US Internet giant Google's boss on Friday expressed concern that youngsters growing up in the mobile instant information age will develop a "deep reading" problem.
"The one that I do worry about is the question of 'deep reading'," said Eric Schmidt, the 54-year-old chief executive and chairman of the internet giant, referring to the term used to explain reading for greater comprehension."As the world looks to these instantaneous devices... you spend less time reading all forms of literature, books, magazines and so forth," he told the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"That probably has an effect on cognition, probably has an effect on reading."
Schmidt was less concerned about teenagers spending too much time on gaming.
There is "a lot of evidence that teenage gaming... in fact improves strategic reasoning, navigational reasoning and obviously it improves hand-eye coordination," he said.
Highlighting the virtues of "magical" technological advances, Schmidt said one key new application was translation.
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"This would be quite useful for me," he said to laughter from the floor.
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Technology was "used to create derivatives" and computers were used to calculate formulas for these complex financial instruments, he explained.
"I don't think technology makes the world either safer or more predictable. It can make it more unsafe and certainly more unpredictable because there is inter-connectedness," he said.
Source-AFP
THK