Of course, the iPad by itself won't add points to your IQ or take inches off your waste. It depends on how you use it. In my case, I use my iPad as a point of departure to search for information, and I also use it to have information of personal interest pushed my way.
When it comes to processing information, in my opinion there is no question that when reading digital texts supported by a powerful application, I have become more intelligent. My favorite example is reading an ebook using the Kindle app.
Not only can you just tap on a word to find its meaning, two links appear on the bottom of the screen: one for Google, the other for Wikipedia. If you are unfamiliar with a term, a concept, or a context, tap on either link to begin your search. Serendipitous discovery awaits. You may return quickly to the original text or you may end your session exploring an entirely different train of thought.
The key point is that when you return to the original text, your cognitive frame from which you process the information has been enriched. Repeat the procedure over and over again and the number of dots that you are able to identify and link increases, which in turn increases the number of dots that you can connect. In other words, the web of information that your are aware of becomes thicker with connections and greater in volume.
With regard to my battle of the bulge, I finally have gained the upper hand as a result of the information that is pushed towards me by my personal magazine, Zite. Having chosen Health and Exercise as a section, I have indicated the articles that I liked and I continue to receive the latest articles having do to with fitness and diet, often supported by links to videos and research that has given me a better understanding of what works and why.
For example, I was stuck weighing more than I wanted to despite the fact that I train four to five times a week. As a result of finding out that weight loss is not simply a question of calories in and calories out -- all calories are not equal when it comes to your metabolism -- I was able to make the necessary changes to my diet and my exercise regime that enables me to drop the extra pounds.
Two key pieces of information were pushed towards me. The first is the effect added sugar on your metabolism that I stumbled upon from reading an article from the New York Times that had a link to the seminal YouTube video, Sugar the Bitter Truth. The second is that the key to weight loss is to manage your hormonal system, in particular the secretion and uptake of insulin, and not to imagine that you can simply burn off the calories that you consume by exercising.
Simply put, by modifying my diet so to avoid insulin spikes and changing my workouts so to include full-body, high intensity interval training so that I burn more calories while at rest, I am succeeding to get rid of the extra fat that I have been carrying on my body around for years because of the misinformation that I have been carrying around in my head.
This is where it gets spooky.
Left to my own resources, I was unable to access the information that I needed to bring about the changes that I wanted. However, once I became linked up to the algorithms driving my Zite application, I quickly accessed the new and pertinent information that is in the process of changing my appearance.
If we take the human form to be the result of the information encoded genetically that interacts with its environment, the change in the information flow brought about in my case by my iPad and my Zite application changed the manner in which I process information concerning my behavior, which in turn changes the flow of energy and information within my body.
By changing the flow of information, my physical form has been altered and this has occurred as a consequence of my intelligence both directing and being directed by a smart algorithm.
The effects of the change in the flow of information are rather easy to notice when it manifests immediate physical changes at the level of the individual.
What I find more interesting is how the changes in the flow of information affects societies at large. We now live in a time the can be best described as the the digital information revolution. As our information and communications technology evolves, it changes the social architecture that provides structure to our lives.
I look forward to blogging about this subject and sharing with you what I find to be joyful discoveries.
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