Visual Communication & IQ

"The ultimate test of the "cognitively demanding leisure" hypothesis may come in the next few years, as the generation raised on hypertext and massively complex game worlds starts taking adult IQ tests. This is a generation of kids who, in many cases, learned to puzzle through the visual patterns of graphic interfaces before they learned to read. Their fundamental intellectual powers weren't shaped only by coping with words on a page. They acquired an intuitive understanding of shapes and environments, all of them laced with patterns that can be detected if you think hard enough. Their parents may have enhanced their fluid intelligence by playing Tetris or learning the visual grammar of TV advertising. But that's child's play compared with Pokémon."

-Wired Magazine on the Flynn effect on IQ's rising around the globe.

Visualcy - visual communication

For the past month, I've seen several articles discussing visual communications and how our society is moving from a literate culture to a visual culture (just like we moved from an oral culture to a literate culture). Christianity Today published an article on Visualcy this morning.

"Many centuries after the shift from oral to written culture, we are now well along in the transition to visual culture—where the predominant mode of communication is images rather than words. Just as the shift to writing required the skills we call literacy, so visual culture requires its own skills—for lack of a better word, visualcy."

All that will be left is the journalism

"However the industry evolves over the next 10 years, that will remain true. Someday, the Web won't exist in its current form. Blogs will be out of fashion. And words printed on paper could be the equivalent of cave drawings. All that will be left is the journalism."

-Anne Van Wagener from Poynter's The Design Desk Column

An extension of your head and your heart

"There is no delete button for intolerance and no insert button for understanding. This new technology that we take so much for granted and defines your generation is a transformational tool, but as a tool it is really only an extension of your head and your heart."
- Tom Brokaw at commencement ceremonies at Providence College

Everyone is getting older (especially me)

I rarely, rarely ever make a personal post, but since I haven't posted in a while, I'm going to take a moment for personal preference.

Ever since my birthday in March, I've felt like I'm getting older. I just don't connect to the students I teach as well as I once did. I'm no longer in Relevant Magazine's twentysomethings target audience (and the last issue, really didn't excite me like they used to). I have worked in my job at the college when the most recent graduating class started college four years ago. My oldest son is now SIX (I really thing that's what brought this on).

Working on the web was one of the banners I always held high to prove that I was young, but now I'm one of the old web guys with experience. In fact a couple of years ago (when I was younger!), I was asked in a job interview how I could make sure that my web designs would connect with a younger audience. So now I know they would think that I am really old! Now, many people I work with would read this post and laugh, because they still think I am young, but they are just fooling themselves and me.

Anyway, this moment of personal preference felt good, maybe I will try it again sometime.

Now in entertainment, Raymond

One of my favorite sit-coms, Everybody Loves Raymond, is airing it's final episode tonight. To salute Raymond, TV Land will pre-empt their regular programming for a half-hour and have people named Raymond introduce themselved and remind viewers to switch to CBS. It's amazing that Ray Romano gets paid $2 million an episode for Raymond.