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Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the no-time-to-read-the-whole-article dept.

mjasay writes "Is Google making us stupid? Following a growing body of research within neuroscience, Carr argues that as we use the Web 'we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.' This sounds great: Who wouldn't want to have the 'recall' capacity of Google? But, as Carr writes: 'The Internet promises to have particularly far-reaching effects on cognition. ... The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It's becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV. When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net's image.' In other words, as we 'go online' in increasing numbers and to an increasing degree, are we losing our ability to think coherently and deeply, preferring instead to process byte-sized information quickly, regurgitate 140-character 'tweets,' and skim thought? Is the concern overblown, or are we becoming the Web that we created?"

13 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. Not Google. by Slashdot+Suxxors · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Internet in general will make us sutidp.

    1. Re:Not Google. by montyzooooma · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's the Turing Test in reverse. Eventually we'll all be so dumb a machine can pass for human.

    2. Re:Not Google. by martinw89 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm sorry, I caught something about Google... Oh, and the Internet.

      What?

    3. Re:Not Google. by lymond01 · · Score: 4, Funny

      If I'm interpreting you correctly, you're saying Lord of the Rings was a better trilogy than the original Star Wars?

    4. Re:Not Google. by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

      Taking things to their logical conclusion:

      User: Internet is down throughout the whole building!!! What will we do? Someone just asked me my favourite food, I can't remember, but I know it's on my Myspace!

      Admin: Hang on a minute, I'll google to find out what we should do! *waits* *refreshes* *waits* gimme a minute.. google isn't loading.. oh. Shit.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Not Google. by BattleApple · · Score: 5, Funny

      Socializing? Excuse me while I Google this word.

      Ah, I see. You must be new here.

  2. More appropriate question: by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is Slashdot making us stupid? We've lost the ability to come up with new jokes, instead preferring to spread the same old memes about hot grits, Natalie Portman being naked and petrified, welcome our new Google overlords, and saying that In Soviet Russia, YOU make Google stupid.

    Oh well, I guess all are brain are belong to Slashdot.

    --
    My blog
  3. wrong question by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Funny

    correct question:

    "are google making us stupids? is our childrens learning?"

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  4. The article title should read... by elguillelmo · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Is the Internet making us even more stupid?"

    --
    Dawkins Revisited: A person is shit's way of making more shit -- Steve Barnett, anthropologist.
  5. Well.... by Chairboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    > Is Google Making Us Stupid?

    I can't answer your question, my internet connection was down all morning.

  6. Re:Absolutely Not. by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would say that the increased MENTAL interaction it provides makes us, in many ways, smarter and more flexible. INTERTOOB CAT IS IN UR MIND, MAKIN IT FLEXY! LOL! KTHX!
  7. Re:Both by Gilmoure · · Score: 5, Funny

    It only makes you more of what you really are.

    Sounds like cocaine.

    Robin Williams: It intensifies your personality. But what if you're an asshole?

    --
    I drank what? -- Socrates
  8. Re:Both by zmollusc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hah! I was going to correct it too, but i used actual 'remembering'! Old School FTW!

    --
    They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.