Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Nicholas Carr writes in the Atlantic Monthly that “Google is Making Us Stupid,” focusing on the way a decade of web browsing has altered the way his mind works to the extent that he now struggles to read long texts. I pretty much know what he is talking about – I do find it harder to get into a book now that I am so accustomed to reading small bits and clicking to the next thing.

Carr makes reference to the work of psychologist Maryanne Wolfe, whose book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, delves into the neuroscience of reading and language development. Wolf believes that internet reading is more efficient and shallow than the deep reading of longer works that seems to have become more difficult for people in the internet age.

Carr also makes reference to Nietzsche, Marshall McLuhan, Alan Turing, the “Hal” character is the film 2001, Daniel Bell, Frederick Taylor, and Plato (the Phaedrus, in which Socrates expresses his opposition to the new technology of writing).

Thanks to Mark Rosenzweig for sending the link to multiple lists.