nicolas carr's article "is google making us stupid", is arguing the claim that because google, or all information really, is so easily accessible and takes no effort at all to find the answer to a question, ha reworked our brains into being action-less blobs. from once being able to sit and do research for hours on end from library books, he claims that simple tasks such as reading an entire article that can be found in seconds on the internet, has become impossible. this regression of the human mind ("I'm not thinking the way i used to think") is part of how carr supports his claim.
as humans now feed their knowledge through link "hopping", as carr calls it, there is the argument about which way is more filling; seeing a massive amount of info on multiple topics, but only little snippets of it, (as billy collins refers to it, "zipping along the surface like a guy on a jet ski") or really diving into on certain area, a "sea of words", and really understanding what is being read. after all, many say this is the age of specialization. but it's also the age of instant gratification, and is it worth it to spend time doing something the "scholarly" way, when it is more efficient to just use the internet? this is one of the big holes in carr's argument. the warrant that everyone as access to google or the internet. what about those who don't? are we to say that the will be the only ones whose brains will not be transformed? is stupidity contagious?
