Google and Stupdity

Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Atlantic302 (July/August 2008):56-58, 60, 62-63 wonders if our immersion in networked communications isn't transforming the way we read or even how and what we can read. He argues that it is clear that we are reading more than ever, but he draws in some anecdotal and historical evidence to suggest that this is having an impact on our ability to read longer texts and to focus on certain other kinds of documents. He admits that we have much to learn about this: "Never has a communication system playes so many roles in our lives -- or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts -- as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that's been written about the Net, there's been little consideration of how, exactly, it's reprogramming us. The Net's intellectual ethic remains obscure" (p. 60). Carr's writing is always worth some consideration.