Bubbleblog

There is currently a debate going on (well, it's been around for years, but has become popular recently once more) about whether something we use is making us stupid. More stupid. Stupider?

Anyway, this debate has recently been refuelled by an article entitled 'The internet: is it changing the way we think?' written by John Naughton in the Observer.  He has taken an article by American writer Nicholas Carr, published in 2008 entitled 'Is Google Making us Stupid?' and has put it to a range of writers and experts, asking their opinion on the premiss.  The basic claim is that the internet is not only shaping our lives, but physically altering how our brains process things.

It's an old argument, that poses the question: does technology change us and how we think, so old apparently that even Plato argues that the technology of writing would destroy the art of remembering. Who needs to remember something when it's written down? Who now needs to store any information when they know that they can retrieve it through the web whenever they wish?

The experts, thinkers and writers all have differing points of view on the subject and it's well worth spending a few minutes reading both articles (read Carr's first to give you a foundation). That is, if you can concentrate for that long, or remember what you where reading about. Alternately you could read the summary of everything on wikipedia.

What do you think? Has the internet changed the way you think? Is it the next logical evolutionary step? Does the virtual online network work like our spongy neural one?

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