“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” A Reader’s Response:

“Is Google Making Us Stupid” (Carr, 2008) is a discussion about how the internet is changing how we as a society read and think. While many people find the internet as a useful tool that allow us access to a wide range of information, Carr states that our endless connection to the internet has alter our cognitive functions. He believes that this communicative system exerts “such broad influence over out thoughts” that it is “reprogramming us.” Carr describes the effects the internet has on his life, diminishing his level of concentration when reading. Citing a recent study conducted by scholars from University College London, Carr is not the only individual suffering from these effects. According to their findings, researchers have found that internet users are “not reading online in the traditional sense” and are showing an increasing trend towards “power browse” reading. Not only is the internet influencing the development of the neural circuits in our brains, but also it is inevitably changing our thinking processes to resemble the qualities of this new technology. Evidence for this claim is found in the expressions our society collectively use to describe ourselves and our changing expectations for how we gather information. We become the technology, wanting efficient and immediate results.

The internet is described as a “machine designed for the efficient and automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information” with the “intent on finding the ‘one best method’ to carry out the metal movement of ‘knowledge work’.” In a comparison to Frederick Taylor’s “industrial choreography,” the intention of the internet is to make its users more productive. Subjecting our intelligence to the mechanics of a technological process removes the individuality and emotional components of contemplation. Our thinking becomes an operation that is mechanical: it becomes the internet. In this new sense of self, we are “not only what we read, we are how we read.” The breadth of our knowledge expands while at the same time, we lose the ability to think up our own ideas. Carr is fearful that if we continue to rely on the internet as our main source for information, we will lose vital aspects of our culture. Skepticism of new technology is not a new reaction. It has been voiced in a variety of approaches. Socrates is perhaps the earliest example of an individual opposing new technology. The overwhelming concern to preserve “deep thinking” is an attempt at decreasing out dependence on the internet to “mediate our understanding of the world.”

Carr’s article does more than present the audience with supporting examples for his claim. He raises important questions about our society’s ever increasing need to be constantly connect to the internet. It is almost unfathomable for us to imagine a time when the only source for information was word-of-mouth. While the simplicity of our lives is due in large part to the development of the internet, where do we as users of the internet draw the line between its function as a tool and not allow it to be the creator of our thoughts? Society however can be rescued. There is a light at the end of the tunnel because of the malleability of our brains. We have the power to re-teach our minds how to actively think. Books can be our universal medium for knowledge if we teach ourselves that intelligence is not “a kind of commodity.”