Things That Make Us Smart

Title:
Things That Make Us Smart
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Reference:
Norman, Donald.  Things That Make Us Smart.  Basic Books, New York: 1993.

Summary:
This book dealt with the things in our society, specifically technology, that contribute to our cognition.  Technology can be both helpful and hurtful to our cognition and way of thinking.

There are benefits in technology such as having alternative ways to view data.  Graphs can represent things that we would not have been able to easily view in a more conventional method.  Also, if the correct type of media is incorporated with the skill of teachers in the material they present to students, education could become much more efficient in stimulating interest in subjects.  Norman states that flow is necessary in order to have someone entranced into the task at hand.  In terms of education he sees this as very important.  People are very good at having this flow when playing video games; they do much research and planning in order to find out exactly how to win.  They use reflective cognition to think back on different situations in order to find the best route to the end they desire.  He claims that more of this needs to be done in our school system.  People just aren't as into school as they are other things.

There are also things about technology that could hinder our cognition.  Norman points to entertainment through media to be an aspect of society that could be very much hindering it.  In watching movies, people are usually in the state of flow.  Movies however are not typically offering any type of informative information, but rather simply try to entrance the viewer as much as possible.  Object lessons are often looked past in order to make the movie more captivating.  Norman says that this could actually hinder our cognition in having us expectant on a constant use of experiential cognition.  This is the type that is displayed in experts when they must recall or react in an instant.  It is in the moment reaction.

The way things are represented play a large role in our perception of them.  Depending on the presentation it makes it easier or more difficult for us to understand and extrapolate information from the expression.

Discussion:
The book thus far seemed like it was a lot of thoughts that were all over the place.  It was difficult to follow his line of thought and the overall point he was trying to get across.  It did not flow too well.  This is not unlike his other books, however.  Maybe if I were to read more of the book (the chapters we didn't read) it would all make sense, but I doubt it.

It was interesting seeing the types of categories he classified cognition into.  It seemed as though he has a lot of thoughts that he cannot exactly put together in a coherent way.  I agree with him about the whole graph idea.  People tend to use graphs in the most inappropriate way just because they can't figure out how to use the program designing them.