Because the Internet makes it easier to find more interesting contacts, those less interesting contacts near the threshold of attention may be abandoned. Unless scientists actively seek diversity, global access might therefore balkanize interactions. Focus is a response to the poverty of attention. When daily interactions bombard us with irrelevant information, a strong desire to focus might evolve as a useful heuristic for minimizing distractions. By radically improving filtering, however, advanced information technology can lead this same heuristic to inordinately favor depth at too great a cost in breadth.
Old strategies can become counterproductive in new environments.
The Web accumulates 200,000 new pages daily, along with thousands of postings to public discussion groups, a wealth of information that creates a need to sort the diamonds from the dust. Communications that once depended on geography, proximity, and serendipity are screened and filtered for perceived relevance and reputation. Science advances not just from publication but from dialogue, apprenticeship, and collaboration. Incentives are necessary to encourage creation, distribution, and use. The incentives faced by individual scientists, however, do not automatically encourage them to maximize scientific progress.