atlantic monthly: is GOOGLE making us STOOPID?

TLDR

Well, I certainly have forgotten bits of trivial knowledge that I do not need to know...for I know if it needs to come up it is there in a few seconds.

The hypertext fixes satiate my mind's need to leap about and so makes it EASIER to concentrate on dense prose.

That concluding quote from Foreman pats itself on the back so heavily that it's given itself a hernia.

I've been on the internettosphere since I was a kid in the early-mid 90s and I still read tomes. Journalistic article pitch technique: notice something occurring in your own life, relate it to some new fad, blow it up to global proportions, and you've met your deadline.

I definitely have noticed some loss in my ability to focus on long, densely argued material. I feel like I'm always skimming, which is sometimes useful -- but there's no substitute for a close, intense reading, whether it's a dense tome or a really good novel or whatever. I'm troubled by the fact that I am constantly chomping at the bit to rush ahead, with everything, sacrificing depth for breadth and speed.

That concluding quote from Foreman pats itself on the back so heavily that it's given itself a hernia.

I don't agree at all, and can't see what you mean at all -- so much so that I find myself wondering whether you're looking for smugness because you don't agree with him on an ideological level, rather than because it's actually there.

I realize he's talking about an ideal rather than reality-as-such, Charlie, but Jesus H. that is not the language I would choose to use.

I've always had the feeling that the number, proportionately speaking, of intelligent people who read giant tomes and think and stuff has been roughly the same throughout all history. general literacy may have "watered down" what sort of texts are widely available and consumed, but it's still possible to walk into a bookstore and pick up the Critique of Pure Reason, so I gotta figure someone is reading it. maybe they even heard about it on the internet!

i don't feel like the internet has interfered at all with my ability to process long, dense things so much as my willingness. i've got a zillion things i can read or watch or listen to, so as soon as my attention flags there's a natural tendency to see if there's something more interesting around. people who extol the meditative nature of old media tend to leave out how dependent those media were on audiences with severely limited options. not least in terms of interactivity, which i think is the most important part of internet communication and which the doomsayers tend to either overlook or demonize as mindless cacophony.

I'm affected for sure. I got distracted and flipped over to look at other web pages several times just trying to read this article itself.

I got distracted a few times also, even though I was enjoying the article.

I don't worry about myself so much as kids who have been born in the past 5 years or so. Being born in the age of the dialup is one thing, but being born in the age of broadband is a bit more extreme.

Not worried about effects on reading ability - I think it's easy enough to deep read as long as you put yourself in a separate room to the internet (or anything else which will tempt a drift of attention). Effects on memory are more of a worry though. I do suspect I make less effort to keep information in my head now that I know it's stored for me somewhere easily accessible.

This is a bit odd:
They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it.

Well how is anyone going to know if someone who saved a long article "went back and actually read it"? They saved it! They're presumably going to read it offline at lesiure. Maybe even print it out, which is something I'll sometimes do if I need to read long online things. And the main reason for that is I find reading text on a computer screen tiring and difficult, it is hard on the eyes compared to print. I'd be interested in seeing how this kind of research changes (if it does) when things like Kindles become more popular. If they ever do.

Having said that I'm happy to say my attention span is horribly short, but it always has been, I can't really blame the internet for that, it might have added to it but it hasn't caused it, in my case.

Not worried about effects on reading ability - I think it's easy enough to deep read as long as you put yourself in a separate room to the internet (or anything else which will tempt a drift of attention). Effects on memory are more of a worry though. I do suspect I make less effort to keep information in my head now that I know it's stored for me somewhere easily accessible.

-- JimD, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 5:27 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

this is basically what i was going to post

freaky trigger and her pop lollards covered this in detail earlier this year - keep up, atlantic monthly!

imo the major point this guy is missing is that 72dpi is not a good enough rez to read long stuff, end of story; this means that iphones (~160dpi) are actually more conducive to reading long articles and books than a fuck-off big computer screen

This is true, actually! Found this out through experience.

I'm affected for sure. I got distracted and flipped over to look at other web pages several times just trying to read this article itself.

I noticed myself skimming it, trying to absorb as much as possible in as little time, mostly so I could get back to this thread. That's one of the reasons that people read Web content differently, I think: there's a million other things only a click away you could be reading instead.

(Which is what gypsy mothra said. Man, I was even skimming this thread, it turns out.)

cards on table: how many people, reading this thread, actually read all the posts before posting their own thoughts, and how many scan a few posts and get the general impression, maybe read one or two through, then post?

me, I fully believe that the internet has destroyed my attention span and have not read even one post on the thread

Good point. But that's a GOOD thing- saving actual reading time for actual printed reading material.

i just do a Ctrl-F for my own name to find out if i've already said something or not

The disclaimer: "as I may have said upthread or somewhere else" has become increasingly common.

I wouldn't have put in that colon before Google times.

before the google era.

B.G.E for short.

cards on table: how many people, reading this thread, actually read all the posts before posting their own thoughts, and how many scan a few posts and get the general impression, maybe read one or two through, then post?

I was early, but generally speaking I scan every post before I contribute to a thread. Otherwise it feels like showing up late to the restaurant and sitting down with "So as I was saying..."

Ned, still not seeing the smugness you attribute -- in part because I think the way he's talking about that "ideal" is an accurate description of the way it sees itself.

It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

^^ well, duh

tl;dr

cards on table: how many people, reading this thread, actually read all the posts before posting their own thoughts, and how many scan a few posts and get the general impression, maybe read one or two through, then post?

...What? Other posts?

Results 1 - 19 of 19 for "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" "tl;dr". (0.36 seconds)

OK, I went and read the original article. Pretty good- much better than the usual Atlantic folderol on such topics. Maybe I'll go online and reserve a library copy of his book.

Spellchecker does not like the word "folderol."

I think tipsy mothra is pretty much OTM. Usually if I'm somewhere without internet, I'm just as able to focus as I used to be (which is not to say extremely able).

...What? Other posts?

hahaha Dan OTM

"as I may have said upthread or in the future..."

I know I posted in this last night, wtf

I did my time reading the Other Posts, now it's somebody else's turn.

the alleged other posts

i don't feel like the internet has interfered at all with my ability to process long, dense things so much as my willingness. i've got a zillion things i can read or watch or listen to, so as soon as my attention flags there's a natural tendency to see if there's something more interesting around.

This is OTM.

I'm reading more voraciously than ever, but, yeah, I get itchy when I'm not around the computer. Lately I've taken to not checking my email before leaving for work, which is a plus.

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D10162003

ability vs willingness is well-known in social science as a convenient way to beg a question

The article makes a good case that the skills that are most productive for accessing, interpreting, and understanding the world -- i.e., being smart -- are changing. If only it were trying to make that case!

Memorization used to be one of the key signs of intelligence, but after Gutenberg, when books became more common, humanist analysis became more important -- hence the article's emphasis on reading a long, densely argued book. But surely new types of analysis are coming out of Google, and surely those are just as clever (and just as problematic) as the long (linear) densely argued (nearly impenetrable) book (with no comments section and no annotation tools and no opposing arguments a click away).

No zingnotes?

I wish I could say this article didn't sum up my entire post-collegiate reading history, but c'est la vie.

What the Internet is doing to our brains

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/googlehallastoopid.jpg

What the Internet is doing to our brains

-- s. morris, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 6:16 PM

yes, i *searched* several times to see if this was a duplicate.

i tried:

stupid
stoopid
google
atlantic monthly

hmmm

The main problem is that the other thread misspelled "branes."

I had to browse to find it since it hasn't been indexed on Google. Sad part/lock thread moment was that I only remembered it because a paragraph in I realized I had read this article already.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/googlehallastoopid-1.jpg

Casuistry OTM....i think an interesting analysis of this issue would come from Information Science....

mam
1 year ago

i guess u r frm india. pls check ur spellings before sending ur question dear. as a male , u dont know abt the sperm , then how old r u baby? and with whom u had sex? she cud told u all abt the sex rite? didnt she? dont ask such idiotic questions in yahoo .and dont have sex with any lady. u wud suffer frm *H I V *

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/12/30/byrne.powerpoint.ap/

The Edge Annual Question — 2010

HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK?

To date, 167 essayists (an array of world-class scientists, artists, and creative thinkers) have created a 130,000 (sic) document.

http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_index.html

Lots of responses from interesting people: Dennett, Dawkins, Clay Shirky, etc.

Is your GOOGLE making TOO MUCH NOISE all the time?

was that supposed to be a zing directed towards me or something?

No, no. Just a lame joke on the thread title.

looks like an excellent way to waste some time on the internet tonight when i run out of google reader material, thanks dude

:-)

There's some "of course it doesn't change how you think!" (Greene) and "of course it does!" (Carr--surprise!), but some of the more nuanced pieces (like Clay Shirky's http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_1.html#shirky) are very very interesting.

Like the Borges references here: http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_4.html

I read someone interesting comments from Foreman along the lines of what he seems to be saying that front page, so I'll be interested to read his contribution http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_10.html#foreman

lol kingkong

one day john brockman/edge will find out about some of the developments in web design since 1998 that allow websites to be legible.

seriously. if you're so clever how come you can't make a proper website eh??

lol

OK, Clay Shirky's piece was very interesting. Thanks for the tip.

"In Praise of High-Speed Overload" by Maria Bustillos @ The Awl (http://www.theawl.com/2010/02/in-praise-of-high-speed-overload)

At my desk there is, sadly, no such device, so I am reduced to a very plodding rate of intoxication. And I do, I spend enormous, unjustifiable amounts of time simply gorging on information. The worst of it is that I seem to need more and more, but the equipment I am using is too slow, it’s positively lumbering. No way can my head handle the rate at which I am trying to shove stuff in; the evidence of that is conclusive. I can never remember how to spell Aung San Suu Kyi. A Canadian friend ribs me for knowing so little about the Harper government. I still haven’t read today’s newsletters from Salon, japantoday.com, or The New Yorker.

I empathize.

it's all in one ear and out the other at this point, i need to rediscover the art of taking notes of things i actually want to remember.

that's the thing that worries me the most! i'm reading so much, but hell if most of it sticks

it's never really stuck with me, this is nothing new, but it's just easy to get caught up in information gathering because that never ends and forget about trying to retain it

Yeah. I'm always too hard on myself for it, too.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/all/1

y/n?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pagewanted=all

^ Anyone have any opinions on this?

[Carr's book The Shallows is out today, btw]

Thank goodness all these smart people who create things like Google were educated before Google had a chance to lobotomize them!

looooooool

i definitely feel distracted a lot, and it's probably because of too much net use

at least in part

It's fitting, I guess, that I've read reviews of the Carr book today while simultaneously surfing ILX, doing research for work, listening to music, etc.

But at no point have you actually sat down with the book in your comfortable reading chair near adequate light and written notes in the book in response going "Au contraire, mon frere."

really no need to buy the book once you read the reviews or his original Atlantic article

On the left screen, Mr. Campbell follows the tweets of 1,100 people, along with instant messages and group chats. The middle monitor displays a dark field filled with computer code, along with Skype, a service that allows Mr. Campbell to talk to his colleagues, sometimes using video. The monitor on the right keeps e-mail, a calendar, a Web browser and a music player.

okay this sounds like some sort of clockwork orange version of subjected torture

the NYT article is kinda lol because when you get to the bottom the NYT website does that thing where it pops out a link to a new article at the bottom, enticing you to read it

you are OTM on both accounts

the second thing happened to me today and it was hilarious. i love the NYT, but really guys? the site's cluttered