Is Google Making Us Stupid?

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The Atlantic

Cover page in The Atlantic's issue: "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?"
Writer Nicholas G. Carr
Categories Advocacy journalism
First issue Published in The Atlantic, July/August 2008.
Country  United States
Website Cover Story

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?: What the Internet is doing to our brains" is a magazine article highly critical of the Internet's effect on cognition that was published in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic magazine as a six-page cover story.1 Written by technology critic Nicholas G. Carr, the essay builds upon his book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, in particular the last chapter, "iGod".2 Carr's main argument is that the Internet possibly has detrimental effects on cognition that diminishes the capacity for concentration and contemplation. Despite the title, the article is not specifically targeted at Google, but more at the cognitive impact of the whole Internet and World Wide Web.34

The essay was extensively discussed in the media and the blogosphere, with many expressing their agreement or disagreement with Carr's argument. At the Britannica Blog, a part of the discussion focused on the apparent bias in Carr's argument toward literary reading. Carr differentiates reading on the Internet from the reading of printed books, because in the latter a more intense and sustained form of reading is exercised, which is sometimes called deep reading, a term coined by academic Sven Birkerts in his book The Gutenberg Elegies and recently referred to by developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf with a distinct cognitive connotation.5678 Elsewhere in the media, a treatment of the Internet's impact on memory retention was found to be lacking; and, at Edge - the third culture, several argued that it was ultimately the responsibility of the individual to monitor their Internet usage so that it does not impact their cognition.

While long-term psychological and neurological studies have yet to yield definitive results confirming the correctness of Carr's argument, a few studies have provided glimpses into the changing cognitive habits of Internet users. A UCLA study led some to wonder whether a breadth of brain activity, which was shown to occur while users performed Internet searches in the study's functional MRI scans, actually facilitated reading and cognition or possibly overburdened the mind, and what quality of thought could be determined by the additional presence of brain activity in regions known to control decision-making and complex reasoning skills.

Contents

Background

For several decades critics have expressed concern about the potential for electronic media to supplant literary reading.9 In 1994, American academic Sven Birkerts published a book titled The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age that declaimed against the declining influence of literary culture in a collection of essays whose central premise asserted that alternative delivery formats for the book will be inferior to the paper incarnation.1011 Birkerts was spurred to write the book after his experience with a class he taught in the fall of 1992, which had little appreciation for the literature he assigned them, stemming from, in his opinion, their inaptitude for the variety of skills involved in deep reading.12513 In the book's essay, "Perseus Unbound", Birkerts cautioned, in a reservation toward the application of interactive technologies to educational instruction, that the "long-term cognitive effects of these new processes of data absorption" are unknown and that they could yield "an expansion of the short-term memory banks and a correlative atrophying of long-term memory".14

Most recently developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf took up the cause of defending reading and print culture in her 2007 book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, approaching the subject matter from a scientific angle in contrast to Birkerts' cultural-historical angle.3151610 A few reviewers were critical of Wolf for only touching upon, in Proust and the Squid, the Internet's potential impact on reading,171819 however, in essays published concurrent with the book's release she elaborated upon her worries. In an essay in The Boston Globe, Wolf expressed her grave concern that the development of knowledge in children who are heavy users of the Internet could produce mere "decoders of information who have neither the time nor the motivation to think beneath or beyond their googled universes", and cautioned that the web's "immediacy and volume of information should not be confused with true knowledge".20 In an essay published by Powell's Books, Wolf contended that some of the reading brain's strengths could be lost in future generations "if children are not taught first to read, and to think deeply about their reading, and only then to e-read".21 Preferring to maintain an academic perspective, Wolf firmly asserted that her speculations have not yet been scientifically verified.7

In Carr's 2008 book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, the material in the final chapter, "iGod", provided a basis for his later Atlantic magazine article titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".2 The inspiration to write "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" came from the difficulties Carr found he had in remaining engaged with not only books he had to read but even books that he found very interesting.4

Synopsis

At the outset of the essay, Carr ascribes his recent difficulties with reading books and long articles to his extensive use of the Internet. He posits that regular Internet usage may have the effect of diminishing the capacity for concentration and contemplation. His prefaces his argument with a couple of anecdotes from bloggers on their changing reading habits, as well as the findings of a recent UCL study titled "Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future" which suggests the emergence of new types of reading. Then, Maryanne Wolf, an expert on reading, is quoted for her expertise on the role of media and technology in learning written languages. Unlike speech, which is an innate ability hardwired into the human brain, the ability to read has to be taught in order for the brain to rearrange its original parts for the task of interpreting symbols into words. While acknowledging that his argument does not yet have the backing of long-term neurological and psychological studies, Carr further draws on Wolf's expertise to relate his argument to the way in which neural circuits in the reading brain are specifically shaped by the demands particular to each written language, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Alphabet-based scripts.222 Therefore, in Carr's considered opinion, the neuronal circuitry shaped by regular Internet usage can also be expected to be different from that shaped by the reading of books and other page-based written material.

Carr's argument begins by analyzing how the capacity to concentrate may be weakened by regular Internet usage. An example, in which Nietzsche's prose is shown to have changed when he adopted the typewriter in lieu of writing by hand, is followed by a brief overview of the scientific research in the field of neuroplasticity on the malleability of the brain's neuronal circuitry. Then, it is explained that the brain is known to adopt the qualities of the intellectual technologies (a term coined by sociologist Daniel Bell) that extend its cognitive faculties. In discussing the mechanical clock, Carr deliberates upon the benefits and losses that are characteristic of new technologies. Carr ventures that the cognitive impact of the Internet may be far more encompassing than any other previous intellectual technology because of the fact that the Internet is gradually replacing most of them. Carr contends that the prevalent style of presentation for much of the Internet's content may significantly hinder the capacity to concentrate due to the many distractions that often surround the content, in the form of ads and obtrusive notifications. Additionally, in order to remain competitive as consumer expectations change, traditional media are gradually adopting a style of presentation for their content that mimics the Internet.

Carr proceeds to theorize that the capacity to contemplate may be diminishing because computer algorithms are unburdening the brain of a lot of the painstaking knowledge work that it used to have to do manually. By comparing the Internet with Frederick Winslow Taylor's management system for industrial efficiency, Carr reviews how workers back then complained that they were becoming mere automatons due to the systemic application of Taylorism. Carr selects Google as a prime example of a business in which computer engineers and software designers are applying Taylorism to the knowledge industry, delivering increasingly accurate information that may deprive the brain of the occasion to ponder an ambiguity. Additionally, he argues that the dominant business model of the Internet thrives when businesses are able to either collect information on users or deliver them advertisements, which capitalizes on users who move from link to link rather than those who engage in sustained thought.

Finally, Carr places his skepticism in a historical context, reflecting upon how previous detractors of technological advances have fared. While often correct, skepticisms such as Socrates' concerns about written language and the 15th century Venetian editor Hieronimo Squarciafico's concerns about printed works were ineffective in anticipating the benefits that these technologies might hold for human knowledge. As an afterthought, a recent essay by playwright Richard Foreman is excerpted for its lament of the waning of the "highly educated and articulate personality".23

Post-publication

We can expect … that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.
— Nicholas Carr, in his Atlantic essay.6

Carr's essay was widely discussed in the media both critically and in passing. While English technology writer Bill Thompson observed that Carr's argument "has succeeded in provoking a wide-ranging debate",3 Damon Darlin of The New York Times quipped that even though "[everyone] has been talking about [the] article in The Atlantic magazine", only "[s]ome subset of that group has actually read the 4,175-word article, by Nicholas Carr."24 The blogosphere's knee-jerk reactions to Carr's essay were, according to Chicago Tribune critic Steve Johnson, partly the outcome of the essay's title "Is Google Making Us Stupid?", a question that the article proper doesn't actually pose and that he believed was "perfect fodder for a 'don't-be-ridiculous' blog post"; Johnson challenged his readers to carefully consider their online responses in the interest of raising the quality of debate.4

Many critics discussed the merits of Carr's essay at great length in forums set up formally for this purpose at online hubs such as the Britannica Blog and publisher John Brockman’s Edge - the third culture, where the roster of names quickly took on the semblance of a Who's Who of the day's Internet critics.25262728 Calling it "the great digital literacy debate", British-American entrepreneur and author Andrew Keen judged the victor to be the American reader who is blessed with a wide range of compelling writing from "all of America's most articulate Internet luminaries".28

Book critic Scott Esposito pointed out that Chinese characters are incorrectly described as ideograms in Carr's essay, an error that he believed undermined the quality of the essay's argument.29 The myth that Chinese script is ideographic had been effectively debunked in scholar John DeFrancis' 1984 book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy;30 DeFrancis classifies Chinese as a logosyllabic writing system.31

Writer and activist Seth Finkelstein noted that predictably several critics would label Carr's argument as a luddite one,32 and he was not to be disappointed when one critic later maintained that Carr's "contrarian stance is slowly forcing him into a caricature of Luddism".33 Then, journalist David Wolman, in a Wired magazine piece, described as "moronic" the assumption that the web "hurts us more than it helps", a statement that was preceded by an overview of the many technologies that had been historically denounced; Wolman concluded that the solution is "better schools as well as a renewed commitment to reason and scientific rigor so that people can distinguish knowledge from garbage".34

Testimonials and refutations

In the media, there were plenty of testimonials and refutations given by journalists for the first part of Carr's argument regarding the capacity for concentration, however, treatments of the second part of Carr's argument regarding the capacity for contemplation, were far rarer.35 Although journalist Andrew Sullivan noted that he had little leisure time at his disposal for contemplation compared with when he grew up,36 the anecdotes provided by journalists that indicated a deficiency in the capacity to contemplate were described only in the context of third parties, such as columnist Margaret Wente's anecdote about how one consultant had found a growing tendency in her clients to provide ill-considered descriptions for their technical problems.3735

In a testimonial from columnist Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald, he described his difficulty sitting down to read a book, in which he felt like he "was getting away with something, like when you slip out of the office to catch a matinee".38 Technology evangelist Jon Udell admitted that, in his "retreats" from the Internet, he sometimes struggled to settle into "books, particularly fiction, and particularly in printed form", however, he found portable long-form audio to be "transformative" because he can easily achieve "sustained attention", which makes him optimistic about the potential to "reactivate ancient traditions, like oral storytelling, and rediscover their powerful neural effects".3911

Firmly refuting Carr's argument, journalist John Battelle praised the virtues of the web: "[W]hen I am deep in search for knowledge on the web, jumping from link to link, reading deeply in one moment, skimming hundreds of links the next, when I am pulling back to formulate and reformulate queries and devouring new connections as quickly as Google and the Web can serve them up, when I am performing bricolage in real time over the course of hours, I am 'feeling' my brain light up, I and sic 'feeling' like I'm getting smarter".340 Web journalist Scott Rosenberg reported that his reading habits are the same as they were when he "was a teenager plowing [his] way through a shelf of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky".41 In book critic Scott Esposito's view, "responsible adults" have always had to deal with distractions, and, in his own case, he remains "fully able to turn down the noise" and read deeply.2935

Analysis

Coping with abundance

Abundance of books makes men less studious.
— Hieronimo Squarciafico, a 15th century Venetian editor, bemoaning the printing press.42436

In writer Clay Shirky's reactions to Carr's essay he often invoked the term "abundance" to describe the unprecedented quantity of written material available on the Internet, and acknowledged that there is a possibility of an unfortunate "cultural sacrifice" of important works due to the proliferation of new media. However, he believed that the solution is "to help make the sacrifice worth it".33 In direct contrast, Sven Birkerts argued that "some deep comprehension of our inheritance … is essential", and called for "some consensus vision among those shapers of what our society and culture might be shaped toward" rather than leaving it up to the commercial marketplace.44 While Carr found solace in Shirky's conceit that "new forms of expression" may emerge to suit the Internet, he considered this conceit to be a different subject from the one he raised in his essay concerning the detrimental effects he suspects the Internet of having on cognition.8 In a later response, Shirky continued to expound upon his theme that "technologies that make writing abundant always require new social structures to accompany them", explaining that Gutenberg's printing press led to an abundance of cheap books which were met by "a host of inventions large and small", such as the separation of fiction from non-fiction, the recognition of talents, the listing of concepts by indexes, and the practice of noting editions.45

A focus on literary reading

The selection of one particular quote in Carr's essay from a blogger, commenting on a developing difficulty reading books and long essays and specifically the novel War and Peace, was criticized for misrepresenting other types of literature, such as technical and scientific literature, which have, in contrast, become much more accessible and widely read with the advent of the Internet.45 In one reaction to Carr's essay, writer Clay Shirky pugnaciously observed that War and Peace is "too long, and not so interesting", further stating that "it would be hard to argue that the last ten years have seen a decrease in either the availability or comprehension of material on scientific or technical subjects".33 Shirky's comments on War and Peace were derided by several of his peers as verging on philistinism,46478 however, in Shirky's defense, inventor W. Daniel Hillis wrote that books "were created to serve a purpose" yet that "same purpose can often be served by better means". Hillis goes on to say that although "[t]he book is a fine and admirable device" he does "not doubt that clay tables sic and scrolls of papyrus had charms of their own".27 Wired magazine editor Kevin Kelly wrote that "we should resist the idea that the book is the apex of human culture".48 Birkerts differentiated online reading from literary reading, stating that in the latter you are directed within yourself and enter "an environment that is nothing at all like the open-ended information zone that is cyberspace" in which he feels he is "psychologically … fragmented".4925

Impact on memory retention

Evan Ratliff of Salon.com was disappointed to find little insight into the effect of Internet and gadget usage on the capacity to recall information. He wondered if the "continual ability to look up information" may have an effect on the "desire to remember" information as well as the "allocation of cognitive resources devoted to remembering it".25 Ben Worthen, a Business Technology blogger for The Wall Street Journal, also raised the issue of memory retention, commenting that we are "outsourc[ing] parts of our memory to the Internet", and speculating that before long "the guy who remembers every fact about a topic may not be as valuable as the guy who knows how to find all of these facts and many others".5035

Responsibility for the problem

At Edge - the third culture, a minor discourse considered who might be responsible for any detrimental effects the Internet potentially has on cognition. The meaning behind Carr's emphasis on "computer engineers and software coders" as the designers of the Internet's technologies was interpreted by Larry Sanger as an assignment of blame to them; according to Sanger, the concern essentially boils down to "a problem of will", which is to say, that "[people] have no one to blame for it but [themselves]".27 Similarly, Jaron Lanier rebuked those who view technology in black and white terms, regarding it as delusionary to think that "technological change is an autonomous process that will proceed in its chosen direction independently of us".27

Themes and motifs

Technologies can alter the brain's neuronal circuitry

A model 1878 of the Malling-Hansen Writing Ball, which Nietzsche began using in 1882 when his poor eyesight made it difficult for him to write by hand.5152

In Carr's essay, the brain's malleability under the influence of technology is illustrated with an example in which Nietzsche's writing style arguably changed when he decided to start using a typewriter due to his poor eyesight, which had disabled his ability to write by hand, as explained by German scholar Friedrich A. Kittler in his book Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.53 Critics Kevin Kelly and Scott Esposito were not convinced that the changes in Nietzsche's writing style were due to his adoption of a typewriter, and provided alternate explanations for the apparent changes.295427 Similarly, Clay Shirky argued that Nietzsche had always been an "aphoristic writer".45 However, the broader theme implied by Carr's example was that technologies can affect people in unpredictable ways, which was discussed at length, in the 20th century, by intellectuals such as American historian Lewis Mumford, British classicist Eric A. Havelock, British neurophysiologist John Zachary Young, Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, and American theologian Walter J. Ong.2

According to several scientists, the argument that the brain's neuronal circuitry may be shaped differently by regular Internet usage compared with the reading of printed works was reasonably plausible.9 Carr's argument was given further credence in statements by Michael Merzenich, a pioneer in neuroplasticity research,55 and Gary Small, a prominent neuroscientist at UCLA. Merzenich and Small each stated that brains, which are challenged, will develop and strengthen, but when solutions are easily obtained these brains will stagnate.5657 Merzenich also noted "that brains differentially strengthen specific heavily-exercised processes".56

HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey

In the penultimate scene in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey the mind of an artificial intelligence named HAL is slowly disembodied as its memory banks are unplugged by a human, a feeling that Carr related to his own recent cognitive difficulties in engaging with long texts.36 In his book The Big Switch, Carr quotes Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in a PBS interview, comparing Google's ambitions of building an artificial intelligence to HAL, while dismissing the possibility that Google might become similarly dysfunctional.58592 Carr notes in his essay that new technological advances often necessitate new metaphors, such as the mechanical clock engendering the metaphor "like clockwork" and the age of the computer engendering the metaphor "like computers"; he explains that HAL is an apt metaphor because it recalls how HAL was the one who showed emotion in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey while the humans onboard the space station appeared as mere automatons.36

Developing picture of how Internet use affects cognition

The brain is very specialized in its circuitry and if you repeat mental tasks over and over it will strengthen certain neural circuits and ignore others.
— Gary Small, a professor at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour.57

Since the publication of Carr's Atlantic essay, a developing picture has been unfolding in the media as studies relevant to the potential cognitive impact of regular Internet usage surface. Challenges to Carr's argument have been frequent with Kevin Kelly, in the Britannica Forum "Your Brain Online", appealing to Carr and Birkerts, the two most outspoken detractors of electronic media, to each formulate a more precise definition of the faults they perceive, so that their beliefs can be scientifically verified.60 While Carr firmly believes that his skepticism is warranted,8 he cautions, in both his essay and his book The Big Switch, that long-term psychological and neurological studies are required to definitively ascertain how cognition is developing under the influence of the Internet.616

Scholars at the University College London conducted a study titled "Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future" whose initial results suggested that students' research habits were tending towards skimming and scanning rather than in-depth reading,62 which provoked serious reflection among educators about the implications for educational instruction.63

In October 2008, new insights into the effect of Internet usage on cognition were gleaned from the results, reported in a press release,64 of a study conducted by UCLA's Memory and Aging Research Center that had tested two groups of people between the ages of 55 and 76 years old, of which half of the test subjects were experienced web users and the other half were not. While they read books or performed assigned search tasks their brain activity had been monitored with functional MRI scans, which revealed that both reading and web search utilize the same language, reading, memory, and visual regions of the brain, however, it was discovered that those searching the web stimulated additional decision-making and complex reasoning regions of the brain and with experienced web users there was a two-fold increase over inexperienced web users in these regions.65666768 Gary Small, the director of the UCLA center, whose book iBrain was released concurrent with the press release on the UCLA study, had previously written a letter to The Atlantic concerning Carr's essay, in which he reported that "UCLA brain-scanning studies are showing that such repeated exposure to technology alters brain circuitry, and young developing brains … are the most vulnerable".69

While one set of critics and bloggers used the UCLA study to dismiss the argument raised in Carr's essay,7071 another set took a closer look at the conclusions that could be drawn from the study concerning the effects of Internet usage.72 Among the musings concerning the possible interpretations of the UCLA study were whether greater breadth of brain activity while using the Internet, in comparison with reading a book, improved or aggravated the quality of a reading session, and whether the decision-making and complex reasoning skills that are apparently involved in Internet search, according to the study, suggest a high quality of thought or simply the use of puzzle solving skills.7374 Thomas Claburn, in InformationWeek, observed that the study's findings regarding the cognitive impact of regular Internet usage are inconclusive and that "it will take time before it's clear whether we should mourn the old ways, celebrate the new, or learn to stop worrying and love the Net".75

See also

References

  1. ^ Nicholas Carr (2008-06-12). "Pages and "pages"", Rough Type. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Nicholas Carr (2008-08-07). "'Is Google Making Us Stupid?': sources and notes", Rough Type. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f Bill Thompson (2008-06-17). "Changing the way we think", BBC News. 
  4. ^ a b c Steve Johnson (2008-06-18). "Read this if you're easily distracted lately", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 15 July 2008. 
  5. ^ a b Birkerts 1994, pp. 146–149
  6. ^ a b c d e f Carr, Nicholas (July 2008). "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". The Atlantic 301 (6), http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google. Retrieved on 6 October 2008. 
  7. ^ a b Veronica Rueckert. Does spending time online change the way we think? (with guests Maryanne Wolf and Nicholas Carr) Wisconsin Public Radio
  8. ^ a b c d Nicholas Carr (2008-07-17). "Why Skepticism is Good: My Reply to Clay Shirky", Britannica Blog. 
  9. ^ a b Motoko Rich (2008-07-27). "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?", The New York Times. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  10. ^ a b Bernard Sharratt (1994-12-18). "Are There Books in Our Future", The New York Times. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  11. ^ a b John Naughton (2008-06-22). "I Google, therefore I am losing the ability to think", The Observer. Retrieved on 20 October 2008. 
  12. ^ Birkerts 1994, pp. 17–20
  13. ^ John Walsh and Kate Burt (2008-09-14). "Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?", The Independent. Retrieved on 20 October 2008. 
  14. ^ Birkerts 1994, pp. 138–139
  15. ^ William Leith (2008-03-28). "We were never meant to read", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  16. ^ Wolf 2007, p. 17
  17. ^ Guy Dammann (2008-03-28). "Stumbling over books", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  18. ^ Michael Dirda (2007-09-02). "Reading is hard work for the brain, as this book proves.", The Washington Post. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  19. ^ Guy Dammann (2008-04-05). "We're on a scroll", The Guardian. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  20. ^ Maryanne Wolf (2007-09-05). "Learning to think in a digital world", The Boston Globe. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  21. ^ Maryanne Wolf (2007). "Reading Worrier", Powell's Books. Retrieved on 13 October 2007. 
  22. ^ Wolf 2007, pp. 60–65
  23. ^ Richard Foreman (2005-08-03). "The Pancake People, Or, 'The Gods Are Pounding My Head'", Edge - the third culture. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  24. ^ Damon Darlin (2008-09-20). "Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds.", The New York Times. 
  25. ^ a b c Evan Ratliff (2008-08-14). "Are you losing your memory thanks to the Internet?", Salon.com. 
  26. ^ "'Is Google Making Us Stupid?' (Britannica Forum: Your Brain Online)". Britannica Blog (2008-07-17). Retrieved on 2008-11-01.
  27. ^ a b c d e "The Reality Club: On 'Is Google Making Us Stupid' by Nicholas Carr". Edge - the third culture (2008-07-10). Retrieved on 2008-11-01.
  28. ^ a b Andrew Keen (2008-07-27). "Is the Internet killing the American reader?", The Great Seduction. Retrieved on 15 October 2008. 
  29. ^ a b c Scott Esposito (2008-06-20). "Friday Column: Is Google Making Us Read Worse?", Conversational Reading. 
  30. ^ Unger 2004, pp. 2–5
  31. ^ Wolf 2007, pp. 35–37
  32. ^ Seth Finkelstein (2008-06-09). "Nick Carr: 'Is Google Making Us Stupid?', and Man vs. Machine", Infothought. 
  33. ^ a b c Clay Shirky (2008-07-17). "Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr", Britannica Blog. 
  34. ^ David Wolman (2008-08-18). "The Critics Need a Reboot. The Internet Hasn't Led Us Into a New Dark Age", Wired. 
  35. ^ a b c d Compiled (with help from Google) by Evan R. Goldstein (2008-07-11). "CRITICAL MASS: Your Brain on Google", The Chronicle of Higher Education. NOTE: Contains excerpts from columnist Margaret Wente, author Jon Udell, blogger Matthew Ingram, book critic Scott Esposito, blogger Seth Finkelstein, technology analyst Bill Thompson, blogger Ben Worthen, and senior editor Andrew Sullivan.
  36. ^ Andrew Sullivan (2008-06-15). "Google is giving us pond-skater minds", The Times. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  37. ^ Margaret Wente (2008-06-17). "How Google ate my brain", The Globe and Mail. Retrieved on 1 July 2008. 
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  41. ^ Scott Rosenberg (2008-06-11). "Nick Carr’s new knock on the Web: does it change how we read?", Wordyard. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  42. ^ Ong 1982, p. 79
  43. ^ Lowry 1979, pp. 29–31
  44. ^ Sven Birkerts (2008-07-18). "A Know-Nothing’s Defense of Serious Reading & Culture: A Reply to Clay Shirky", Britannica Blog. 
  45. ^ a b c Clay Shirky (2008-07-21). "Why Abundance Should Breed Optimism: A Second Reply to Nick Carr", Britannica Blog. 
  46. ^ Larry Sanger (2008-07-18). "A Defense of Tolstoy & the Individual Thinker: A Reply to Clay Shirky", Britannica Blog. 
  47. ^ Larry Sanger (2008-07-30). "The Internet and the Future of Civilization", Britannica Blog. 
  48. ^ Kevin Kelly (2008-07-25). "The Fate of the Book (and a Question for Sven Birkerts)", Britannica Blog. 
  49. ^ Sven Birkerts (2008-07-25). "Reading in the Open-ended Information Zone Called Cyberspace: My Reply to Kevin Kelly", Britannica Blog. 
  50. ^ Ben Worthen (2008-07-11). "Does the Internet Make Us Think Different?", The Wall Street Journal. 
  51. ^ Kwansah-Aidoo 2005, pp. 100–101
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  58. ^ Carr 2008, p. 213
  59. ^ Spencer Michaels, "The Search Engine that Could", The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, November 29, 2002.
  60. ^ Kevin Kelly (2008-07-25). "Time to Prove the Carr Thesis: Where’s the Science?", Britannica Blog. Retrieved on 1 November 2008. 
  61. ^ Carr 2008, p. 227
  62. ^ Ciber, "Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future : A Ciber Briefing Paper" (University College London, 2008), p .31.
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  64. ^ UCLA Newsroom (2008-10-14). "UCLA study finds that searching the Internet increases brain function". Press release. Retrieved on 1 November 2008.
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