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The most interesting thing about this clip, I found to be the following:

• China will soon be the number one English speaking country in the world.
• The 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's is greater than the total population of the United States -- translation: India has more honor kids than America has kids.

Now that's interesting!

But the rest of the video, with its enthused remarks about the exponential explosion of information technology I found less than impressive.

Take this statement, for example: "It is estimated that a week's worth of The New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century." Does that mean we're smarter than they were then? The key word in that sentence is "information." What is most of that information in a week's worth of The New York Times? Worthless mental clutter. How would a person not be better off with a head full of Boswell's Life of Johnson, or earlier works by Dante, Cervantes, or Shakespeare, not to mention the Bible?

Or, take this enthusiastic statement: "It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4.0x10^19) of unique information will be generated this year." Again, there's that key word, "information." Of what does this information primarily consist? The video references the progressive grown of information technology from the radio to the TV to the computer to the ipod, to cell phones and texting, etc. Granted, teenagers are everywhere texting and phoning one another these days, and the connectivity generated by the technology is an amazing thing. But, again, compare the value of a half-hour cell-phone conversation between two teens and a half-hour spent reading Dante, and perhaps you can begin to see what is being gained and what is being lost here.

[G.N.]