How the Internet is Making us Stupid

Nicholas Carr's book, The Shallows, outlines the implications of using the Internet as an intellectual tool.

According to Carr, the history of human progress is one in which each new technology results in a significant reorganization of human activity and thought to fit the technology as well as a loss of other human technological skills.  Think of the changes that have arisen in response to the development of clocks.  We mechanized our daily routines - we eat at a certain time rather than when we are hungry.  We wake up and go to bed to a clock rather than in response to our bodily needs.

There are many such examples in the Shallows supporting the premise that while these changes have resulted in significant improvements and significant changes in support of the new technologies, there is always a corresponding loss.

The Internet has become a ubiquitous intellectual technology and more and more human activities have been transferred to this medium and optimized to this medium.  We now use the Internet to keep in touch with friends and family, watch movies and television, search for information, organize our activities, etc.  But at what price?

The price, according to Carr, is a loss of deep contemplative thought and the corresponding brain connections that support deep introspective reading and contemplative thought.  Reading online, is not the type of reading that allows for analysis and thought, but rather online reading has proven to be primarily a problem solving activity - quick decision making rather than integrating the ideas and words into our minds.  The Internet is a medium of distraction which does not support information retention.  The result, says Carr, will be a lack of human wisdom, long term perspectives and perhaps even cultural richness.