Internet and Stupidity

Media are agog with musings: Is the computer the new idiot box?  The July/August issue of the Atlantic Monthly has an interesting cover story: "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr, the author of the article, posits that the World Wide Web is rewiring our brains with our new habits of Internet surfing so much so we are losing our ability for sustained reflection. Are we becoming stupid thanks to the Internet?

 "Don’t be ridiculous," you may scream. But Carr is serious. He is reflecting on his changing reading habits. "Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages," he complains. "I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do…Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski" (Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic Online, July / August 2008, theatlantic.com). Is this because he is growing old or because his brain is being altered by the Internet? 

Is the Net shaping us in its own image? Is it "chipping away our capacity for concentration and contemplation?" Brain researchers tell us that our brain is malleable and our habits can alter it ("Teenage Brain: Our Brain is a Work in Progress," Frontline, pbs.org). Do our habits of skimming and scanning through articles taking away our capacity to read a book or a long article for several hours together? Are we scanning summaries and avoiding sustained reading and reflection because our minds are being altered by the search engine? Or is Carr disproving his own theory by his deeply reflective article with its quotes from Nietzsche and Plato? Is he proving by his thoughts that inspite of the Internet we humans have not lost our capacity for reflection? Any thoughts?

Questions

1. Does the Internet help or hinder sustained thought? Does the Internet cause you to lose your concentration?

2. Is sustained thought of any use in the emerging world?

3. Is the Internet a curse or a blessing to humanity?

Yours truly,

Francis Alexander