Dumb, Dumber and Google.

Very interesting article on Techmeme about whether Google and all the other Internet tools are dumbing us down. It was sparked by an article by Nick Carr (that I've not been able to read so won't comment on that yet) - but the writer, Matt Asay's views are very interesting:

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

We really don't want to think like Google. We don't want to speak like Twitter. We don't want to converse like e-mail. And yet we increasingly do, as the Internet reshapes the world in its image.....

....Which is why I'm returning to my books. I read a fair amount--the classics, mostly--but generally only when I'm traveling. As Carr points out, I, too, have difficulty reading when my computer beckons with instant gratification. I read each night to my kids before they go to bed, but Carr's article has me thinking that I need to return to doing the same.

Its quite interesting, as I'd noticed something similar - for the last 4 months I've had an assignment that meant 4 hours on the train commuting per day - and you just can't stare into a laptop screen for that long and all day at work, so I started reading - real books, books with hard facts - and found that they sparked off my mind on all sorts of tangents that I don't get from the snack sized posts on the web. This must be having an impact, of some sort, because a number of people have commented on this, and I've seen commenting and traffic go up on Broadstuff, and one kind person has even gone so far as calling me an Internet Philosopher (I am so going to keep that one - thanks Steve, cheque is in the post )

(Hmmm - maybe the best form of SEO is reading ?)

As to Twitter the soundbite, I think its largely just a chatroom with pictures, and all the research we've done over the last few years says chatrooms are very addictive. Too addictive. However, I find its increasingly taking over the role of my new news filter '/ serendipity switch as Techmeme gets more and more dominated by the big players and the product pimps.

Lastly Google - I still think search is a tool for supporting thinking (or not) - and if anything I have to be increasingly smart in working out how to ask stuff in a way that doesn't bring a first page of SEO dominated cr*p

But the other thought is this - in a previous generation, TV was supposed to dumb us down. I do think the 'Net is a smarter tool than TV, so insofar as the 'Net is taking away TV time that's a good thing. But I think what I'm hearing is that some people (I suspect who are not great TV watchers) are letting it eat into reading / thinking time.

(Update - Andrew Sullivan wrote in the (UK) Sunday Times today about how the tool changes the thought pattern:

Is this a new way of thinking? And will it affect the way we read and write? If blogging is corrosive, the same could be said for Grand Theft Auto, texting and Facebook messaging, on which a younger generation is currently being reared. But the answer is surely yes – and in ways we do not yet fully understand. What we may be losing is quietness and depth in our literary and intellectual and spiritual lives.

)

Matt is going to re-insert an hours reading a day into his life.....maybe I will too - as soon as this blog post is finished. On the other hand, there's an RSS reader full......

Anyway, to round it all off, here is Moxy Fruvous doing My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors.....




...from YouTube. Smart song on dumb old Social Media....

Update - interesting response post from Improbulus over here