Can the Internet help improve RI education?

Undoubtedly, the Internet has revolutionized the dissemination of information and knowledge. It enables people not only to transmit information in an instant but also to store and access massive amounts of information and data.

Today, with a relatively low subscription fee, almost all academic journals published in the world can be accessed via the Internet, not to mention the sites that provide free access to information, knowledge and data.

But does the Internet really promote the advancement of knowledge? Do people read more than before the Internet came into being? Long ago, when the television was invented, perhaps people asked the same question.

Studies have shown just the opposite. In the U.S. alone, where the ratio of television sets per 1,000 people is about 0.94 and where children aged 2-17 years old watch television for almost 25 hours per week on average, watching TV for more than three hours per day has contributed to a significant decline in children's reading ability. Studies also found children who watched more entertainment television watched fewer informative programs as they got older and used television more to entertain and as a leisure pastime.

Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death wrote: ""...television's conversations promote incoherence and triviality; that the phrase 'serious television' is a contradiction in terms; and that television speaks in only one persistent voice -- the voice of entertainment.""

There is an interaction between society and its technologies. Society creates technology, and the development of society, to a large extent, is brought about by technology. This sparks a question, will information technology improve the advancement of knowledge in our society? Unfortunately, the presence of the Internet might help degrade, instead of improve, the quality of our education. This is due to at least two reasons:

First, the free information and knowledge on the Internet poses a negative consequence. In a country where the commitment to respect and protect copyrights is still loose, the Internet could worsen the learning process. It could trigger plagiarism among students, teachers and professors, which virtually adds nothing to the existing knowledge. Even in developed countries, where copyrights are protected, the negative impacts of the Internet on the advancement of knowledge are no less serious.

According to a recent study conducted by turitin.com, a web database dedicated to detecting plagiarism, about 30 percent of a large sample of Berkeley students were identified as plagiarizing directly from the Internet. Tests, Schechter and Eder reported in 2002 that by some estimates there are 3,000 more sites that provide materials for students than there are sites to authenticate student work. Given the loose protection of copyrights, the percentage of our students who commit plagiarism could be well above the case in Berkeley.

So, when people are using the Internet more extensively to get information, they are not necessarily thinking more systematically and creatively. Paradoxically, we may be living in an information society, but we are not necessarily becoming a thinking and learning society.

Second, the transition from printing to virtual knowledge remains problematic. Before the Internet was invented, people in developed countries were already living in a reading and printing culture. In the U.S., for instance, thousands of new books are published every year. There are numerous libraries with massive stocks of books. From elementary school, students are already taught to write essays and give speeches in front of their peers. It is an expressive society in which expressing their thoughts -- either verbally or written -- is an important part of the learning process.

Ours is not a reading society -- yet. Reading books has not been a main interest in our society, let alone writing them. Even professors and teachers at universities and colleges have limited skills in writing. The number of books published per year is very low. Our libraries are too few and their stocks of books are also very

limited. To make matter worse, our culture is not an expressive culture and our education does not really encourage students to write and express their thoughts systematically.

When developed countries move from a printing knowledge to a virtual knowledge, there is only a little shock. Most of the information stored virtually on the Internet has already been available in print. That is not the case with our country. When we are presented with virtual knowledge, we experience a significant shock. Suddenly, students or Internet users are overloaded with information and because of its suddenness and its massiveness they become lost in a desert of information.

Whether the Internet can improve the advancement of the learning process in Indonesia depends on whether we can move into printing and virtual knowledge at the same time. Reading books stimulates and demands thoughts.

Therefore, the challenge is whether we can promote a learning and reading culture. The publication of original thoughts or creative thinking should be supported, promoted and appreciated. Public libraries with reasonable stocks of books should be built in medium and large-size cities. Above all, our formal education has to be able to stimulate students, from elementary to university level, to arrange their thought and ideas systematically.

At the same time, we have to build and maintain our commitment to respect copyrights. Plagiarism not only impedes critical thinking, but also discourages further creative explorations of knowledge. This is the hardest part because no matter what punishment is, plagiarism will always exist. At best, we can minimize it by simultaneously punishing plagiarists severely while giving appreciation for original or creative thoughts.

The writer, who holds a Ph.D., teaches at the Department of Economics, California State University, Fullerton, U.S.

Waning sex drives and the economy

Comedians are going to have a field day with the newly formed Sunrise Party of Japan. Not a terrible name, considering this is the land of the rising sun. This septuagenarian group aims to revitalize an economy plagued by deflation and outof-control debt Instead, it only highlights a paucity of youthful energy and how demographics are imperiling Japans future and credit rating.

An aging population would be fine if the birthrate werent declining. Each year, the folks who sell Durex condoms publish a sexual-frequency survey that helps explain why Japanese apparently have some of the least active sex lives, a finding that tantalizes economists and sociologists.

Yet what if Japans demographics are more of a strength than a weakness? This contrarian idea is worth considering for two reasons. One, Japan is doing nothing about its population. Two, other rich nations will be in the same boat before long, making Japan a population prototype.

"Wealth is the best contraceptive," says Nicholas Smith, director of equity research at MF Global in Tokyo, who has long studied the supposed correlation between procreation and economic growth. "There is a well-known correlation between rising per capita GDP and falling fertility."

A dwindling workforce scares off investors such as Jim Rogers, Singapore-based chairman of Rogers Holdings. They say there wont be enough workers to pay off a public debt thats roughly twice the size of Japans US$4.9 trillion economy. Smith, on the other hand, is enamored with Japans "perfect demographics," or its surplus of retirees and women to keep the economygrowing in the years ahead.

This doesnt conform to the views of most economists. But Japan has all but run out of conventional ways to right an economy still suffering from the crash of the late 1980s. Theres little room to boost growth with borrowing, and interest rates are already near zero.

Nor are officials in Tokyo taking obvious steps such as increasing immigration. After World War II, Germany thrived on comparatively liberal immigration policies, laying the foundations for the economic miracle of the 1950s. Today it is the worlds second-biggest exporter, while Japan is only fourth.

Immigration is a taboo issue in Japan, leaving us to mull how it can fare with what it has, demographi-cally speaking. The strategy seems to be morphing into Asias Switzerland, proving that living standards neednt shrink with population.

There are environmental benefits to making do with fewer people. Can our planet really sustain 9 billion people by 2050?

Imagine the massive leaps in clean-energy technology required to make things even somewhat sustainable. Japan has a couple of demographic cushions. The most obvious is women.

As this column has pointed out before, discrimination means Japan only taps half of its 126 million people. A lack of affordable daycare also is a disincentive for working women to have kids. Unable to balance work and family, more are putting off motherhood.

Each year, the Japanese media works itself into a frenzy over Du-rexs figures. In January, Finance Minister Naoto Kan even asked his staff to work shorter days so they have more time for dates.

Lets not overstate things, though. If correlation between sexual frequency, birthrates and economic growth is strong, why isnt Greece, one of the Durex lists top perform-ers, booming? Corporate Japan will have to get over its collective sexism. As it does, women will play a bigger economic role.

Retirees are another potential staffing goldmine. More and more of Japans baby boomers, born after 1945, are reaching the average retirement age of about 63. Wage-cost reductions from their departure will kick in this year and then accelerate.

Thats especially true of postwar boom industries such as iron, steel, shipbuilding, heavy engineering and trading.

Its time to rehire many of these aging workers - at lower salaries, of course. For many, an inescapable consequence of living longer is the necessity of working longer. Thats especially true of anyone whose retirement loot was wiped out in the events of 2008.

Companies can trim costs while also tapping the intellectual firepower of retirees at a discount to their previous pay packages.

The good news is that companies most likely to enjoy a retirement dividend are in mature industries that were the driving force behind Japans meteoric growth after the 1960s. Those are in need of aggressive restructuring. It may give an unexpected boost to the economy.

Japans demographic cushions arent a cure-all. Without a rapid increase in worker productivity, the nation will find it harder to maintain its high living standards. The rise of China and India and competition from South Korea are direct threats to Japans future.

It may not be all doom and gloom. Yes, Japan is bleeding people. Far from being a crisis, it may offer benefits. If so, talk of the sun rising in Japan, rather than setting, may be appropriate after all.

The writer is a Bloomberg Newscolumnist. The opinions expressedare his own.