Is Google Making Us Stupid?

As Carr explains in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” media shapes the process by which people think. When one is reading a book, one has to think to stay engaged. If the mind wanders, no reading gets done. However, with media like TV or movies, the viewer is passive and can sit and the movie or film will just keep going. The viewer can pop in and out and still get a lot of information from it. With the Internet, there is a constant feed of information and zillions of options that keep one clicking and clicking on to the next page, the next video, the next link. The effect of this addiction to the Internet, however, is that it makes it more difficult for the mind to focus on more mundane work—like reading a book. A book contains no hyperlinks, no amusing advertisements, and no videos will be hard pressed to keep a reader’s attention for long now that the reader is well-versed in the attractions of the digital age and the Information Highway. Carr states that he used to enjoy reading books for a long period of time, but now he finds it harder to concentrate. Google has made him stupid, he says.

At the same time, he owes a lot to the Internet. He doesn’t have to work as hard to find information for writing: no more long hours in the library, no more grinding it out. Now he can just hop online and get what he needs for an article in a few minutes. The problem only comes when it is time to get back to reading an actual book. Carr says that he is not the only one: his friends—literary types—they feel the same way. After so much time online, they find it very difficult to pick up a book and disconnect from the Web. The Internet can definitely be addicting: it does something to the brain and makes it so that people have to keep coming back for more: one more click, one more video, one more article, one more headline. It never ends—and that is why the brain is wired in a different way now.