Is Google Making Us Stupid?

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our brains" is a magazine article by American writer Nicholas G. Carr which is highly critical of the changes the Internet has caused in the way the civilized world thinks. [cite journal |last= Carr |first= Nicholas |title= Is Google Making Us Stupid? |journal= The Atlantic |volume= 301 |issue= 6 |pages= |date= July 2008 |url= http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google |accessdate= 2008-10-06 ] Initially published in the July/August 2008 edition of "The Atlantic Monthly", the article has been read and discussed widely in both the media and the blogosphere. Carr had previously published a book in January 2008 titled "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google". [cite news |title=The Reality Club: On "Is Google Making Us Stupid" by Nicholas Carr |work=Edge |url=http://www.edge.org/discourse/carr_google.html] Carr's main argument was that the Internet possibly has detrimental effects on cognition that diminish our ability to concentrate and do intense reading of texts. Despite the title, the article is not specifically targeted at Google, but more at the cognitive impact of the whole Internet and World Wide Web.

Interpretations

Abundance of writing

In writer Clay Shirky's reactions to Carr's essay he makes great use of the term "abundance" to describe the unprecedented quantity of written material available on the Internet, and acknowledges that Carr's essay raises the possibility of a "cultural sacrifice" due to the effects of the Internet, however, he postulates that now the more important issue is "to help make the sacrifice worth it". Yet Sven Birkerts believes that "some deep comprehension of our inheritance … is essential", and calls for "some consensus vision among those shapers of what our society and culture might be shaped toward" so as not to simply put our trust in the commercial marketplace.cite news |title=A Know-Nothing’s Defense of Serious Reading & Culture: A Reply to Clay Shirky |author=Sven Birkerts |date=2008-07-18 |work=Britannica Blog |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/a-know-nothings-defense-of-serious-culture-and-reading-a-reply-to-clay-shirky/ ] Although Carr found solace in Shirky's conjecture that "new forms of expression" may emerge to suit the Internet, he considered them to be of an entirely "different subject" from the issue he has raised in his essay on the potential influence he suspects the Internet of having on cognition. However, in a later piece Shirky continued to expound upon his theme that "technologies that make writing abundant always require new social structures to accompany them", explaining that Gutenberg's printing press led to an abundance of cheap books which were met by "a host of inventions large and small", such as the "separation of fiction from non-fiction", the recognition of talents, the facilitation provided by indexes, and the practice of noting editions.cite news |title=Why Abundance Should Breed Optimism: A Second Reply to Nick Carr |author=Clay Shirky |date=2008-07-21 |work=Britannica Blog |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/why-abundance-should-breed-optimism-a-second-reply-to-nick-carr/]

Literary reading

In a lot of the discussions on Carr's essay there is a focus on his use of the novel "War and Peace" which is the only work he specifically mentions as an example of a narrative that he believes modern readers are increasingly less able to follow, which, according to his critics, has the effect of excluding technical and scientific literature, as well as other types of literature. In one reaction to Carr's essay, writer Clay Shirky pugnaciously observed that "War and Peace" is "too long, and not so interesting", continuing to state that "it would be hard to argue that the last ten years have seen a decrease in either the availability or comprehension of material on scientific or technical subjects".cite news |title=Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr |author=Clay Shirky |date=2008-07-17 |work=Britannica Blog |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/why-abundance-is-good-a-reply-to-nick-carr/ ] Shirky's comments on "War and Peace" were derided by several of his peers as verging on philistinism,cite news |title=A Defense of Tolstoy & the Individual Thinker: A Reply to Clay Shirky |author=Larry Sanger |date=2008-07-18 |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/a-defense-of-tolstoy-the-individual-thinker-a-reply-to-clay-shirky/] cite news |title=The Internet and the Future of Civilization |author=Larry Sanger |date=2008-07-30 |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/the-internet-and-the-future-of-civilization/ ] cite news |title=Why Skepticism is Good: My Reply to Clay Shirky |author=Nicholas Carr |date=2008-07-17 |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/why-skepticism-is-good-my-reply-to-clay-shirky/ ] however, in Shirky's defense, inventor W. Daniel Hillis wrote that books "were created to serve a purpose" but that "same purpose can often be served by better means". Hillis goes on to say that although " [t] he book is a fine and admirable device" he does "not doubt that clay tables ["sic"] and scrolls of papyrus had charms of their own". [cite news |title=Hillis' reaction |author=Danny Hillis |date=2008-07-20 |work=Edge |url=http://www.edge.org/discourse/carr_google.html#hillis1 ] "Wired" magazine editor Kevin Kelly wrote that "we should resist the idea that the book is the apex of human culture". [cite news |title=The Fate of the Book (and a Question for Sven Birkerts) |author=Kevin Kelly |date=2008-07-25 |work=Britannica Blog |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/fate-of-the-book/ ] Essayist Sven Birkerts differentiated online reading from literary reading, stating that in the latter you are directed within yourself and enter "an environment that is nothing at all like the open-ended information zone that is cyberspace" in which he feels he is "psychologically … fragmented".cite news |title=Reading in the Open-ended Information Zone Called Cyberspace: My Reply to Kevin Kelly |author=Sven Birkerts |date=2008-07-25 |work=Britannica Blog |url=http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/reading-in-the-open-ended-information-zone-called-cyberspacemy-reply-to-kevin-kelly/ ] cite news |title=Are you losing your memory thanks to the Internet? |author=Evan Ratliff |date=2008-08-14 |publisher=Salon.com |url=http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/08/14/memory/ ]

Effect on memory retention

In the tumultuous discussions that followed Carr's essay, Evan Ratliff of Salon.com was dismayed to find not much insight into the effect of our "Web and gadget usage" on one facet of cognition in particular: our ability to recall information. He wondered if the "continual ability to look up information" may have an effect on our "desire to remember" information as well as our "allocation of cognitive resources devoted to remembering it".

Reception

While widely discussed in the media both critically and in passing, Carr's essay has been discussed at length with great depth at both Britannica's blog in a forum titled "Your Brain Online" and at publisher John Brockman’s blog The Edge. [ [http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/07/this-is-your-brain-this-is-your-brain-on-the-internetthe-nick-carr-thesis/ "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (Britannica Forum: Your Brain Online)] ]

English technology writer Bill Thompson has observed that Carr's argument "has succeeded in provoking a wide-ranging debate". [cite news |title=Changing the way we think |author=Bill Thompson |date=2008-06-17 |work=BBC News |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ifs_news/hi/newsid_7459000/7459182.stm] Damon Darlin of "The New York Times" has quipped that while " [everyone] has been talking about [the] article in "The Atlantic" magazine", only " [s] ome subset of that group has actually read the 4,175-word article, by Nicholas Carr." [cite news |title=Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds. |author=Damon Darlin |date=2008-09-20 |work=The New York Times |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/technology/21ping.html ]

Luddism

Writer and activist Seth Finkelstein noted that predictably several critics would rush to label Carr's main argument as a luddite one, [cite news |title=Nick Carr: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", and Man vs. Machine |author=Seth Finkelstein |date=2008-06-09 |work=Infothought blog |url=http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001349.html] which interestingly was followed by Shirky's claim that Carr's "contrarian stance is slowly forcing him into a caricature of Luddism". After providing a litany of previously denounced new technologies, journalist David Wolman, in his "Wired" magazine piece, stated that the assumption that the web "hurts us more than it helps" is "moronic", and that what is needed is "better schools as well as a renewed commitment to reason and scientific rigor so that people can distinguish knowledge from garbage". [cite news |title=The Critics Need a Reboot. The Internet Hasn't Led Us Into a New Dark Age |author=David Wolman |date=2008-08-18 |work=Wired |url=http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-09/st_essay]

References and notes

External links

* [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google Is Google Making Us Stupid?]
* [http://www.roughtype.com Nicholas Carr's weblog RoughType]
* [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/185695/september-25-2008/nicholas-carr September 25, 2008: Nicholas Carr discusses the Internet and the future of man on "The Colbert Report"]