Is the Internet making us stupid?

[Nostromo]

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Sorry, the article is too long to quote. And if you can't manage to read it and ask for a summary instead, you're somehow confirming the point of the article.

[Imran Siddiqui]

TLDR

Summary please

--

But seriously I can see this myself. I try to read a lot on my train ride into work, but aside from that I find myself getting bored by reading long tracts/books much easier than even in the mid 90s.

I try to strike a balance, but I know the interwebs have kind of make my mind feel more commonplace with a few paragraphs of information.

[Tuberski]

Re: Is the Internet making us stupid?

Originally posted by Nostromo

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Sorry, the article is too long to quote. And if you can't manage to read it and ask for a summary instead, you're somehow confirming the point of the article.

Am not.

You are the one that misquoted the title.

ACK!

[Sprayber]

As I read this article I kept thinking to myself that I must finish, I must prove him wrong. Well I've checked this thread twice before I actually read the whole thing.

[Arrian]

I read the paper on the way to work this morning. I did not, however, read the article in the OP. Bah! Humbug!

-Arrian

[Ben Kenobi]

TLDR

[DanS]

My attention span has gone down the internet tubes. I've been on the internet almost 15 years now, and it gets worse every year.

[Nostromo]

@ Sprayber. Well, I had to print it. I have a hard time reading long articles on my monitor.

[Japher]

according to Something Awful it does... I think most of us who enjoy that site already are, myself excluded of course.

[Q Classic]

Good article, read it a while back, but it's asking the wrong question.

It's more that the internet is making stupidity more visible.

[Space05us]

TBDR. Wouldn't have read it even in book format. Maybe as a magazine article as I wait to get my haircut. The author should suck less, win moar. (I did get about four paragraphs in before stopping, if you can't read "War and Peace" you should gtfo the intertubes and go study)

[Krill]

Limited bandwidth didn;t read.

[Cort Haus]

I read the whole thing. No problem - apart from the fact that it was a badly-written, rambling, tedious reactionary diatribe which sought to prove his point by trying to bore the reader to death.

Feeble people always try to blame whatever they can except themselves for their shortcomings, and this writer was a classic case. He forgets that without the internet, no-one would get anywhere near reading his crap anyway. Once upon a time there was not much new to read every day but the paper, and whatever books were available. Now there is a near-infinity at our fingertips and it's understandable that people are picky about what they devote their attention to.

There were some interesting points, in amongst the drivel, but not new ones. Technologies through the ages have affected our thought and the metaphors we use to try an understand the world and our place in it.

What exposed the author as a complete asshat was the pathetic, paranoid, conspiracy-theorising reference to "the growing power that computer engineers and software coders wield over our intellectual lives". ZOMG teh evil programmers are melting our brains!!!

Tw@t.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I read the whole thing. No problem - apart from the fact that it was a badly-written, rambling, tedious reactionary diatribe which sought to prove his point by trying to bore the reader to death.

ouch

[GePap]

I thought it was a very good article, making very good points. Knowledge does not equal wisdom, and having all the information in the world at your fingertips does nothing to help you do something with mere data.