Internet Groupthink Throttles Creativity

Social networking may inspire a lot of, well, nothing, because follow-the-crowd thinking trumps radical ideas, says Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Center at the National University of Singapore.

In its current state, the Internet does not easily lend itself to innovation, Mayer-Schönberger argues, and he says updates and improvements to the World Wide Web can only be incremental because its programmers all use the same social networking channels to communicate and share ideas, as the journal Science explains in a summary.

The idea, explained by Alan Boyle in his blog, suggests there are limitations to innovation of open-source software like Firefox Web browser and the Linux operating system.

Mayer-Schönberger suggests involving outsiders and people uninvolved in the research process to be a part of the creative process, and also creating incentives to form new network structures that would stimulate, rather than stifle, innovation online, according to the journal's summary. To accomplish this, the author suggests reducing social ties that currently link the Internet's coders.

Meanwhile, other researchers are worrying about whether all this social networking is warping our brains, possibly leading to unprecedented evolution as we speak.

In The Water Cooler, Imaginova's Editorial Director Robert Roy Britt looks at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond. Find more in the archives and on Twitter.