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Is Google Making Us Stupid?
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?"
I have found that the people that harbor these ideas are often bright in their own right and during their "Hay Day" were looked up to at every job they had. The problem comes in when you take a piece of information that only they knew and give it to everyone with a web browser, than their superior intellect means jack squat! This is the most peaty type of fear mongering a person can spread. "I don't care that you memorized the periodic table in the third grade and can recite any of the elements by heart. I memorized the character string 'www.wikipedia.org' and when I ask that site for information it doesn't give me the same grief that you do!"
Who gives a fuck?
These stories are nothing but trolls to catch the reader's eye. They amount to the "Think you are safe in your home? tune in tonight at 10 to find out" stories.
Are we safe? Are you safe? Is your mother smarter than you? Are you dumb because of the clothes you wear? Are your clothes killing you? Is anyone out there? is this thing on? How much for the Ape?
I mean hell, serious discussion and thought drives humanity. But when it's all boiled down to short snippets between ads it sort of loses something.
Moral of the story? Read more books and get off my lawn.
Having elected George Bush TWICE proves America has already reached the pinnacle of stupidity.