Some years ago, an amazing English teacher made my class read the legendary article of Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid. I must admit that this reading made me both depressed and relieved. Indeed, I had always been a true literature lover, and I was able to focus on very long and complicated stories. But as well as Mr. Carr, my ability to focus on a book or even a long article started to decrease when I got Internet.

It scared me and it still does, because it might get worse in the future. But on the other hand, I was also relieved that I was not the only one with an early tired brain. I regularly read the article again, since it sheds the light on major issues our generations have to keep in mind, whether we agree with the whole point or not.

Then, the article made me think about Twitter. Indeed, it is quite obvious that its 140 characters and unstoppable flood of articles, thoughts, discussions or photos make our brains always less able to focus on one thing. When I spend 15 minutes on Twitter, my eyes face so many facts in such a little time that I can hardly remember what my readings was about.

So, thinking of both Nicholas Carr’s article and Twitter, I simply typed “Is Twitter Making Us Stupid” on Google because I could guess some papers on this topic should have already been written. I’ve indeed came through an incredibly virulent article against the whole concept of Twitter. The main point was that Twitter turned people into egocentric, exhibitionist and dumb copies (it is a rude summary but here’s the idea).

That may be true. But while Nicholas Carr did an amazing and clever analysis of one of the major issues of our times, I do not think that an hysteric speech on why we’re all nuts is very useful. A lot of inspired journalists/bloggers/writers…spend their time in a witch hunt, denouncing all the stupidity social media and internet spread on the world. They write articles with striking titles such as the one I chose to illustrate my point. Indeed, “I don’t have a Twitter / Facebook / Instagram account” is the new “I don’t watch TV”.

Maybe Internet and social media really made too many people totally crazy, or perhaps it just made them able to show what they are. Anyway, Twitter may be a strange place where many show-off and superficial fools try to reach people with the useless things they have to say. It may also make us come through too many things we can’t focus on.

But it is yet a wonderful medium to learn from others, to read quality papers and even to meet great people. If we don’t want our brain to be tired, we have to force ourselves to make it work. It may be easy to answer that Twitter has its pros and cons, but that is true, some people make it stupid but others don’t, it is up to anyone.