Is Google Making Us Stupid?

The article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" brings up some very substantial points regarding the amount of time people spend on the computer or the Internet today. With this homework assignment for example, we as students are more likely to actually do the assignment because of the fact that it is on the Internet.

There is so much to do on the Internet, it isn't a surprise that so many people are becoming engulfed. It is very rare to walk into a home in America and not see a computer or a laptop somewhere; and more and more people are buying laptops so that they have constant connection.

When you think about it, between facebook, myspace, twitter, skype, google, yahoo, AOL, msn, and all of the other sites on the Internet, a person could stay busy for months on end. The use of the Internet is causing the use of many other things to dwindle. Newspapers and magazines aren't necessary, you can read them online. Books aren't necessary, you can go online and get the main points of the book without ever reading it. You get the point, the Internet is taking over the world.

I know as a student, I rarely use books or magazines when I am researching something for a school assignment. It is so much easier to log on to google and type in what I'm looking for and be given millions of results within seconds rather than spending time searching through a book.

It seems like the Internet could be helpful, but this is where Nicholas Carr's ideas come into play. Carr says that he feels like someone or something has been "tinkering with his brain" because he isn't able to read lengthy books or pieces of literature, and often finds himself becoming bored very easily.

It would be one thing if people were spending their time on the Internet reading entire books or magazines, but that is most definitely not the case. The Internet condenses and sums up the information into as little text as possible, so as to furthermore simplify our lives. Because we are all so used to skimming things on the Internet and getting the short versions, it makes reading a book or a newspaper seem like a waste of time. Why spend an hour reading a newspaper when I can find out the exact same thing in 10 minutes online?

This may be why Carr thinks that Google is making us stupid. I wouldn't say that google itself if making us stupid, but rather the Internet in general. Because we all read the condensed shortened versions online, our minds retrain themselves to think in quick bursts. Rather than actually reading and contemplating, our minds simply skim over things and then interpret them as quickly as possible. Therefore, I think that Carr isn't too far off in his belief that Google is making us stupid.

Despite the fact that Carr's thinking has a lot of truth to it, I find one thing about his article to be incredibly ironic-- his article was posted on an Internet news site! Wouldn't you think that someone who seems to think the Internet is making people stupid would support traditional news sources, rather than supporting the very thing that he thinks is the cause of our stupidity?