Who are Children Born in the Era of Internet?

This post is absolutely connected with the one called What Technologies are doing with Our Brain. But tonight I would like to share with you some thought, I found in a book  iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.

According to authors, there is type of people born before Internet Era and in the Internet Era. As human brain is very plastic, there may have happened several changes, which we can not feel, but we may notice. During the process of evolution we gain some new functions and we lose some too.

WE LOSE

ability to recognize emotions. In research made by Robert McGreeven, where group of computer-addicted pupils was recognizing main human emotions worse than those who haven't computers at home. What is important human empathy have had an urgent, and life-important ability to survive. Using empathy human beings were able to hunt, to communicate in society and to understand emotions of animals.

WE GET

multitasking. All threads of information contemporary teenager meets, may be not as empathic as it was before, but it is much more diverse, deep and multifunctional.We are able to switch from book to movie, from movie to article. Imagine if our predecessors were switching from tiger to elephant and then to birds...

WE LOSE

close contacts. In past people were living/ hunting/ surviving in small groups with closest relatives and friends. Now the number of social contacts is enormous. Remember how many friends do you have on Facebook or Vkontakte?! But to most of them you are just ready to write "Hey, what's up? How are you?"

WE GET

new gestures. We recognize smiles, menu of the browser and also we are able to type on keypad with a speed of 200 signs per minute. We are using mouse or we are using touch pad with our fingers- and now this gestures are much more meaningful to us than to our ancestors.

WE LOSE

our language. Accoring to Noam Chomsky, grammar is inside our brain from our birth. General rules are included. Apparatus of grammar is common for every language, and the difference between different languages appears only when person learns languages. Now we included a lot more things in our language. LOL, WTF, IMHO, (:, (;. Internet like parasite is putting new formulas in our brain.

WE GET

computer as a best friend of a child. Children are giving names to their computers and the miss them on holidays. It seems like small ducks think that you are their mother, considering the fact if you were the first thing they saw after birth.

WE LOSE

slow reading. Twitter, MSN, Skype, SMS taught us to be short. Influence of the language on the ability to think is well-known. There is an opinion that our logical thinking was born with writing and speaking clear, with slow reading. Now for us is much more difficult to read articles and books than messages and statuses.  Text is not oral speech: you can compare parts, you can go backwards, you can follow the development of thought. Reader is not under the influence of speaker. Text includes more complicated constructions. Short statuses bring us bactk to exclamations ? Or they make us be more concrete in producing our thoughts?

WE GET

deep logic. The brain technique of reading web-page is absolutely unique. Hypertext is another type of reading. Here you can go deeper (move with a link, than with another one, and it  can be infinity). 

There was an experiment where scientist invited experience Google-users and newbies. They put them into MRI (tomograph), which were scanning they brain while they were making Google search. At the end, they found that those experienced users were using particular and specific zone in their brain, which were not active in the brain of newbies. This means that brain created/planned particular zone for the internet search! Brain is reading web with another part of the brain, than when it is reading book. This part of the brain is also responsible for the fast and intuitive decision making process.

Emotional Intelligence of Color

Many times ago, I found research of one graphic designer from Ireland Orlagh O'Brien about somatic experience of emotion and feeling and I want to share it with you, also adding some of my thoughts about color and their emotional intelligence and role in our life. I believe, it will be a long trip and it will not finish with tis post.

More information you can find on a web-page Emotionally Vague.

How do people feel anger, sadness, love, fear or joy?

There were 250 participant in the survey, which Orglagh made. And there are interesting results.

First of all, there were identified the color scheme of emotions. There are main and additional colors, which  people associated with every emotion.

Orlagh also identified which kind of "essences" cause several emotions. For example Joy is associated mostly with friends, music, sunshine, family, sea, etc. Anger with injustice, rudness, betrayal, etc. Sadness with death, suffering, thinking of war, etc. Love with friends, people, love, boyfriend, etc.

Moreover, it was defined where does each emotion concentrate in our body. 

Love is spreading all around the body, with concentration around heart.

Fear is concentrated a lot in head and stomach and it is getting you feeling of being "squared".

Sadness is concentrated around heart, and gives a feeling that something is pushing you from upstairs.

Anger is concentrated in head and hands, and it feels like head is blowing up.

More about this research you can find in this video, where Orlagh is making a presentation.

Orlagh O'Brien: Illustrating How You Feel from PopTech on Vimeo.

In yoga every chakra also is associated with certain thing, emotion and color. As far as I remember, fear is concentrated in stomach, in second chakra, the same we can see in this research. About chakras I will write later, when I make interview with some of my favorite yoginas. 

Another thing, I wanted to tell you about is one particular tool from Adobe company, which is called Adobe Kuler. You can use it, if you want to choose color for some of your graphic design. First, you need to think, which kind of emotions you want your stakeholder to have, and then write down a word in this on-line app and you will receive suitable kit of 5 colors, which are reflecting your emotion. I think it is very smart thing, and worth using.  Just try and you will like it! 

Preparing this post I got this kind of color scheme for Emotional Intelligence

How can I use it?

There are a lot of things, but first of all this kind of research helps me to understand what should I do, which kind of products to make in order to create certain emotions in the head of my stakeholders (friends, customers, etc). If I want to get some joyful emotional state from my stakeholders  probably I shouldn't use red+black in my creatures, but better yellow and blue. I understood which kind of images may influence people to have certain behavior (like if you see group of friends in the picture, you possibly can move to "love+joyfull" mood, and this kind of mood can be cool, if I am making a web-design oriented on youth. 

Anyway, if you have any thought about emotional intelligence of the color, and comments or relevant links, I would be happy to have any feedback!

Have a good and colorful mood!