Google, stupid, etc.
The article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” is a year and a half old, but I keep running into it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
The premise is that because we now have instant access to a wealth of reference information online, we’re losing our ability to read long passages, concentrate and think. I disagree; here’s why.
Regarding access to reference information, I think that’s a quantitative rather than qualitative difference from the pre-Internet days. When I was reading books in school, I was always encouraged to look up a word in the dictionary if I didn’t know it. I never did it much, but I do it a lot more now that I can access a dictionary online with a few clicks. If that was good advice with a book, how could it be bad advice with a computer? Now I can not only look up vocabulary words, but local wildlife, art history and world politics as I run across them in my daily life. I would conclude that this makes me more intellectually curious — because it rewards my curiosity with new knowledge — not less intelligent.
As for reading long passages, I use the web as much as anyone, and (compared to other people I’ve browsed with) I’m quite good at seeing how the information is organized on a web page and jumping from one link to another. I also do a lot of skimming, as the author describes. But this is when I’m looking for something in particular, like a street address or a bit of programming code or a song lyric. I did the same thing in college when I was researching a paper at the library. Reading for enjoyment is a different skill, and I haven’t lost it. When J.D. Salinger died last week and I decided to revisit The Catcher in the Rye, I read it in two, three-hour sittings.
Perhaps a lack of concentration is the author’s real problem, but I don’t think that comes from using the web. Like a book, that goes at our pace and doesn’t interrupt our train of thought. That’s not the case with other technologies like television, telephones and instant messaging. I tend to use those as little as possible when I’m working, but if they were talking, beeping and flashing at me all day, I’d probably feel like the author does.
I guess my motto would be, tune out, turn off, log on!