What’s Google doing to my brain?
June 16th, 2008 by Sandee OshiroNicholas Carr writes a provocative article in the July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly that posits, a favorite chichi word around here, that Google is making us stupid.
This isn’t based on any reliable research, other than a University College London study of online habits that notes people on the Internet are ADD. It doesn’t quite say this, but it does find that Web visitors don’t read deeply. Rather, they skip from one information source to another like mejiro in search of the perfect fig.
Carr takes the premise beyond the scientific into the murkiness of the anecdotal by asserting that he and others believe they are losing their ability to read anything lengthy. Journal articles, research papers, long books, Proust — all are tough going now.
If he’s right, this has dire implications for any human activity that requires sustained concentration — advanced math, philosophy, languages, medicine and throwing the round ball into the triangle hole at the Punahou Carnival game booth.
I have an alternate theory, but it requires intellectual rigor to own up to it: Carr and the rest of us are simply getting old. And I happen to have scientific proof of this, at least as it pertains to me. I say “proof,” because it doesn’t take much to convince me I’m on a steep decline.
Brain Age 2, the latest version of the Nintendo DS game, was recently installed on my daughter’s console. Based on the research of Japanese neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima, Brain Age claims to train your brain to stay sharp with 10 minutes daily of word and number games.
At the outset, you go through several exercises to determine your starting brain age. I thought I was pretty good at video games, but still the animated Dr. Kawashima laughed his head off announcing my brain age was 80.
So it may be true that Google is turning our brains into oatmeal. Or it may be that we no longer have the requisite number of brain cells to read more than three paragraphs into a story.
As for those of you who are young and suffering from the same affliction of shallow, peripatetic reading, your head may have already been reprogrammed by Google. Intervention is your only hope.
First one to e-mail me gets a copy of “War and Peace.”
Tags: aging, Brain Age, concentration, Google, intelligence, stupid
June 17th, 2008 at 12:07 am
While I see your point (and while I do agree on it as well), I do think not everyone is getting less smart thanks to Google.
Just as an example: I am working as a search engine analyst myself, so, in a way, Google is actually making me to use my brain
but then again, there might always be exceptions on a rule 
June 17th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Jielun: I agree that Google alone is not to blame. We do suspect a general decline in readers’ willingness to wade through long stories, however, and if that’s a measurement of intelligence or at least concentration, I suppose we should be worried.
It may be generational; older readers have more interest, time, patience perhaps to stick with a longer piece while younger readers say they prefer to skim to locate features they find relevant.
Ironically, we use Google Keywords to try and ferret out what people want to read. And I doubt “War and Peace” ranks at the top!
June 18th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Sandee: I saw you were giving away “War and Peace” and I had to reply…because I actually bought my own copy about six months ago!
There is a new translation that was highly praised and I decided this was the time to do it.
In six months, I’ve gotten through less than 100 pages
It’s incredible how our plugged-in life absolutely does not allow for dedicated time to enjoy the classics.
At this rate, I’ll be done with the book in six years!
Fernando