Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"The Internet Will Make You Smarter"

A survey of 895 web users and experts found that more than three-fourths of respondents believe the Internet is improving people’s reading, writing and “the rendering of knowledge.”

Fascinating perspectives here:

[The study] was prompted in part by an August 2008 cover story in the Atlantic Monthly by technology writer Nicholas Carr headlined: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

Carr suggested in the article that heavy use of the Web was chipping away at users’ capacity for concentration and deep thinking. Carr, who participated in the survey, told the authors he still agreed with the piece.

“What the ‘Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence,” Carr said in a release accompanying the study. “The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.”

But Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said, “People are already using Google as an adjunct to their own memory.

“For example, I have a hunch about something, need facts to support and Google comes through for me,” he said in the release.

I’m with Craig on this one; being able to pull out my iPhone and do a quick Google search or pull up Wikipedia has profoundly changed the types of information I bother remembering. I don’t remember who said it (ha, case-in-point), but: “It’s not how much information you can remember, but it’s what you do with that information that matters.”

In that sense, the exact opposite of what Carr suggests is true (at least for me): The Internet has actually freed me from worrying about the superfluous to allow me to engage in those “bigger picture” things that do require concentration and deep thinking.

Feb 21, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #