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It's been 20 years since the
creation of the world wide web and

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every aspect of our lives has been
touched by this digital revolution.

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Tim Berners-Lee created something
of unbelievable power.

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I think of the web
as humanity connected.

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Human civilisation as a whole
is now witnessing the connection of

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people everywhere on
Earth, through this web.

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But what are the consequences
of this extraordinary new access
to information and people?

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Caught up in the instant connections
of the web, few of us pause
to wonder what it's doing to us.

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What is the effect
on our relationships?

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Is the web even changing
how we think?

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Whether we realise it or not,
through the web all of us are

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participating in an extraordinary
and unprecedented experiment

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for humankind, where the outcome
is far from certain.

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The great fear is that this
revolution is making our senses and

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imagination dependent on screens,

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shifting us from the real world
to the virtual.

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It's a world
that has no consequences.

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It s a world dominated by senses.

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Why do you need cognition?
Why do you need meaning?

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Why do you need metaphor?

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Is it going to bring us
a different, better life,

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or is it going to bring us
a different style of communication?

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I ask that question.
I don't have the answer.

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We worry that our
kids are being sucked into
superficial online culture.

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Are they, for better or for worse,

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evolving from Homo Sapiens
into some sort of Homo Interneticus?

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A lot of this is a kind middle-class,
middle-age panic about the web.

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They are panicked by the future,
they are panicked by what they
think their children are doing.

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I'm going to plunge
into the fear and the hype.

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I want to find out whether the web
really is trivialising

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our relationships
and rotting our brains.

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At its heart,
this is about what makes us us,

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and whether the web distorts
or enriches our very humanity.

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This is the Gutenberg Bible,
the printed manuscript

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that revolutionised society

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by taking information from the few
and giving it to the many.

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This book irrevocably
changed Western civilisation.

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When Gutenberg invented
the printing press,

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few of his contemporaries could
have predicted the consequences.

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They thought it was just about
churning out a lot of books.

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But the new media,
the printed word, unshackled

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people from old ways of thinking
and fuelled the Renaissance.

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500 years on,
the web seems to be another

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great leap forward in how we think.

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Its characteristics mimic
some of those

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in the eco system
of the printing press

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in that the entry barriers for
individuals are extremely low.

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And the role of ideas,
knowledge, information is central.

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It makes it much easier
for information to be distributed

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much more quickly and to be copied
much more easily,

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which is what the printing press
did.

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But it's fundamentally different
in that it also makes possible for
anyone to create information.

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So I think it is probably more
important than the printing press.

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Over just 20 years, we have seen
how the web is transforming almost
every aspect of our outward lives...

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its huge impact on culture,
politics and business.

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But we've yet to understand
its deeper impact on our psychology.

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The first place to look for answers
is the place where people use
the web more than anywhere else.

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If we are to see
the web's revolutionary

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effects on human beings,
then we should find them here.

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This is the most wired
nation on earth - South Korea.

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In this digitally enhanced country,
the web can be accessed virtually
anywhere.

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South Korea's fibre optic
cabling has ten times quicker

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download speeds than
the broadband we have in Britain.

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62% of Korean three
to five-year-olds regularly
use the internet,

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spending over
eight hours every week online.

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Surveys suggest
this is approximately

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twice the exposure
of British five-year-olds.

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It's the young people that the South
Koreans are most concerned about.

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Sped into the digital age and
surrounded by hi-tech

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since they've been in nappies,

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they command the headlines
for all the wrong reasons.

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Koreans are increasingly
worried about internet addiction.

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Their government's own figures

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reveal this affects
up to 210,000 children,

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many spending up to
18 hours every day online.

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80% of those afflicted
need medication,

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20% have to be admitted to hospital.

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I'm going to meet Mr Koh -

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the government's key advisor on
what has become a growing problem.

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What are the symptoms
of internet addiction?

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TRANSLATOR: If they don't use
the internet, they feel anxious
and unstable.

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They don't feel satisfied, their
friends don't talk to them any more,

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and a lot of friction builds up with
the relationship with their parents,

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and those are the consequences
of too much internet usage.

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In Korea there were cases of people

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using the internet
for 18 hours a day.

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Korea may seem to be an extreme
case, but it does show that

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the web's effect on our psychology
can't be dismissed.

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And it offers us a glimpse
of what might be our future.

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The experiences that Korea is facing
as a country with internet addiction

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are the kind of experiences that
countries like yours will face
in three to five years.

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The fear for coming generations
extends well beyond South Korea.

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Back in Britain,
the ultimate sceptic is the
neuroscientist Susan Greenfield.

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She tirelessly voices her concern
about how the web may be distorting
children's sense of reality.

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When a child is in the real world

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even if it is a world
of a doll's house,

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this is a world where your doll
might break, someone might stamp
on your toy soldier.

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So you are learning
that actions have consequences.

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So imagine you are
a young person on a computer.

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It is a world where there is
a strong premium on hearing and
vision, on strong sensation.

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There is a triumph of
the senses over the meaning.

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If you give a human brain
an environment where actions don't
have consequences,

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if you give that brain
an environment that is just literal,

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where there is no significance,
might it not be the case

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that that brain stays
in an infantilised state?

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When I talk to parents
and people individually,

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I've yet to meet someone
who has disagreed with me.

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Everyone seems to feel
a kind of uneasy fear

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and a poorly articulated worry that
they can't really put into words,

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but nonetheless they feel that there
is something that needs to be done.

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Susan Greenfield represents the most
extreme view, but across Britain

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there is unease that children are
growing up only knowing life online.

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That this is a generation consumed
by the web.

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I have friends and family
who are struggling with their
children over new technologies.

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Even the most technologically-savvy
amongst them find it strange that

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their kids are more comfortable in
front of the screen than they are.

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Now I happen to visit many of the
same sites that their kids are on.

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And while I have got used
to them, I do still feel
like a bit of a tourist.

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I'm constantly amazed
at what Generation Web
can do with new technology.

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So I'm going to find out what living
with Generation Web is really like.

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Parents across the country need no
introduction to this familiar scene.

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Their lives are completely
centred around their computers.

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I chat to friends and like
do comments and stuff.

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Usually Facebook
and Hotmail and stuff.

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The kids come home and are on
Facebook while they are having
their first cup of tea.

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You can communicate with people
and look into their lives and stuff.

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When I was young
we didn't even have a home telephone.

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Can you imagine
life without the web?

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Um, no. No.

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I think it would be like
removing her arm if you took
her Facebook site away from her.

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What do you think life
was like before the web?

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Really boring, yeah.

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What do you think people did?

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Read books.

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By the time Generation Web
reach adulthood,

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they will have spent over 10,000
hours online

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and a huge proportion of those will
have been spent on social networks.

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For the first time on television,

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using a data sample of eight million
people we can reveal how far the UK

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population has been sucked into the
orbit of the online social networks.

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The size of each
of these web planets

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represents the number of
visits it receives over each month.

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There's Bebo for the early teens,
MySpace for the music lovers,

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but the biggest of them all
is Facebook.

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According to Facebook,

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350 million people worldwide
have Facebook accounts.

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If it were a country,

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it would be the third largest
behind China and India.

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Britain is becoming
a Facebook nation.

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There are 23 million active Facebook
users. That's one in three of us.

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And that's right across the country.

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The Facebook capital of
Great Britain is Sunderland.

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More than half of UK
Facebook users log on daily,

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on average for an hour every time.

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It's so pervasive
that Facebook has become

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the main target of parents' angst.

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People my age, mid 40s and up,

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are wringing their hands over
what kids are doing on Facebook,

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as if we would not have done
these things

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had Facebook
existed when we were young.

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How dare these children now
not suffer the way I did?

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They should be having the life I
did - made to read, made to do this,

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they should not have this freedom,
this access, or if they do,

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while I can approve of it,

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I ought to suggest it's dangerous,
it's going to go wrong.

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The key criticism of Facebook is
that it makes friendship meaningless

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and that undermines society.

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The label of friendship is
just as easily attained

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by lifelong buddies as it is

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by total strangers hoarding
connections.

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How true is this?

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To find out more, we need
to understand why Facebook
became so popular.

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On the 24th May 2007, just ten
days after his 23rd birthday,

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Mark Zuckerberg shuffled onto this
hall and explained the secret of
Facebook's triumphant success.

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Today, together,

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we are going to start a movement.

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At Facebook, we're pushing for
the world to be a more open
place and we do this by...

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Zuckerberg's aim was that Facebook
would become the destination
to connect

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to friends and share information -
text, photos or social events.

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All that you need to do
is sign up...

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create a profile, find your mates

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and have them agree
to become your Facebook friend.

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In this way, each Facebook member
carves out their own group

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of friends, all within
the larger network.

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What we are building is a massive
network of real connections
between people,

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through which information
can flow more efficiently
than it ever has in the past.

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And it's changing
the way the world works.

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But to change the way the world
works or putting it
a bit more cynically,

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to build up marketing potential,

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Facebook needs to
attract a huge number of users.

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What Facebook is trying to achieve

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is something called
a network effect.

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This is a term coined 100 years ago

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by American telephone industrialist,
Theodore Vail.

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This is the essence of
what Theodore Vail outlined.

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If you have a telephone,
just one...

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it's pretty useless because you
can pick it up, but there is nobody 

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on the other side, there is no
one to make a connection with.

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But...if you add
another telephone...

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..add another and another

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and another

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and another

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this guy can talk with this guy,

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who can talk with this guy,
who can talk with this guy...

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and so on and so on.

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The more phones you have connected,

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the more benefits
for the individual users,

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because the user
has more possibilities
of people to connect with.

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And the more people that
they can connect with, the more
other people will want to join.

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The system becomes self-sustaining
and self-fulfilling.

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It's as simple as that.

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So the power and value of Facebook

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increases by the number
of friends it connects.

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Many of these things are
a sort of scale leads to scale.

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That is if your friends are on it,
you go on it.

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You don't do
some objective evaluation of,

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"This one is better in this way
and that one is better in that way."

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You know, it's like
why is the phone, with its dial,
why did that catch on?

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Well, critical mass
eventually becomes the big thing.

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For a while, Facebook forced you
to be friends with somebody

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if they wanted to be friends
with you.

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And that didn't happen to work
for me because I was getting
10,000 friend requests a day.

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People have the experience
of having thousands of friends.

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Well, no-one really has thousands
of friends. It's, it's...

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either the word thousands or the word
friends has to be struck out

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for that sentence to make any sense.

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We've seen
how Facebook needs volume.

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The problem is the commodity
it wants to accumulate
is human relationships.

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So what does that mean
for those relationships?

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What does it mean
to have 10,000 friends?

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Could a Facebook friend be something
as trivial, cheap and disposable

232
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:36,800
as fast food,
worth no more than a burger?

233
00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,440
Seriously, in 2009 a well-known
fast food chain

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00:17:42,440 --> 00:17:45,760
created a page on Facebook
that offered the chance

235
00:17:45,760 --> 00:17:50,160
of a free Whopper for
people who 'de-friended'
ten of their Facebook friends.

236
00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:54,160
In less than two weeks,
the love of a whopper

237
00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:58,680
proved to be stronger
than 233,906 friendships.

238
00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:05,280
This brazen marketing stunt
surprisingly seems to reveal

239
00:18:05,280 --> 00:18:10,800
something fascinating about
the value of our Facebook friends.

240
00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:15,120
The underlying issue was, "You're on
here, we're all on this Facebook,

241
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:18,520
"we all love it, it's fun, great.
But what's the point?"

242
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,480
Steve Schiff was one of thousands
of Facebook users who decided to

243
00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:27,520
trade in his online friends for
a grilled piece of meat in a bun.

244
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,680
How do you choose which,
you know, to get rid of first?

245
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,840
To be honest with you,
it was incredibly easy.

246
00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:38,240
It was not that tough
to find ten people

247
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:42,120
that I really didn't need
to have that online connection with.

248
00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:45,160
This isn't something that
is happening in real life.

249
00:18:45,160 --> 00:18:46,880
So let's just cut to the chase,

250
00:18:46,880 --> 00:18:50,800
let's cut our losses, let's get
our free burgers and everybody wins.

251
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,040
So, if we're willing to get rid
of friends for a burger,

252
00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:02,080
does that mean social networks
are changing the face of
friendships in the 21st century?

253
00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:16,360
Or are there some immutable
aspects of human friendship
that Facebook can't change?

254
00:19:17,360 --> 00:19:23,000
I need to find out more about the
evolution of relationships itself.

255
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:27,880
I'm meeting the world
authority on primate groups,

256
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:30,320
Oxford Professor Robin Dunbar.

257
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:35,920
Can you talk me through
what's going on here?

258
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:39,440
What's the social life
of a primate group all about?

259
00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:41,840
It's all about social bonding,

260
00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:44,440
personalised relationships
between individuals.

261
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:47,120
Primates live in a really intensely
social world.

262
00:19:47,120 --> 00:19:49,480
They spend a lot
of time grooming each other.

263
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:53,520
That gives them the sense of bonding.

264
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,440
The problem with grooming is it's
a sort of a one-on-one activity.

265
00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:00,840
It just sets an upper limit on the
size of groups in the end, so the

266
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:06,400
most social species only have average
group size of 50 or 60 in primates.

267
00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:11,720
In 1992, Dunbar came up
with a formula that predicts the

268
00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:16,920
upper limit to the number of bonds
any primate like us can ever have.

269
00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:20,640
And it's proved so reliable

270
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,240
that it has become known
as the Dunbar Number.

271
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:31,200
So we sort of plugged human brains
sizes into the equation and it
gives this number of 150.

272
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:35,160
And sure enough, this number
turns up in all human communities.

273
00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:39,880
It turns up in the military,
It turns up in average village sizes.

274
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,000
It is in the Doomsday book, 1087 AD.

275
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,560
It turns up
in hunter gatherer communities.

276
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:49,880
So what does the Dunbar Number mean

277
00:20:49,880 --> 00:20:53,200
for the Facebook generation,
Homo Interneticus?

278
00:20:54,560 --> 00:21:00,600
Has Facebook actually changed
the upper limits of friendship
previously set by nature?

279
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:07,520
When Facebook's in-house sociologist
analysed all active networks,

280
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:13,040
they found that sure enough,
nature is playing out online.

281
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:19,920
The reality is that the average
Facebook member currently has well
below Dunbar's upper limit of 150.

282
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:24,200
In fact, the number of Facebook
friends they interact with on

283
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:29,720
a daily basis is surprisingly small,
typically only five or six.

284
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:35,600
So while you can claim
you have this huge network of

285
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,320
people you know in some vague sense,

286
00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:42,960
most of those relationships
I wouldn't call relationships.

287
00:21:42,960 --> 00:21:44,840
They're voyeurs.

288
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:54,920
So through the Dunbar Number,
we've found that Facebook's drive

289
00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:58,560
for network effect
isn't changing our relationships.

290
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:05,800
For me, there is something
deeper going on,

291
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:08,520
beyond this superficial issue
of numbers.

292
00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,280
The point about Facebook
is that it does something else

293
00:22:12,280 --> 00:22:17,080
to relationships,
it puts them in a constant loop

294
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:18,680
of digital information.

295
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:23,920
To understand what that means,
we need go back to the very origins

296
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:26,080
of the phrase "in the loop"

297
00:22:26,080 --> 00:22:31,000
and some important science
developed in the Second World War.

298
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,720
WAILING OF AIR RAID SIRENS

299
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:37,080
'The enemy again and again broke
through the coastal defences.'

300
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:44,840
Night after the night, the brave
anti-aircraft gunners stood

301
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,560
by their posts and tried in vain
to shoot down the German bombers.

302
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:54,080
British military scientists realised
they were facing a grave problem.

303
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:02,360
The problem that the anti-aircraft
gunners had was

304
00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:05,040
that while the radar could spot
the planes,

305
00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:09,120
and the gunners could fire at them,
they still missed the target.

306
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:16,640
It would be an American
mathematician, Norbert Wiener,

307
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:18,840
who would provide the answer.

308
00:23:18,840 --> 00:23:22,360
When Wiener heard what was facing
the British gunners,

309
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:24,320
he decided to come up
with a solution

310
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:27,200
that tackled the problem
in a completely different way.

311
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:34,880
Wiener asked a simple question,
"When we walk, why don't we
fall over?"

312
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:38,880
Wiener argued that what keeps us
upright is a constant loop of

313
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:41,760
information to and from the brain,

314
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:47,560
a loop of action and reaction that
allows us to predict future action.

315
00:23:47,560 --> 00:23:51,360
So Wiener saw the gunner,
his gun, the plane

316
00:23:51,360 --> 00:23:54,720
and the pilot
not as separate entities,

317
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:59,480
but all embedded in the same loop
of continuous feedback.

318
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:01,440
Only through thinking in this way,

319
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,840
linking human and machine together
as one,

320
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:06,800
could the gunners
successfully hit their targets.

321
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:17,280
One of the big innovations of
Facebook is to apply this constant
action and reaction to friendship.

322
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,640
In fact, I believe
that they are key in understanding

323
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,640
how our online relationships
have transformed forever.

324
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:38,880
What Facebook pioneered before
anyone else was status updates
fed between friends in real time.

325
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,760
But at the beginning,
it wasn't like that.

326
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:55,360
Back in 2004, it was a simple
college student website.

327
00:24:55,360 --> 00:24:59,400
Legend has it that one night after
a bad date, Mark came back and hacked

328
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,000
into the student database
to create a website

329
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,160
for rating all of the women
on campus.

330
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,200
Two hours later, 80% of the student
population had voted,

331
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,600
crashing the entire student
computer servers.

332
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:20,360
Mark was the type of person
who was always thinking of

333
00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:24,000
technical solutions
to social problems.

334
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,040
Seeing the demand for connection,

335
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:30,320
Zuckerberg started a new venture,
Facebook.

336
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,240
I built the first version
of Facebook in a couple

337
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:38,880
of weeks in my dorm room at Harvard.
I built it because I wanted

338
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,400
the people around me, the students
at Harvard, to be able

339
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,520
to share information
and stay connected better.

340
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,640
I emailed a few of my friends and
they emailed a few of their friends

341
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,520
and within a few days, I think,

342
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:52,680
thousands of people were on it
at Harvard.

343
00:25:56,360 --> 00:25:58,680
All of us, particularly
students caught in the social

344
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:04,160
whirl of college life, crave
news and gossip about our friends.

345
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:08,440
But Zuckerberg realised that while
the web made information available,

346
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,760
people didn't always
know it was there.

347
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,160
The problem was browsing Facebook
was like poking your head into

348
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,400
someone's room every time you wanted
to find out what they were doing.

349
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:25,200
You had to go to your friend's pages
every day or you missed something
crucial they posted.

350
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,040
If you missed something crucial,
then you didn't respond

351
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:31,560
and if you didn't respond, your
friend though nobody was watching

352
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:34,280
and what's the point
in bragging if nobody cares?

353
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:43,040
What changed everything
is what Zuckerberg did next.

354
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:50,560
He completed the loop of
information on Facebook with
something he called "News Feed".

355
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:57,600
It meant that anything you posted
on your site is instantly broadcast
to all your friends and vice versa.

356
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:03,560
They don't have to go looking at
your site, all updates came to them.

357
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,040
We launched the product at midnight.

358
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,960
We were convinced
that people were going to love it.

359
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,840
And we thought, "This is the kind of
thing that could change the web."

360
00:27:24,360 --> 00:27:29,920
It seems all so normal now, but at
the time, Facebook users hated it.

361
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:33,040
They saw it as an appalling
intrusion into their lives,

362
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:37,280
a terrible wrench from
the Facebook they were used to.

363
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:40,760
The first thing I saw was that
someone had broken up with someone

364
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:42,400
and so when I saw those things,

365
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:45,080
I just kind, I was really
put into shock, I was like,

366
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,040
"That's so much stuff broadcasting."

367
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,760
Then I realised that all my stuff
was being broadcast

368
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,320
in the same way too,
and I didn't really want that.

369
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,200
As soon as we launched the product,
we started looking at the feedback

370
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:01,160
coming in from our users
and it was universally bad.

371
00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:07,560
It was, "I want my homepage back. I
don't like this, please turn it off."

372
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:10,960
I was emailed by almost everyone
I knew on Facebook to say,

373
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:12,480
"Why did you do this to us?"

374
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,280
It was personal. And right before we
were leaving, I think we were called

375
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:18,440
and told there were security
guards coming

376
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,840
because there was going
to be a protest outside.

377
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:22,680
This was hours after we launched.

378
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:24,920
I started to make a protest
against it,

379
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,600
and created a group called
Students Against Facebook News Feed.

380
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:30,760
By the third or fourth day,
at its apex,

381
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,640
it was at 750,000 people
in the group.

382
00:28:36,360 --> 00:28:38,320
But Zuckerberg stuck to his guns.

383
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:43,880
He was determined that Facebook
users would live life in the loop.

384
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,880
Within a few days, we could see
in our stats already that
just the amount of page views

385
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:52,120
that people were doing
and the amount of engagement that
they had on the site was going up,

386
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,600
because what they were coming
on the site to do was to see

387
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,720
what their friends were doing day to
day and this made it so much easier.

388
00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:04,960
It's this culture of real time
updating and not the numbers

389
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,640
of friends that is the big shift
in all of our relationships.

390
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:13,680
Constant status updates,
this being in the online loop,

391
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,640
has dragged the web into a new age,

392
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:21,360
inspiring many imitators,
most famously, Twitter.

393
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:25,960
But more importantly, what does
this shift mean for you and me

394
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:27,920
as we live our daily lives?

395
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,920
I'm going to meet Sherry Turkle,
an eminent clinical psychologist

396
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:39,200
who's been studying our relationship
with technology for 20 years.

397
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:42,840
She's actively researching
how the webs feedback loops

398
00:29:42,840 --> 00:29:45,080
challenge our sense of who we are.

399
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:52,320
I think you've started to get
almost a new personality type.

400
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:57,320
It moves from, "I have a feeling,
I want to make a call,"

401
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:03,160
to, "I want to have a feeling,
I need to make a call."

402
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:08,240
There is a sense in which you almost
need the validation and the support

403
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,800
of the community to in fact feel
the feeling in the first place.

404
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:14,040
Bringing other people into the loop

405
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:17,120
of feeling your feeling,
this is very seductive.

406
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,040
So as a recipient
of all of this information,

407
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,520
how do you think
this is affecting me?

408
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,560
You start to want to hide.
I cannot live the Blackberry

409
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:29,560
version of my life. I cannot

410
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,040
be, read, know...

411
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:36,240
all of the places and spaces
and feelings and the Facebook...

412
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:41,800
My life is more than I can live.

413
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:46,320
We are no longer nourished,
but consumed in some way
by what we've created.

414
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,880
I genuinely believe we co-evolve
with our tools

415
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:57,960
and most of our network's
tools are smart phones

416
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,120
where we can check e-mails, desktop
computers, laptops,

417
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:06,240
they encourage us because
it's so convenient to consume

418
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,320
lots of information
and little snippets.

419
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:14,640
We recently crossed
the one billion view mark per day

420
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:16,320
that we're serving.

421
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:19,360
We're also receiving
close to 24 hours of video

422
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:23,840
every minute on the site, which
is a phenomenal amount of data.

423
00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:44,960
In my life, it's increasingly rare

424
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,560
that I have time on my own,
to think.

425
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,760
I have a Twitter account and several
blogs to maintain,

426
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,440
plus my Facebook status updates,
my photo diary,

427
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,200
my video blogs and my podcast
that I have to record.

428
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,000
And that's the content I create.

429
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,360
There's also the content I consume,

430
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,200
not least of which are the emails
in my inbox

431
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,960
and the messages
on my answering machine.

432
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:14,280
I was away for a week and I had
283 emails that I had to go through.

433
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,840
Living in the loop,
Homo Interneticus,

434
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:27,960
appears to be slowly drowning
in a rising sea of information,

435
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,160
but there is an even deeper change.

436
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,200
The architecture of the web
seems to encourages us to use

437
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:40,320
our brains in a whole new way to
digest the abundance of information.

438
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,280
Here at MIT in Boston, 60 years ago,

439
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:49,200
one scientist had an extraordinary
vision of the future,

440
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:53,960
how technology and the mind
might work together.

441
00:32:55,480 --> 00:33:02,240
Vannevar Bush was involved
in many of the great scientific
advances of the 20th century,

442
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,400
from designing some of
the world's first computers

443
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,640
to the development of the atom bomb.

444
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:19,720
In 1945, he published an article
that foretold our digital age.

445
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:23,880
"As We May Think."

446
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,520
This is Bush's original article
and with great insight,

447
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:32,440
he described all of today's
problems with information overload.

448
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:39,800
At heart, he was focusing on
the same problem that I'm
grappling with in these archives.

449
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,280
I'm searching though all of
these files associated with Bush.

450
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,880
And they're labelled Vannevar
Bush A through B, C through D,

451
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,000
photographs, correspondence etc.

452
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,760
But the irony is, this isn't how
Bush thought our brains worked.

453
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:58,280
For example, when he thought about
his Aunt Susie he didn't think about

454
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,640
all of the people he knew
whose names began with S.

455
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,680
He thought about
where he was when he last saw her,

456
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:05,920
how she did her hair.

457
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:10,640
What she smelled like. How she held
her fingers in front of her when
she talked, that kind of thing.

458
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,040
And so on and so on until
he built up a picture of her.

459
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,440
In other words, he didn't think
our minds were linear,

460
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:19,320
he thought they worked
through association.

461
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,760
Bush put on the table the problem.

462
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:27,480
He said, "Here is a scientist.

463
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,000
"Imagine our scientist,
he has before him the human record,

464
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:38,760
"in other words, all the things
that science has decided in its
collective wisdom are true.

465
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:44,920
"How is he going to manage to work
effectively with the knowledge
that includes all that stuff?"

466
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,880
Bush believed working in this
associative fashion would open up

467
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:58,920
the library of human knowledge
to us all, liberating our minds from
the constraints of linear thinking.

468
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:02,160
Almost half a century later,
it was this concept of linking

469
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:08,200
information that was at the heart
of Tim Berners-Lee's data retrieval

470
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,240
system he called the world wide web.

471
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:15,800
The brain is good at
doing those things, first finding

472
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,320
those coincidences and then building
on them to find the pattern.

473
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:25,320
Berners-Lee built into the design
of the web what were called
hyperlinks,

474
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,440
the ability to leap from one piece
of information to another.

475
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:36,560
But the question is
whether hyperlinked associative
thinking is good for us.

476
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,320
In mirroring the way the brain
functions, darting from subject

477
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:45,520
to subject in a click, does this
make us lazy and easily distracted?

478
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:51,280
I think science shows us that
our brain wants to be distracted.

479
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,800
In what the web does by bombarding us
with stimuli, and with information,

480
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,120
it really plays to
that aspect of our brain.

481
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:02,600
It keeps our brain hopping and
jumping and unable to concentrate.

482
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,200
The internet simply
reflects who we are.

483
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,600
So our inability to concentrate,
our focus on real time,

484
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:10,840
the fact that we're obsessed one
week

485
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,280
with Michael Jackson,
the next week with Twitter,

486
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:15,760
the week after with terrorism,

487
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,600
simply reflects
that inability to concentrate.

488
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:27,960
When you grow up expecting to find
information at a moment's notice,

489
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:32,000
what does it do to your ability
to internalise information?

490
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,320
We used to be trained
in the discipline of reading
and writing at length.

491
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:46,480
Now the generation raised on the
web's associative links seem unable

492
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,080
to face the rigours
of such linear thinking,

493
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:53,920
even, it turns out,
at our top universities.

494
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,680
What I notice about students
from the first day I see them

495
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:58,400
when they arrive at university

496
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,360
is that they ask, nervously,
"What do we have to read?"

497
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,000
And when they are told the first
thing they have to read is a book,

498
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,840
they all now groan,
which they didn't used to do
five or ten years ago.

499
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,080
And you say, "Why are you groaning?"
And they say, "It's a book.
How long is it?"

500
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:14,640
Just take your own doctor.

501
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,760
Would you be happy if your doctor
simply skimmed the abstracts of

502
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,320
Lancet and all the major databases,

503
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,480
and never read anything in detail?
How happy would you be?

504
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:34,360
I still think that books are
at the heart of what it means to
be educated and to try and educate.

505
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:39,600
And I think the generation
of students that I teach
see books as peripheral.

506
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:44,600
I happen to think that long-form
reading is very important because you

507
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:50,480
can learn things from long form that
you can never learn from short form.

508
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,440
You know, you can't read
Remains Of The Day

509
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,680
and not come away with a better
understanding of life regret.

510
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:00,800
And those are things
that you can only get

511
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,040
in sort of book-length reading
sessions.

512
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,320
But are these just the
grumblings of an older generation?

513
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:16,040
Beyond anecdotes,
can we find any evidence that the
web is really changing how we think?

514
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,400
At University College London,

515
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:24,800
Professor David Nicolas was the
first academic to systematically

516
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:27,520
study people's online behaviour

517
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,680
by analysing millions of
anonymous data records.

518
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:35,240
In one survey, he found
that 40% of people

519
00:38:35,240 --> 00:38:38,120
never revisit the same web page,

520
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,200
that they only view up to three
pages from thousands

521
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:42,840
that are available online.

522
00:38:44,720 --> 00:38:48,680
The really big surprise was
that people seemed to be skipping

523
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:50,520
over the virtual landscape.

524
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,480
They were popping in from sites,
looking at one or two pages

525
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,160
going to another site, looking at
one or two pages and then going on.

526
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,760
Nobody seemed to be staying anywhere
for very long.

527
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,920
Professor David Nicolas's study
hints that the web's hyperlinked

528
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,080
network of information may be
converting us from thinking linearly

529
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:12,800
to thinking associatively.

530
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:19,000
These two types of thinking can
be termed fox and hedgehog.

531
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,880
Foxes are people that embrace
all kinds of ideas,

532
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:26,080
like the wisdom of the crowd, bounce
from here and there

533
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,280
and pick things up and that's
how they acquire their knowledge.

534
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:30,920
Then there are hedgehogs.

535
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,880
Hedgehogs like one big idea,
they repeat,

536
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:36,160
they go back to the same source.

537
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:39,880
These people like the
peer-evaluated environment
because they are certain of that.

538
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:42,440
These people represent quite
a different group of people.

539
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:52,040
Now we want to find out whether
the younger generations are becoming
more fox like than hedgehog.

540
00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:56,840
So we've joined forces with UCL in
a unique experiment, that you too

541
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:02,360
can take part in online, to find out
which species of web animal you are.

542
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:08,440
Our aim is to discover the impact
the web is having on our brains.

543
00:40:12,720 --> 00:40:14,640
Is this test a genuine first?

544
00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:16,520
Absolute first, a global first.

545
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:20,080
Nobody has ever done this before.
Nobody even knows what
will come out of it.

546
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:27,440
To give us a first indication,
we've brought together 100 people who
represent different ages, genders.

547
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:32,280
Some use the web rarely,
others all the time.

548
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,400
Look at your screen, concentrate on
what you have to do, click start
and that game will begin.

549
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:42,480
We are especially interested
in the 12 and 18-year-old age groups
because

550
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:46,960
their brains have been formed
only knowing life with the web.

551
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,120
How does their behaviour compare
to people who rarely use the web

552
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,200
and to serial users like myself?

553
00:40:54,720 --> 00:40:58,920
Got to look at the pictures, got to
look at the numbers, got to look at
the letters, got to make a decision.

554
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:03,080
Is it an odd number, is it
an even number, is it a vowel,
is it a consonant? Aagghh.

555
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,800
It's a bit too much for my brain.

556
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,920
The results from our initial
survey of 100 volunteers seem

557
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:12,000
to confirm what many suspect.

558
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:18,120
Generation Web seemed to display
more fox-like behaviour.

559
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:19,840
They answered their questions

560
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,440
after looking at half
the number of web pages

561
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:25,320
and only spending one sixth of
the time viewing the information

562
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,120
that their elders did.

563
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:40,920
So it seems pretty clear
to me that for good or ill,

564
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:44,440
the younger generation
is being remoulded by the web.

565
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:48,800
Facebook's feedback loops
are revolutionising how they relate.

566
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:53,040
There's empirical evidence now that
information overload and associative

567
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,200
thinking may be
reshaping how they think.

568
00:41:56,200 --> 00:42:00,240
For many,
this seems to be a bleak prospect.

569
00:42:00,240 --> 00:42:04,880
Young people, bouncing and
flitting through a thoughtless,
throwaway virtual world.

570
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,280
But are we being too harsh?

571
00:42:07,280 --> 00:42:11,520
Are we failing to spot something
valuable about this new culture?

572
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:18,360
We go on singing the old song of
fragmentation and alienation because

573
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,960
every society always looks
at the preceding age

574
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:22,760
while living in the current one.

575
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:26,080
Never sees the age it is living in.

576
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:32,960
You may be surprised to learn that
this was recorded in the 1960s and

577
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:37,440
the person speaking was the Canadian
maverick thinker, Marshall McLuhan.

578
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:44,480
In 1968, McLuhan took up
a year's professorship in New York.

579
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:50,360
It was the perfect destination
for him as he was enthralled by the
hustle and bustle of modern life.

580
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,960
He positively welcomed
the kind of future

581
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,360
that the web has now given us.

582
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,720
McLuhan thought that the coming of
the electronic age would speed up

583
00:42:59,720 --> 00:43:01,840
the movement of information,

584
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:05,600
injecting new life into
the mundane mechanical era.

585
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,360
He thought that
the rules, regulations and
beliefs of the 19th century

586
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:14,960
would be overturned as we were
forced to dance to the faster rhythm

587
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,520
of the electronic information loop.

588
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:27,080
In the 1960s, he told a story of how
in the future, we'll all be connected

589
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:31,680
in real time and our messages
will sort of just flow

590
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:34,600
as if we were sitting
next to each other.

591
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:36,600
You know as if we were right there

592
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:41,520
and that is just a profound thing
to say in 1968.

593
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:47,720
I'm off to visit web entrepreneur
Jonah Peretti, who believes

594
00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:51,880
McLuhan's dreams are now playing out
in Homo Interneticus.

595
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:58,880
That spoof cat videos
and dancing men are actually

596
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:03,000
evidence of a sophisticated,
interactive culture at work.

597
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:09,120
McLuhan realised that people
always judge new media

598
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:10,960
by the standards of old media.

599
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,440
So in this case, you see that
the internet is all about social

600
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,280
relationships and the network,

601
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,360
but people still judge it as
if it were static content.

602
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,680
So you look at it and you say,
"Oh, this is a silly cat video,"

603
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,640
and judge it as content, instead of
saying, "This is something

604
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:29,560
"that one person created in their
garage, that three other people
collaborated on

605
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:34,200
"and added to, that is now being
used to satirise a political
campaign."

606
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:39,320
And that it's part of a web of
creativity and a network of sharing

607
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,760
that is more interesting and
important than the media itself.

608
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:47,400
I think a lot of people would look
at so much of what goes on online.

609
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,960
The memes, the silliness, the
kittens that are stuffed inside

610
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,360
glass vases and all those kinds of
things that literally get

611
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,760
sent around everywhere
as a distraction,

612
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,440
as a bit of a waste of time, as not
particularly worthwhile, but at

613
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:04,560
the same time, you're seeing it as
something that has a sophistication.

614
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,880
Oh, yeah. When you think about things
that are a waste of time,

615
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,520
think about the average sitcom,
or the average Hollywood movie,

616
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:15,440
you sit there passively, there's not
really much to do except for just

617
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:19,640
passively consume this media that is
for the lowest common denominator.

618
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,600
When you look at viral culture, what
you see is people much more engaged.

619
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,400
So, you mentioned kittens
in glasses.

620
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,440
The bonsai kitten project
was a fake site

621
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:32,200
that made it look like instructions
for how to make bonsai kittens

622
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,120
where you put them in jars
and they get funny shapes

623
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:35,760
and you can make your very own.

624
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,280
It was a total prank
and the person who created it

625
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:44,560
launched it by telling
a bunch of animal rights activists
about it saying, "You'll love this!"

626
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:47,640
He knew that they would freak out
and hate it and send it all around,

627
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:49,920
but then as a consumer
when you see you have to go through

628
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,520
a sophisticated thought process
where you say, "It's a joke.

629
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:56,840
"I think it's funny and I like it
and I'll send it to people," or,

630
00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:59,720
"It's a joke and
I think it's still offensive

631
00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:02,760
"and I'm going to fight it
and act and organise."

632
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,800
It breaks people into groups about
how they feel about it and they can

633
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:09,160
react and interact with the media
and become part of the story,

634
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:11,360
where the people
are powering the media,

635
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:13,840
that is spreading around
and changing and evolving.

636
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,080
Once you figure out
some of the principles

637
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:17,640
of how things spread online,

638
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,240
how do you make something
that when people see it,

639
00:46:20,240 --> 00:46:23,320
they want to share it,
pass it along, bring more people in?

640
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:26,400
It can work for silly
things or for serious things.

641
00:46:32,240 --> 00:46:36,600
The apparently superficial
culture of young people on the web

642
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:41,120
can have a serious side and
a direct impact on the real world.

643
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:49,880
One of the most
powerful examples for me

644
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,280
can be seen in how Generation
Web is re-engaging with politics.

645
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,960
What is required of us now
is a new era of responsibility,

646
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,520
a recognition on the part of
every American

647
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:08,560
that we have duties to ourselves,
our nation and the world.

648
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:14,160
I made the decision in February
of 2007 to a leave from Facebook

649
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:16,720
and go work full-time
for the Obama campaign.

650
00:47:18,720 --> 00:47:22,600
The campaign from the start was
really interested in running

651
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,000
a bottom's up grass roots
initiative,

652
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:27,480
which happened to intersect directly

653
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:31,600
with everything that was happening
online in 2006, 2007, 2008.

654
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:33,840
Barack Obama!

655
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:41,040
The young users of YouTube,
Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter

656
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,840
became central to the campaign.

657
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:48,440
We had members of congress on
Twitter, we had protesters organising

658
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,960
through Twitter outside,
we had the president

659
00:47:50,960 --> 00:47:52,640
on Twitter using it to campaign

660
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:55,920
and we had everyone in the country,
well, not everyone,

661
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,480
but a lot of folks, using Twitter
to express their opinions

662
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,680
on the hot topics,
so we had the entire spectrum.

663
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:07,280
During the election year, Obama
had three million Facebook friends

664
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,400
and studies show a third
of all under-30-year olds

665
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,440
used social networking
to communicate their politics.

666
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:18,080
That figure was negligible
four years earlier.

667
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,240
Two thirds watched political videos
online,

668
00:48:21,240 --> 00:48:24,920
a quarter forwarded them on
or re-mixed the material.

669
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:28,440
# Cos I got a crush on Obama

670
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:34,800
# I can't wait till 2008
Baby, you're the best candidate... #

671
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:39,520
What we were able to do was figure
out how people could do it their way

672
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:42,760
and there was, really, a groundswell

673
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,680
of energy and enthusiasm,
both in terms of fund-raising

674
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,640
but also in terms of time spent
volunteering for the campaign.

675
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:55,720
America, we have come so far,
we have seen so much,

676
00:48:55,720 --> 00:48:57,880
but there is so much more to do.

677
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,640
Election night in Chicago was
something I think everyone who

678
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:05,320
was there would
say would never happen again.

679
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,200
It was indescribable.

680
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:12,000
It was a really important moment for
the country, above everything else.

681
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,560
We were all so emboldened by the
fact that not only had we done it,

682
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:18,880
but we'd done it differently

683
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,800
and that made everything
all the more powerful.

684
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:31,360
The technology of the web,
with its feedback loops
and associative connections,

685
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:38,760
appears to have attracted young
people to politics on a scale that
hasn't been seen for generations.

686
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:45,360
All around the world, as we've seen,
young people, for better or worse,

687
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:50,160
are harnessing the power of
the web to fight their causes.

688
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,160
From the uprising in Iran...

689
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:56,680
..to the young Russian hackers

690
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,600
who claim to have launched
cyberwar against Estonia...

691
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:07,160
..they recognise the power of
the web to connect and collaborate.

692
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:14,280
For many this is
a very positive development.

693
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:18,040
Web guru Steven Johnson believes
ultimately, collaboration,

694
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:21,120
a kind of pooling of intelligence
allowed by the web,

695
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,560
has always been
a key driver of human progress.

696
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,040
One of the things about ideas that is
so interesting is that we have

697
00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:32,560
this myth that they come to people
in a eureka moment,

698
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,440
where somebody is sitting
in their study and they think,

699
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:39,640
"Ah! I understand gravity!"
Or, "I understand
how to build a nuclear reactor!"

700
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:45,760
But in fact what tends to happen much
more than we realise is that ideas
are much more collaborative.

701
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:48,240
If you look
at the history of invention

702
00:50:48,240 --> 00:50:50,520
what you find is that inventions are

703
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:53,920
dramatically disproportionately
centred in urban areas.

704
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:57,840
One of the great things about cities
is that they are filled with these

705
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:00,600
public spaces like a coffee shop
where people come together

706
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:05,760
who might have some shared interest,
but come from different backgrounds,
work for different companies,

707
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:09,000
artists meeting
writers or film makers.

708
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,520
And in that point of convergence,
they sit around and they talk

709
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:16,000
and they share ideas and it becomes
a kind of connected space.

710
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:19,320
So the web is in some senses
a sort of virtual version

711
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:21,920
of what cities
have historically done.

712
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:23,760
You have lots of
people connected in a way

713
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,560
that was never possible before and
part of it this basic principle

714
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:29,880
built into the architecture
of the web.

715
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,360
The web is at its core
a platform for linking things.

716
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:43,520
When you look at a city,

717
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,720
with its teeming masses of people,

718
00:51:45,720 --> 00:51:47,640
each of whom have their own dreams,

719
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:52,400
desires and expectations,
it shouldn't work,

720
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:54,480
but it does.

721
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:59,760
So could it be that the essence of
what makes a city truly great,

722
00:51:59,760 --> 00:52:03,440
the gossip, connections,
the serendipity,

723
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:05,520
can also work on the web?

724
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:13,680
I believe that at best, the web
can be like an exciting, innovative

725
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,920
metropolis that eventually could
benefit the younger generations.

726
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:23,440
Earlier, we saw that
some people view South Korea,

727
00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:29,720
the most wired nation on earth, as a
nightmarish vision of web addiction.

728
00:52:29,720 --> 00:52:33,920
But along with the downsides
come hidden benefits.

729
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:38,840
As young South Koreans grow up in
their super-charged digital world,

730
00:52:38,840 --> 00:52:44,040
they regularly top
the world's education league tables.

731
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:59,280
I'm meeting the President of the
Korean National Information Society
Agency, who claims that Korean

732
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:05,200
children's advanced achievement
is not due only to great education
system,

733
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,440
but because from an early age,

734
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,680
they interact and work together
on the web.

735
00:53:27,240 --> 00:53:31,000
This generation is
growing up with the web.

736
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:35,600
It is growing up with it as part of
their education system,

737
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:40,440
what hopes and expectations do
you have for them in the world
when they grow up?

738
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:47,520
I look forward to that.

739
00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:21,600
Every kid starts with an incredible
an incredible amount of curiosity.

740
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,560
Why are some materials string?
Why are some materials weak?

741
00:54:24,560 --> 00:54:29,880
Well, you know, I asked that when I
was a kid and nobody could answer.

742
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:35,520
Now, my son will get the answers
and want to ask more questions.

743
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:39,320
So I think it is a huge change.

744
00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:48,720
Human civilisation as a whole is now

745
00:54:48,720 --> 00:54:52,600
witnessing the connection of people

746
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,600
everywhere on Earth through this web,

747
00:54:56,600 --> 00:55:03,280
in ways that actually do mimic
the growth of a human brain.

748
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:06,120
And the analogy is imperfect.

749
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:11,040
But it's also real.

750
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:14,520
We are seeing the emergence
of a global brain.

751
00:55:21,560 --> 00:55:26,000
In this series, we've seen the
importance of studying the impact

752
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:27,840
of the web on all our lives.

753
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:33,360
The web appears to give us all
a voice and to level society.

754
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,760
But we've seen that the ongoing
cycle of this virtual revolution

755
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:39,920
is also encouraging mega brands

756
00:55:39,920 --> 00:55:42,200
that track and trade us,

757
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:46,680
and governments that can spin
and spy as never before.

758
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:50,640
The way in which small groups
of elites dominate

759
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:53,960
in cultural, political
and economic terms,

760
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,400
it reflects our values,
our narcissism,

761
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:57,960
our views, our obsessions.

762
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:05,120
Even as it opens up
extraordinary new possibilities,
the web is weighed down

763
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:09,760
by the limits of our imagination,
our desire to profit and control.

764
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:16,680
The web holds up a mirror to
human nature, the good and the bad.

765
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,560
Yet in this film, we've seen
the new generation

766
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:25,560
not just reflected in the web,
but maybe evolving with it.

767
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:30,800
My hope is that the web will
eventually show us new horizons,

768
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:34,800
liberate humanity and change
human nature for the better.

769
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,720
All this great stuff
that's emerging in social media

770
00:56:42,720 --> 00:56:46,000
is people trying to find new,
interesting ways of communicating.

771
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:49,400
To become more efficient, become
more engaged, become more informed,

772
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,400
and I think it leads, ultimately,
to having more empathy.

773
00:56:54,240 --> 00:56:58,560
The web isn't going to, you know,
solve disease or solve poverty.

774
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:03,640
But it makes it so people can share
information more effectively
and know what's going on out there,

775
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,600
and when people are better informed,
people can make better decisions.

776
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:11,320
Hopefully social
change happens gently.

777
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:15,840
The sort of thing which the internet
brings, by connecting people,

778
00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:21,960
is openness and understanding of
other people's ideas, on a good day.

779
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:25,440
So I hope we have a lot
of those good days.

780
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:31,400
We have the knowledge of the ages
gathered for us to browse in our
pockets.

781
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:35,400
And if we seriously think that's
a bad thing, if we seriously think

782
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,720
that's something we should
turn our backs on or sniff at,

783
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:40,840
then we really deserve a slapping.

784
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,160
This is astounding technology

785
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:46,840
and we should take a moment
to celebrate the power

786
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:50,680
and the reach it gives us across
time and across ideas

787
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:54,640
and across continents, both past,
future and present,

788
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:56,400
to connect with people.

789
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:01,960
Perhaps the most amazing
thing about this revolution

790
00:58:01,960 --> 00:58:07,040
is we've seen all of this profound
change over just twenty years.

791
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:09,040
This isn't the end...

792
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,560
it is merely the beginning.

793
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:25,040
Don't forget to go online and take
part in our web behaviour test.

794
00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:28,200
With your help, this major
experiment will discover

795
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:30,680
the impact the web is having
on our brains.

796
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:33,240
As well as fox and hedgehog
behaviour,

797
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:35,920
we've identified
other key web species.

798
00:58:35,920 --> 00:58:38,560
What kind of web animal are you?

799
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:40,840
Visit...

800
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:46,520
..where you can also follow the
links to the Open University

801
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:49,760
for more from those reshaping
the web and the world.

802
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,720
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

803
00:59:04,720 --> 00:59:07,760
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk