I'm Not Biased... See

There seems to be a reactionary trend in journalism lately. As increasingly bitter partisanship continues to become the norm in politics, the focus on the level of bias in the media is at an all-time high. Afraid of being branded as biased, it feels like many journalists are trying harder than ever to look at both sides of the issue. This is a good thing, right? Rather than getting overly simplistic, prejudiced accounts of an issue, we are presented with both sides—allowing us to make our own decisions. This is a sign that media is doing its job, right? Rather than partisan hackery, the media is doing its job to shed light on issues.

But I do not think this has been a positive development. Journalists have reacted by forcing both sides into their analysis out of fear of being branded liberal or conservative. And fear does not lead to good, honest journalism. First of all, the increasing partisanship in American politics is being mirrored in the media. Too frequently, we are presented with both sides of an issue rather than two sides of an issue. There is a distinct difference. Almost every existing issue has more than two sides. By forcing their articles to present the liberal and conservative view of an issue, many journalists are ignoring the nuanced complexities of a multifaceted subject. While a two party system may be an unavoidable consequence of our political structure, it does not mean that the media must follow suit. The media is supposed to be the fourth estate—an independent entity responsible for checking government power by holding up a metaphorical magnifying glass to the government. The media should be disseminating these smaller, lesser-known opinions, not disregarding them in order to put up a bipartisan façade.

Additionally, there is not always a need to lend equal credence to the other side of an issue simply because not all opinions are created equal. It is not necessary to spend equal time discussing the arguments of a few scientists who claim climate change is a ruse when millions more have scientifically proven it. Certain things are just facts. If I were to drop a baseball and someone argued that it would fall up instead of down, there would be little need to discuss the merits of his argument. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan so perfectly articulated, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Now, this is not to say that we should suppress minority opinion. Just because more people believe one thing does not make them right. However, this compulsive need to elevate arguments that are shaky at best to an equal level as strong, factually informed opinions under the banner of impartiality is dangerous. To give more time to an argument than one normally would in order to create the illusion of objectivity actually biases one’s analysis. We often hear about the decline of journalism. We hear it blasted for being biased, for being corrupt, for being sensationalist. But this critique is often obscured. Just as it is dangerous when a journalist does not write his true opinion out of fear, it is dangerous when journalists write in this manner out of fear.

Technology and We

With the advent and proliferation of the Internet, there has been much debate over its effects on intelligence. Does having unlimited instantaneous information make us more informed? Or is it a crutch that allows us to go through life without actually knowing anything? We all know the advantages of computers and the Internet. However, some people have argued that the Internet is actually making us dumber. In his book The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein argues that the Internet is actually shortening our attention spans. He argues that our generation, having grown up with much of this technology, is less apt to sit down and engage any lengthy text. He even makes the case that despite having more information available to us than any prior generation, we are less knowledgeable—calling us the dumbest generation

While it would be easy to dismiss Bauerlein—especially after his offensive title—as a Luddite technophobe, he does make some valid points. Much of new technology and social media force us to oversimplify. Only so much information can be crammed into a Facebook status or text message. Twitter explicitly limits a single post to 140 characters or less. There are many things in life that simply cannot be adequately explained, analyzed or discussed in these forms without eliminating much nuance and detail, often destroying the crux of its meaning. And this process has symptoms. Knowing that people are apt to skim the headline and then click on another link, news organizations have began to rely on increasingly sensationalist and simple stories in an attempt to hook readers. This has come at the expense of journalism.

For me, this is not some abstract concept. More and more, I see it in myself. I often click on a news story that looks interesting—only to read a couple lines and get distracted. Either I click on a link that takes me to another article that holds my attention briefly, or I open up a new tab in Google Chrome and do something else. If this sounds alien to you, perhaps something called the “F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content” will not. This technique essentially involves reading horizontally across the first few lines of an online text, then skipping down to the middle of an article and reading a few lines there and finally skimming vertically down the rest of the article until you hit the end. When I first realized this lazy habit had an actual name, I was mortified to realize how frequently I commit it.

And anyone who follows politics can plainly see the media adapting (or taking advantage of) our increasingly waning attention spans. Rather than relying on full speeches or debates, politics has been reduced to a series of out-of-context sound bites and video clips. This is not a positive development. This style of thinking does not parallel the technological progress that enables it. It is a marked intellectual regression—a much more primitive way of digesting information and understanding the world. This irony is not a function of our increasingly busy lives. As busy as we are or like to think we are, every generation before us has had the time to sit down and read entire books. And it is difficult to make a case against the values of these increasingly scarce tomes. If anything, this new technology that we have come to rely on should save us time, not cause us greater stresses or time burdens. However, to make sure we have enough time to read all our emails, we skim through news stories, watch short YouTube clips or do both simultaneously by relying on sites like the Huffington Post to get our news.

But while Bauerlein clearly has some salient points to make, he falls victim to his own thesis in the titling of his own book. He titles a book lambasting the waning attention spans of the digital generation and the oversimplification of complex ideas with an equally oversimplified title. Rather than clearly articulate his argument about the merits and pitfalls of many new technologies, he decries its users as the dumbest generation. And this argument clearly has no merit. When I saw Bauerlein speak at Cornell, he had trouble defining “dumbest”. And when I asked him to defend his title against his own thesis, he could only laugh and say it was a fair point. Study after study shows that generational IQ scores are continuing to trend up. Furthermore, our generation is much more effective at multitasking than any generation before us. And we are capable of using these new technologies to do incredible things that the generations before us would never be able to dream about.

While Bauerlein makes some interesting points, it seems like he is fighting against a tide that is already coming. Rather than bemoan the negative effects of these technologies, he would be better served to try to find ways to use these technologies to solve the problems he so deftly describes. There are always people who fear progress, especially technological progress. Usually, this fears stems from a lack of understanding. In ancient Greece, when people began to use paper to write things down more and more frequently, Plato feared that people would become incapable of remembering things as they came to rely on this new technology.

Technology can have both positive and negative effects. But it is essentially a tool. People can use it for good or bad. To develop or regress. The problem is that the average 15 to 24 year old now spends only ten minutes reading per day. But reading a full eBook instead of a paperback does not seem any better or worse to me.

The First of Many

At first, the central idea of our first week—that investing in information and communication technologies can spur development—seemed rather intuitive. Growing up in the digital age, I have witnessed firsthand the incredible opportunities that can result from technological proliferation. The advent of the Internet has created new, lucrative economic markets. It has revolutionized the way we can communicate. Social networking has even changed the way we have friendships and relationships. Anyone with an Internet connection effectively has equal access to almost limitless information. It seems technology has already permanently altered the social, political and economic landscapes of most industrialized nations.

So once again the idea to invest in ICTDs in developing countries seems rather intuitive. It is obvious that the world is already heading in this direction. As of 2008, 15 percent of the population in developing countries were Internet users. This figure will only increase with an annual growth rate of 21 percent. It is only a matter of time until these developing nations begin to catch up. This will occur for many reasons, but perhaps most importantly, it will occur because it is so profitable. The slow development that occurred in the United States in the eighties and nineties will be less pronounced since the Internet infrastructure has already been created. If we invest in basic technological and computer education and training programs in developing nations, we will give the people of these countries the ability to benefit from the technology already in place while also expanding the possibility for innovation to an even wider number of individuals and companies.

Despite these investments being so clearly profitable in the long run, it is not clear how profitable they will be in the short-run. First of all, any investment in ICTDs must be large enough and concentrated enough to make a difference. Investing, say one million dollars, and spreading it evenly around the entire developing world will not make enough of an impact to matter. Because of the necessity that any investment be large and due to the uncertain time horizons for recouping the investment, it seems that, at least at first, the private sector will not drive this. It is for this reason that entities like the World Bank invest “around US$800m per year in specific loans and guarantees on ICTs and development, and US$1-1.5bn per year on projects with significant ICT components” (Heeks 626). Moreover, any investment in ICTDs must be coupled with an investment in education. For example, giving iPads to rural Asian farmers with no computer experience will have no significant effect on development. In fact, this type of program would probably have more costs than benefits as the iPads would be expensive, but they would go unused. Again, this is why these investments may not be attractive to the private sector.

However, if we take a cursory look at simple economics, it is clear that these investments will have significant effects if employed correctly. If we assume that technology and capital have diminishing marginal returns and if we assume that people with equal education levels are equally productive, regardless of their nationality or race, one can make the argument that investing in developing countries will be more profitable than continuing to invest in industrialized countries. For example, if two equally educated people are both given computers, they will be much more productive. If you then give them mobile phones, then iPods, then flash drives, they will continue to become more productive, but each additional technological investment will yield smaller returns than the one prior. This will hold true unless the next technology is so innovative that it defies the diminishing marginal returns model. Therefore, if we commit to investing in educational programs as well as to making the investment large enough to be significant, it will be more profitable to invest in these developing countries that are still on the steep part of the diminishing marginal returns curve rather than the flat part where it seems industrialized nations currently reside.