Is Google Making Us Stupid?

re: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/

While I harbor little love for Google as a company, I must say that easy and rapid access to information does not inherently make us more stupid or less able to focus or process such information. Their stated goal of making a search engine that will allow people to find exactly what they're looking for immediately is admirable, and I think has far more positive applications than negative.

Concerning the author's first main point, I frequently read online, scanning for desired information, skimming from site to site; however, I also find myself frequently engrossed in hours upon hours of focused reading. While it is true that it is generally not books (though it sometimes is), it is still reading on a single subject, so my point is still valid.

As for the internet and easy access to information changing the way people think, that is probably true. Once again, though, I don't think it is necessarily for the worse. Learning to skim material for important pieces is crucial nowadays, and fast reading and the ability to quickly intake various subjects have always been useful skills. As long as people don't skim exclusively, there's no problem, and most people do still sit down and read whole articles and such if they are actually interested. Both before and after I began to use the internet, I would skim articles in newspapers, magazines, or whatever else I happened to be reading, and only actually stop to read a full story if it interested me. I haven't noticed any great change in behavior or thinking, only a shift in how much skimming people do - but that's only because there is so much more to glance through than there was before. People still read full articles under the same sorts of circumstances as they would have before.

So, basically, no. Google isn't making us stupid. It might not be helping much to make us smarter, but it is certainly increasing knowledge, and the changes it promotes in thinking are probably only lateral, rather than actually being any better or worse.