Is Google Making Us Stupid?

As a follow up from our last class discussion Nick Carr's article could not have been more appropriate. I realize of course that our last class was quite some time ago so just to refresh your memory we spent a good deal of time discussing the implications of social media changing how we act and socialize in real life. This article may not be about socializing, but arguably about something more important, how we read, learn and process information due to the rise of the internet. The author Nick Carr, a professional writer, poses a thought, "My mind isn't going - so far as I can tell - but its changing." Now this change he argues is due to his decade long presence on the internet.

Last class we discussed the appearance of a "change" in our social behaviors in the real world due to our increased use of social media. However, the conclusion I came to from our discussion was that this change is not so much an actual change in our habits or social interactions, but more of a proactive consciousness about what is put on the web. Our discussion further my conviction that people are not changing their behavior, merely their social media usage so it more accurately reflects how they chose to share their personal information in real life. Consider a student with pictures of drinking or illegal activity on the web. That student would never share with an interviewer that they excessively drink on the weekends. Hence, making their pictures private on the web or not posting them all together is not actually changing their behavior (they are still drinking and taking pictures), but reflecting the way in which they engage with authority figures in real life. Adjusting privacy settings or controlling the content uploaded to the web, is not a reflection of changing someone's real world behavior, but making them more conscious of the way its displayed on the web. This need to privatize personal information, as one does in the real world, has become more popular as more figures of authority have joined online networks. The entrance of these moral compasses however, definitely benefits online these communities because it makes people reevaluate what is appropriate to post online and more reflective of real world standards.

Now that I have given my two cents on an apparent "change" I want to discuss the implications of an actual change. This change is occurring in how we think and process information, due to the rise of the internet. First off, I must say that this article, while not rooted in scientific studies or stone cold facts, explained a lot about why I am the most distracted reader when it comes to long articles or academic text. As an avid reader, I don't see the internet infringing upon my ability to read a good book, but when I am reading for the extraction of information I tend to run into some problems. I am the type of person who drives my mother nuts, I do just about everything at 100 miles an hour including using the computer. Not only is my use of a computer a flurry of high speed interactions, but the way I extricate the information seems to reflect my need for speed. The article mentions a study conducted by the University College London, that examined the computer logs of visitors on two popular research sites and found that people were practicing '"a form of skimming activity,' hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source." This study could not have more accurately captured my viewing habits on the internet. It is very rare for me to spend more than two minutes reading an article and even rarer if I return to the article ever again. Now, to be fair I am not doing research, but reading news articles or pop culture pieces, however I think this study explains why staying put on a particular research site or particular academic article and revisiting it several times becomes so difficult. I have been conditioned to have information instantly at my finger tips through my persistent use of the internet, so imagine my frustrations that I cannot process a long research article just as quickly as I found it. In thinking more about my online reading habits there is definitely a correlation between my dislike of reading long articles on computers. Whenever I have to read a long article pertaining to school I have to print them it, otherwise I tend to zone out, get distracted or jump around from place to place on the internet, until, invariably I make a pit stop on Facebook that turns into a 25 minute departure from what I was supposed to be reading.

Thinking more about my need for speed when ingesting information on the internet and this phenomenon that "we may be reading more today...But it's a different type of reading," I feel as though these tendencies are the roots of our identity as a multitasking generation. I see a direct correlation between our tendency to read many short articles, rather than one long article and our need to be watching TV, listening to music, talking on FB chat and doing our homework all a the same time. This scattered fragmentation of attention baffles some, but I think I better understand its appeal, rather than focus all of your attention on one big effort, fragmenting you time and attention between lots of little things makes the tasks appear less odious and allows you to complete several tasks at once. Granted, it is for this specific reason that when I really need to get ONE important done now the very first thing I do is unplug myself: no phone, no internet, no TV and if at all possible NO COMPUTER. All of these things in their own way are a black hole of unproductiveness, coupled together say goodbye to any hope of writing that 10 page paper.

So, my question for the week: Do you think the success of Twitter and people's fascination with Twitter is driven by this change in the way we read. Can you think of any other social media tools or technology that further reflects this change in how people process information as a result of the internet.