Is Google Making Us Stoopid?

Jaclyn Lee Parrott

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

Is Google Making Us Stupid? By Nicholas Carr Media not passive channels of information-supply stuff of

thought and shape process ~Marshall McLuhan, media theorist 1960s

Thinking is changing… Internet controlling… Capacity for concentration and contemplation “We are not only what we read… we are how we read.”

~Maryanne Wolf, developmental psychologist

Technology used shapes neural circuits inside brains affecting cognition

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

“in the future the system must be first”~Frederick Winslow Taylor

Plastic Brain“intellectual technologies”Intellectual ethic obscureThe perfect algorithmGoogle, “the perfect search engine”

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

Driven to distractionIs intelligence only output of mechanical

process? “Cease to exercise their memory and become

forgetful” ~Socrates on the development of writingIntellectual laziness, weaker minds ~Humanist

Hieronimo Squarciafico on Gutenberg printing press

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

Skeptical of skepticism“Perhaps… from our hyperactive, data-stoked

minds will spring a golden age of intellectual discovery and universal wisdom”

“Deep reading… is indistinguishable from deep thinking” ~MaryAnne Wolf

Wide and thin

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

How Stupid is Google Making Us? ~William Badke

Rapid growth in technology – “shorter and faster”Digital natives vs. digital immigrantsReading text vs. internet sessionsBrain trainingDigital experience-rapid processing of data –

reject and synthesize

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan

iBrain GenerationPriorities are differentProblem: Doing arises from knowingOptimize brain use through shaping

information literacy skillsResearch is a deep thought exercise

Ruth Pagell adapted from Rich Gazan