Is Google Making Us Stupid?

The German writer Friedrich Nietzche believed that when we have everything, we care about nothing. Although he could not have foreseen the new electronic technologies which have taken the world by storm, he too experienced a change in himself, just by using a typewriter. In Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” he uses Nietzche as an early example of what Carr believes is taking place today. In 1882 Nietzche’s eyes failed him and he turned to typing as a way of continuing his writing; as he wrote in this fashion however, his actual writing took on a noticeable change in tone. A friend of Nietzche’s noticed that “[h]is already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic” (Carr 3). Carr believes that he has begun to notice changes in himself as well. He states: “I’m not thinking the way I used to think” (1). Whereas he was once able to pour over lengthy books for long periods of time, he now finds himself distracted after 2 or 3 pages, Carr believes he knows the answer as to why (1). Professor of neuroscience James Olds from George Mason University has made discoveries about the human mind which have changed how we think about adults brain functioning. He says that even the adult mind “is very plastic” (Carr 3). What does this have to do with our use of computers? The more we use technologies which expand our mental capacity; we eventually begin to take on some of the qualities of those technologies (Carr 4). Meaning, that after spending time jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink via the web, we find it difficult to sit down with a book and read it cover to cover- or in some cases page to page.