Is the internet making us dumber? Is there a demonstrative correlation between heavy internet usage and intellectual decay? Does this matter? Yes, says almost everyone. Panic stations dumb internet users! A little trend piece history: The debate on how and to what extent the internet diminishes our intelligence has been raging since Nicholas Carr’s 2008 article for The Atlantic Is Google Making Us Stupid?. A followup for Wired, “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains”, The Wall Street Journal, “Does The Internet Make You Dumber?”, and a book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains followed soon thereafter.
Carr’s novel, a longer companion piece to his original Atlantic hypothesis, has since prompted a plethora of reactionary essays including one from The New York Times, “Hooked On Gadgets and Paying The Mental Price”, published earlier this week. But there are also those who find Carr’s conclusions dubious, or, at the very least, innocuous. And those are the people I tend to agree with.
Yes, the way in which we process and retain information has changed. Most notably from linear and deep to shallow and chaotic (with an increasing propensity to juggle multiple tasks, skim information and concede to distraction) but to say this rewiring diminishes our intelligence is a stretch. This, of course, depends on your definition of intelligence – is it better to have a deep knowledge base or a wide one? And, while we’re at it, is this even alarming at all. So what if twinkling banner ads, hyperlinks and task juggling has turned us into this guy? How are we to know?
Luckily for you, The New York Times have posted two cognitive tests which measure your focus in the face of distraction and your ability to switch between multiple tasks. See if the internet is souring your mind grapes here.
For someone who spends more time on the internet than on with their significant other, I managed to score perfectly on distractability which means one of three things. Either I’m really good at focusing, the test is flawed or there’s no relationship between distractability and internet use. Let us know how you go fellow internet cretins.
