From the paper to the screen: what skills will our children need to acquire to face the future?

More than two thousand years ago, two masterpieces appeared for the first time in history: the Iliad and the Odyssey. Both are the brainchild of the Greek poet and storyteller, Homer. They reveal the Trojan War - the famous one in which the attackers eventually won through the trick of the Trojan horse - in great detail. They report on Odysseus' travels throughout the known world, his fight with the Cyclops son of the god of the sea and his revenge on the suitors who tried to rob his treasures and loot his house.

When I was fourteen, I read the Iliad for the first time. I was prepared to be exposed to the wonderful heroic stories of Achilles and other Greek heroes, and to descriptions of battles that would rival even those of modern adventure books. After all, Homer is considered the greatest creator in history. His writing surely rivals all those who came after him. And so I opened the book with eager anticipation.

As you can probably guess, I was sorely disappointed.

Homer's writing is far from a masterpiece in today's terms. He repeats whole paragraphs over and over. It does not vary from description to description: hero after hero is killed in exactly the same way. It is tedious, with a plot that is not clear and does not seem to be progressing anywhere. How is it possible, I wondered, that Homer gained so much fame, with such bad writing?

What I didn't understand at the time, but I understand very well today, is that the reason I didn't connect with Homer's writing is that he and I belonged to two different eras. I don't mean that Homer lived in a particularly violent time - I can understand violence. But the communication technologies that were common in Homer's time - that is, speech - are the ones that shaped the way in which the ancient poets communicated with their audiences. Books were so rare and expensive that the ancient poets had to memorize all the poems by heart. This is the reason for the repeated descriptions: they are like the repeated refrain in modern poems, and made it easier for the poets to remember the whole story. This is also the reason why the plot is not complete or completely clear: the poet would come to the pub or the royal court and would quote aloud only the parts of the work that most interested his audience. Homer, therefore, belonged to the "oral age" and used to use mainly the voice to convey the messages.

And me? At the same time, I belonged to another era: the paper era. And in fact, I was one of the last representatives of this period, because already at that time the children of the new generation, who would belong to the age of the screen, began to be born.

But before we talk about the age of the screen, let's first examine the age of paper and its meanings.

From mouth to paper

The age of paper first opened a little over five hundred years ago, when the German inventor Gutenberg first demonstrated the ability to print books efficiently and cheaply. It was a revolution in every sense of the word. Until Gutenberg, the cost of recopying five pages was one florin - about two hundred dollars in today's estimates. The cost of recopying an entire book, therefore, reached approximately twenty-thousand dollars[1]. In other words, an average family was able to purchase maybe one or two books in their lifetime - and most of them did not bother to do so, because this capital could have been used for more immediate and satisfying needs, such as food and housing.

The printing revolution reduced the cost of printing books to less than one percent of its previous cost within a few years. All of a sudden, every family could enjoy ownership of the Bible and other sacred books and thoughts. Within fifty years of the invention of printing, more books were printed than were written in the entire history of mankind.

And human society as a whole has changed.

We tend to think that technologies only change our abilities to influence the world: if we invent a more sophisticated rocket, we can reach space; If we develop a cure for cancer, we can live longer. But the most important technologies are changing the way we see and think about the world. And that's exactly what the printing revolution did.

Before the printing revolution, the common people had to rely on the few who could read - only eight percent of the European population, and almost all of them were nobles or clergymen. After the printing revolution, the public as a whole began to acquire the skill of reading, and suddenly could question everything they had been told all along. The clergy used to interpret the Holy Scriptures according to their needs and desires in order to preserve the social order in which they were at the top, and the peasants were deep below. But suddenly every farmer had a copy of the holy book in which he could read, wonder about the meaning of the words and share his ideas with his friends. And not only that, but the same farmer could also print thousands of leaflets detailing his views, and distribute them all over Europe. In less than a hundred years, the clergy lost their monopoly on knowledge and power. It is no wonder that the years following the invention of printing led to the birth of new religious movements and peasant revolutions against the government.

But the consequences of the printing revolution were even greater than spurring religious and class wars. The printing revolution changed the way people talked to each other. Before the printing revolution, only 50,000 words were known in the English language. Today, there are almost a million words (988,968, If the exact number is really important to you). And when you have more words, you can express more complex ideas.

Before the printing revolution, books contained only the most important information: religion and medicine mainly. This continued to be the case even after the printing revolution - the first book to be printed, after all, was the Bible. It took time for humanity to understand the new possibilities that printing opened up for it, and to decipher the fact that in the age of printing, anyone can publish a book on any subject. And so, three hundred years after Gutenberg's first Bible, it was published The romantic novel The first: a complete book (as opposed to a theater performance or a short story) that focuses on the hero and heroine falling in love with each other, and their attempts to build a relationship with each other. And here a new culture and society emerged for her, which placed love, partnership and the individual's right to choose what to do with his life on a miracle. And basically, also the right of the woman, who was represented in these books as a real person with her own thoughts and feelings. The women's rights revolution began, in practice, from the moment Gutenberg printed his first Bible.

The members of the printing age - the majority of readers over the age of thirty are among their ranks - called the books a miracle. They made them the source of all knowledge. If a certain thing is not written in a book, it is probably not worth knowing. Taken to the extreme, this worldview says that good ideas only appear and are detailed in books. The writers became cultural stars, and still are today. When people approach me and ask how to gain public recognition, I gave them a simple recommendation even today: it doesn't matter how many blog entries you've written, how many friends you have on Facebook or how much money you get for each lecture. If you want to establish your status as an important thinker, you must publish a book. It is difficult for us to free ourselves from the deep shadow of print: for the last five hundred years, the book was considered the best way to spread ideas to the general public.

But this is no longer the case, as we are now entering a new era: the age of the screen.

The age of the screen

You might think that the age of the screen started with the invention of the camera and the big screen in cinema. But that's not the case. In the last hundred years, the cost of producing new movies has been astronomical - much more than the cost of producing a new book. People did flock to the cinema to watch the big screen, but the invention did not change anything in the way of human thinking or conduct outside the cinema hall.

The real change came with the arrival of screens in every pocket thanks to smart phones, and no less important - thanks to the world-wide Internet.

Open on the smartphone. In less than ten years, smartphones have conquered the world. Today there are screens in every pocket in the developed countries. Smart phones are spreading even in developing countries, and in China, for example, 97 percent of young people already have a smart phone. And so, the screens are now in every pocket, in every hand, in front of every eye. Any child can pull out the smartphone and connect to the screen.

And the screen is always streaming, thanks to the power of the Internet.

The Internet connects all screens together. Before the Internet, the computer screen was like a page of a book that could be manually and slowly corrected. But thanks to the Internet, all the screens in the world are connected to each other. Everything that happens on one computer in the world, can reach the screen in the hands of millions of people in a matter of seconds. Thanks to the Internet, the screen becomes dynamic - it flows, it changes, it can show us movies, books and tunes, but these are terms of the people of the book generation, who like to think of works as a finished product. In fact, the connected screen promotes a different way of thinking: one that presents us with initial and half-formed ideas, and allows us to take part in their completion and realization.

The screens you use today show you blog entries instead of books, the opinions of our friends from Facebook, the Wikipedia pages that change all the time, the videos on YouTube taken by hobbyists like us, and the streaming on Twitch of people who like to play the same games as us. And all in a fast stream of content that is updated all the time, and built on itself. For the screen generation, there is almost no such thing as a "finished product". The starting point is that everything is fluid, everything changes. For the members of the screen generation, the finished work is extraordinary.

And this terrifies the people of the book generation. They, who grew up on fixed ideas, who see in a book that slowly and diligently formulates the pinnacle of human thought, find it difficult to accept the rapid changes that the screens allow. They claim that the screens are destroying human thinking.

They are right: the screens really destroy human thinking, but only that which was formed during the age of the book and in accordance with the technological limitations of that time. And the thinking and skills that are being destroyed are replaced by modern ways of thinking and abilities that are more suitable for the new era.

From writing to creation

Let's take for example one of the biggest claims against screens: they hurt people's desire to read. The roots of this claim can be traced back to the early days of television, when intellectuals feared that citizens would become addicted to television and spend less time reading books.

Of course, there is nothing new about such predictions of rage, and they can be found in every generation. A visitor to Cambridge in the 17th century, a time when discussions in coffee houses began to attract students, wrote indignantly that -

"The students yearn so much for news (which is none of their business at all), that they leave everything else to their own devices. It is a rare occurrence now that one of them will go directly to his room after the prayers, without first visiting the cafe - something that results in a huge loss of time due to the desire for renewal alone."

And in an article from 1835 you can find a bitter outpouring on the tendency of young people to read books without a break.

"[Constant reading can] inevitably stop thought, and impair the thinking ability of the young... It will stop the ability to enjoy company, or make the conversation light and unimportant."[2]

In short, from time immemorial there have been angry prophecies regarding the harmful effect of technology on the thinking skills of humans. And how do you say? For now we are fine.

And actually, we're even better off, because from the moment the internet started connecting all the screens together, people started communicating with each other through writing. And guess what? The time people spent reading increased dramatically. People spend three times as much time reading today as they did in 1980. And not only that: more than three million blog entries are written every day. Who do you think writes them? Members of the screen generation, for the most part, who perfect their writing skills through the screen.

But even if the writing skills were to fade because of the screens - as may still happen - it is not such a terrible thing. Because the place of writing and reading is taken by other forms of conveying messages.

Kevin Kelly, who wrote "The inevitable” was the catalyst and conceptual source for this record, claims that the book is no longer the only way to convey ideas. because what ספר? the mother ספר How many pages are bound together? If so, it is also a recipe book ספר, and also an account bookספר. But it is clear to us that ספר It is more than a collection of pages. ספר It is an idea, or a story, or a space disconnected from physical reality, which we can dive into - and want to do so.

And if so, then it is also a good TV series ספר. He is also a comic ספר. All these allow us to enter another world and enjoy its ideas. Why does mom want us to read books? Because in the age of the book, the most efficient - and easiest - way for a person to express himself was through writing. But in the era of the screen, every person can express himself in a variety of ways. People who watch a lot of reality series, can take their smartphone and create their own reality series on YouTube that will gain millions of viewers. People who read a lot of comic books can easily draw their own by downloading pictures and illustrations available online and adding speech bubbles. People who love music can upload their digitally created tunes to the web. The screen generation is a generation that no longer relies only on writing as a way of self-expression. He uses all communication channels to convey and implement his ideas. And so we moved from the writing of the era of the book, to the creation of the era of the screen.

The transition from writing to creating is just one example of the way in which the perceptions of the book generation evolve into the perceptions of the world of the screen generation.

And what else?

From putting up walls to breaking boundaries

A few months ago I heard two children talking. One of them said he wanted to watch some movie, and that he was going to download it via torrent. His friend warned him not to forget to close the download program when he is done downloading, so that it does not slow down his computer. The first child was left in the market. "Stop the download without sharing?" shocked "It's immoral!"

Such a conversation reflects the exchange that we are currently going through on the way from the age of the book to the age of the screens. The era of the book was founded on a lack of physical resources. When scientists wanted to publish the results of their research, for example, they had to do so through the scientific journals, and there was limited space in those. Therefore, the scientific magazines could strictly check the articles through so-called "peer review", charge a high fee to the scientists to publish the articles in the pages of the newspaper, and oblige the universities to pay a fortune for a subscription to the magazine. Similarly, the film and music industries used to be dominated by the factors that weakened the transfer of information: the industry of recording music on cassettes and CDs and distributing them to stores, or distributing them to cinemas and video stores.

But in the era of the screen there is no space limitation. The scientists can upload their articles directly to the Internet, and they will be open for everyone to read. People are no longer limited in the ways of transferring and sharing information, and members of the screen generation are ready to share content with each other - and it is more important for them to verify the reciprocity of the sharing action than what the law stipulates on the subject. Many of them are also willing to pay certain small amounts for the music and movies they receive - provided they receive them in the way they expect: quickly, efficiently and easily. That is, directly to the screen. This is why companies like Netflix, which stream directly to your computer or smart TV, thrive and succeed while others falter and fail.

The worm in the apple

But not everything is perfect in the new world of the screen. There are several big and real problems in the age of the screen, which are the product of abundance: an abundance of information and an abundance of stimuli.

The screen provides a wealth of information to surfers, but no one guarantees that this information is reliable and verified. An abundance of information means that you can find any point of view, on any subject, and all of them can sound equally credible to a non-expert. You can find mountains of words denying that the holocaust ever happened, or mounds of skewed evidence that vaccines cause autism, or piles of outright lies about the virtues of organic food. In order to deal with the abundance of information, the members of the screen generation need to develop critical reading skills and understand how to cross-reference different sources of information to reach conclusions.

Most people do not like - or are not able - to think critically all the time. And beyond that, human beings by nature do not feel comfortable with opinions that are contrary to their own. But the meaning of an abundance of information is that they should see such conflicting opinions all the time. The way for platforms like Facebook and Google to solve the dilemma is through the development of automatic algorithms that provide the screen generation with only the information that suits them best - and sometimes also the most pleasant for them. This is how Facebook's algorithm works, which tries to 'match' users with certain opinions and certain interests, and posts that touch on these areas.

The result of this approach, as we have already learned in the recent elections in the United States, is that the abundance of information leads to the creation of 'Echo Chambers'. Some screen people do not use all the information available to them, and instead choose to focus on only a small part of the information and listen only to people who agree with them. In these places, group extremism is created, because each user feels obliged to agree with the opinion of the group and even to extremism. In echo chambers there is also a tendency to believe any new information that matches the opinion of the original group - even if it is false and fabricated. And so we facilitate the spread and acceptance of 'fake news' - the false news.

We don't yet know how to effectively deal with fake news, but following the 2016 election The big information companies like Google and Facebook have also come to an understanding This is an issue for which a solution must be found. The companies are trying to program more sophisticated algorithms that will distinguish between fake news and real news, but it turns out that this is not a simple task - and along the way it also gives them great power to decide what is false and what is real, which news should reach everyone and which will be left out of the public consciousness. The members of the screen generation will have to find the most appropriate balance between filtering information and sharing it.

The abundance of stimuli

The computer game market is one of the hottest of our generation. Games such as League of Legends and World of Warcraft enjoy tens of millions of players. When Pokemon Go opened up to the general public, it Won by 9.5 million players who walked the streets of the cities with their eyes fixed on the smartphone screen. The online gambling market is also skyrocketing, and should come for revenues of 40 billion dollars until the end of 20177.

All these data tell us what we already know: the screens can provide us with stimuli, and in abundance, in the form of games. It's not just games with sophisticated graphics, exciting animation and melodies that attract the heart and the ear. Even the simplest games today rely on the principles of gamification to attract large numbers of players and keep them playing. And they attract us all the time, everywhere, since many of the games can also be enjoyed through the smartphone - or at least watch others play them on platforms like Twitch.

Members of the screen generation will have to deal with the abundance of stimuli, and it won't be easy. They will need to understand when to close the Facebook page in the browser so that they can concentrate on a particular task. They will have to develop similar withdrawal strategies from the Internet and games so that they do not reach the end of the day and realize that they have done nothing but play or surf from site to site.

What happens when the members of the screen generation mix the game with the physical world? turmoil.

Summary - from mouth to paper to screen

As speech gave way to print, so will print give way to the screen, eventually. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the transition will be smooth and pleasant. The printing revolution also brought in its wake the peasant revolutions and the rights revolution - and many of the people who lived at the time saw these events as a disaster for generations. And so, the screen revolution will also undermine all the truths we thought we knew about the way humans should behave, think and speak.

We still don't know for sure what will be the most useful needs and life skills of the children who will grow up and live in the age of the screen, but if I had to guess, the following points would appear at the top of the list -

1. Screen children do not need Adults who will tell them that they should read a book instead of reading on the computer, or talk to each other on the street, instead of communicating on Facebook. they Yes, we should read, and they Yes, we should talk to others - but these activities can also take place in the new medium, through the Internet.
2. they Yes, we should To develop correct working and learning habits, so that when necessary they can disconnect from the screen and work in a concentrated and focused manner, and at other times they can leap and flicker between websites and ideas.
3. they Yes, we should Find the balance between the book and the screen. The book still has a place as a rich source of knowledge, and the children of the screens will have to understand when the book is the best source of knowledge, and when the screens can provide a better learning experience.
4. they Yes, we should to purchase tools of sharp thinking: of critical reading, of finding the truth in a huge excess of information.
5. And perhaps most importantly: if they want to succeed, they will Must To understand what their goals are in life and what they want to achieve, so that they are not drawn to the time-consuming activities that the screen provides them so easily - games, unrestrained surfing and instant gratification of whims (i.e., porn).

Do you have ideas for additional skills that screen children will need to acquire? You are welcome to add in the comments. And in the meantime, we wish these children - our children - good luck. They are going to reshape the world in their image in the coming decades, and I personally can't wait.

[1]  The data comes from the in-depth discussion of the consequences of the printing revolution, in Eric Topol's book "The Patient Will See You Now".

[2] Both quotes appear originally in Clive Thompson's book - Smarter than you think.