More recently, John Hattie and Gregory Yates (Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn) have compiled a substantial review of a variety of topics regarding learning and the scientific support for learning theories. Aimed primarily at educators, the book aptly summarises the current evidence base and educational case regarding the Web and the changing brain (amongst many other topics). Summarised, the Web may well change the brain but it is as yet unclear if that has had any effect on students’ ability to learn. What we are studying now is whether these changes will cause behavioural changes as well. As of yet, the results are mixed and with regard to education; we simply don’t know whether lack of attention in classrooms could be explained by neurological adaptations to the Web or from factors like the pervasive nature of smart-phone and subsequent easy access to Angry Birds.

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Like most complicated questions the details of the answer are complicated too. But the broader response is not. There have been concerns raised by those such as Susan Greenfield that the Web is fundamentally changing our brain. This is of course true. In fact every interaction humans have with the world alters their brain (though this is not a validation of Greenfield’s claims). Others such as Gary Small, have gone as far as to involve evolutionary language.

Evolution?
Outside of some epigenetic effects which don’t appear to have been demonstrated in this domain, there seems little excuse for such rhetoric given the lack of selective pressure. Evolution via natural selection requires those that can’t succeed die or don’t reproduce. I’m currently unaware that those not on Facebook have been prevented from breeding, nor that the impact of such a policy would bare evolutionary fruit over such a small evolutionary time-scale. The real issue is a matter of degrees and to what extent the very real changes that do occur in brains are impacting human behaviour.

Education
This is a very real concern in the domain of education where some authors have attempted to address issues such as whether the Web is making us less able to learn. A notable example being Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, who has suggested that the multitasking capacity of computers and the rapid nature of information acquisition on the Web has led to an inability to focus on a singular task at hand. As stated before, there is good neurological evidence that the Web is indeed changing our brain (Small et. al., 2009; Your Brain on Google) and that interactions with the internet can change the brains of new Web users very rapidly. But again, this evidence remains unclear. Brains are meant to adapt to new experience and there is no clear demonstration that changed brains impede learning.

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Piracy rate statistics are murky at best. Industry involvement in collection makes numbers hard to interpret and bias likely. But research on Pirates themselves remains murkier still.

Law and Property
Though we use the term “intellectual property”, copyrights were never really described in a ‘property’ context. The inception of copyright (Statute of Anne, 1710) granted “monopoly” and “responsibility” but not “ownership” outside of a contractual context. Even the more emotionally charged “moral right” to intellectual works, entrenched in French history, never equated IP with physical property. As authors like Gray (2012) have pointed out that the desire to maintain this analogy results in poorly modelled behaviours. Theories devised around theft or bootlegging, grounded in the physical world, are assumed to be applicable without clear justification that the actions are equivalent.

The Undefined “Pirate”
Describing the ‘typical’ pirate has become equally difficult. Research concludes that pirates are non-religious, young and poorly morally developed but also that there is no religious association, pirates span the age spectrum and there is no correlation with moral development. For each study claiming one thing there is typically another claiming the opposite.

Piracy?
Currently demographic discrepancies are unexplained but some unfounded assumptions can be identified that might be responsible. First, “piracy” is often used without explanation. Legal debate over definition is on-going yet participants are assumed to be able to clearly categorise their own behaviour. Secondly, all “piracy” is typically treated equally. Do pirates download a film balanced against each album? Does a film pirate who never downloads music or a book pirate who downloads nothing else represent behaviourally distinct groups?

Web Science offers potential for research that recognises piracy as a distinct behaviour without physical analogy and can recognise its social context, separate from legal and technical definition.

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