Does the Internet Discourage Deep Thinking?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/06/23/Nicholas_Carr_Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows, asserts that the kind of intensive, repetitive activity people engage in online encourages a culture of short attention spans and easy distraction. "There's no reward for the more attentive modes of thought," says Carr.

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Author Nicholas Carr in conversation with Google's Peter Norvig.

Introduction by INFORUM President Josh McHugh.

Carr writes: "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski," in his Atlantic Monthly cover story, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

He shares his theory on the Internet as the culprit against civilization's progress, making the case that the it has diminished our ability to think deeply. - Commonwealth Club of California

Nicholas Carr writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology. He is the author of the 2008 Wall Street Journal bestseller The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, which is "widely considered to be the most influential book so far on the cloud computing movement," according the Christian Science Monitor. His earlier book, Does IT Matter?, published in 2004, "lays out the simple truths of the economics of information technology in a lucid way, with cogent examples and clear analysis," said the New York Times. His latest book is, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr's books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

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[futurestoryteller]

The fact that such an intriguing thought provoking question is presented in a video on the *internet* is the very picture of irony.

[GhettoBlaster100]

the internet encourages deep throating

[52000rightwing]

I don't agree with this. I think I'm smarter and more introspective today than I was five years ago, precisely because I found Youtube.

Youtube has made me smarter.

[teknown]

@teknown Oh, one more thing: Remember that there are smart people out there, with common sense, people that want to change the word. As for the internet, the subject of the video, humans adapt to everything, so humans who use internet very much they will use it as part of the brain. The only wrong thing about internet is that out there is very much wrong interpreted information. False information keeps us in alert, so it is good. Nice to meet you too. Have a good day, sir!

[teknown]

@teknown Everything is as good or as bad as you want it to be. School is a good idea, not the best, but it is still a convention that it is supposed to work, like language, etc. Language make us communicate, this is very important, but also makes us not use our brain as it was supposed. Our processor is faster than our RAM, we think faster than we can react to it, so we lose information in the process. Back to school, as I said it is just as good as bad as we want it to be.

[teknown]

@gazadegaz How the hell you can say that? I wanted to say the same thing, but I can now only say that people makes mistakes. Education is not school. Humanity needs something new. Until 9th grade I didn't mind I need to go to school, I kinda liked it. Now I am in 11th and I can say that it is really bad. I went to school because I was treated good by teachers, it was my school if I can say so. Now I don't care about people who don't take me serious or respect me. So, school is bad?

[gazadegaz]

i blame the concept of 'school': education should not be intense and forced and should not last for just 20% of your life, it should be a fun enjoyable process (indeed all young children love to learn, its being forced to learn 'this' and not 'that', being stressed into thinking you 'must', 'or else..' that makes people resent learning) and education should last your whole life. People finish school and think they're educated, i.e. they 'know' life and celebrate not learning anything more

[Kedwald1]

This is common sense. If you don't train your mind in any form, you will lose the abilities to learn passed what you already know. I wouldn't blame the internet. If people used the internet as a tool for learning, we would all be smart. Sadly its mostly used for entertainment. Which is fine anyway, people will entertain themselves if they want to be entertained. I would blame our lazy culture, our parents and our schools.

[Bremerxxxx]

42 people use the internet.



[deanmullen10]

@XpEAnUTBuTtERsUckSX what's that suppose to mean? I was simply stating an opinion?

[XpEAnUTBuTtERsUckSX]

@deanmullen10 You are the perfect candidate for slavery.