Computers: Not Making You Smarter - Susan Jacoby

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/04/24/Susan_Jacoby_on_The_Age_of_American_Unreason

Author Susan Jacoby argues that computers do not enhance our intelligence but are simply tools.

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Writer and scholar Susan Jacoby is sure to raise some hackles with The Age of American Unreason - an unsparing jeremiad that attacks the dumbing-down of the American public. Jacoby's area of study is US intellectual history, though she worries that the field is becoming a moot point in the face of our country's pervasive "infotainment" complex.

As politics get folded into entertainment, she argues, so too does morality become indistinguishable from consumerism. Though hardly the first to bemoan the pitfalls of mass culture, Jacoby's portrait of American anti-intellectualism is especially germane in the middle of an election year - Booksmith

Susan Jacoby is the author of The Age of American Unreason. She began her writing career as a reporter for The Washington Post, and has been a contributor to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers for more than 25 years on topics including law, religion, medicine, aging, women's rights, political dissent in the Soviet Union and Russian literature.

Jacoby has been the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Jacoby's other books include Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism (2004); Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past.

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[bourak2008]

she's talking about the relationship between computers and information not communication and she has a point

[rebharath]

for real. after listening to the full thing on foratv (thanks fora!), jacoby doesn't show a deep enough understanding of technology. for instance, her remarks on people not saving their emails because "it piles up like paper". ah .... learn how to use find or desktop google maybe?

[bigchicken24]

@TolpuddleMartyr LMAO! you're 2 months late LMAO!

[TolpuddleMartyr]

@bigchicken24 Having glanced through your subscriptions, your interests seem mainly to be motorcycles, Call of Duty and working out. Somehow, I doubt you fall into Jacoby's target demographic. However, here are a couple of verses from the Quran, since you appear to be interested in Islam:

Lower your voice. The most hateful voice is the donkey's bray. (31:17-19)

Speak good words to people. (02: 83)

[larstait]

@bigchicken24 Thanks for the input. Her looks have a LOT to do with her brilliant mind, don't they.

[bigchicken24]

YOU'RE SO FUCKING UGLY BITCH!!!

[umtydnoia]

hey you know all you have to do to make a computer smarter is speed it um I mean think about it the faster your thinking the better intelligence you have IN FACT your thoughts go into the future that is what a plan is and by making a computer work faster than lets say speed of light or something you make it smarter by it being that fast I don't know where to post this..

[Persiandude933]

computers dont make us smarter. They help us to get smarter, I think thats what she is saying

[northanortha]

she's cute

[ariesram74]

Computers made me smarter = even if it's not true, it's great marketing. I have a friend who is a Mac devotee - he talks about Macs like they are the incarnation of divinity. I love the technological advancements of our day but we must also remember there is a lot of thought involved with delivering a product- check out BBC's "Century of the Self".

[rrpostalagain]

remember she was from the newspaper, so almost by definition, she harbors some resentment against the internets.

[voterpromoter]

yes there is an irony