref: New York Times (US)

In Europe, adults spent 1/3 more
time online in 2009 as they did
in 2005.
Ref: Forrester Research (US)

People at work last, on average,
3 minutes before being
distracted.
Ref: University of California at
Irvine study (US)

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: BOOK OF THE MONTH

You thought it was going to be my
new book Future Minds, didn't
you? Well it goes without saying
that you should buy numerous
copies but I think that you
should also take a look at:

"The Shallows: What the Internet
is Doing to Our Brains"

by Nicholas Carr

and:

You Are Not a Gadget: A
Manifesto

by Jaron Lanier.

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: WEB SIGHT OF THE MONTH

It's nothing nasty. Just a clever
way to get parts of your old
analogue life back.
  
http://suicidemachine.org/

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: QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"We affirm that the world's
magnificence has been enriched by
a new beauty: the beauty of speed"
  
- Futurist manifesto, 1909 (taken
from Slow by Carl Honore).

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: PREDICTION OF THE MONTH
  
Digital storage will become
effectively infinite, thereby
allowing people to record their
entire lives via wearable
devices.

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: STILL HUNGRY?

You might not know this, but
brainmail is put together using
all the leftover bits from the
What's Next trends report. So if
this snack-sized newsletter is
leaving you a bit hungry, go to
www.nowandnext.com for something
more substantial (and that's free
too).

---------------------------------

: LOOKING FOR AN INSIGHTFUL AND
  ENTERTAINING SPEAKER?

If you are considering a futurist
speaker for your next event ask
your speaker agency about Richard
Watson or contact him direct via
www.nowandnext.com. Richard is
the creator of brainmail (along
with help from Phil, Matt and
occasionally Corrina). Richard's
recent speaker clients have
included IBM, McDonald's,
Coca-Cola, Samsung, CSIRO, The
Welsh Government Assembly and
Procter and Gamble.

---------------------------------

: SMALL PRINT

The material appearing in
brainmail is sourced from a
variety of reliable publications
worldwide. However, brainmail
cannot guarantee the truthfulness
of stories and a degree of
commonsense should be applied
before quoting or using any of
this material in a commercial
context. If something appears to
be too good to be true it
probably is.

---------------------------------

: SPECIAL SMALL PRINT
  
All of the above has been
extracted from Future Minds: How
the Digital Age is Changing Our
Minds, Why This Matters and What
We Can Do About It by Richard
Watson (Nicholas Brealey
Publishing, 2010) or from early
versions of the manuscript.
  
Free downloads and more at
http://www.futuretrendsbook.com