Is Google Making Us Stupid? is a 2008 article written by technologist Nicholas Carr for The Atlantic, and later expanded on in a published edition by W. W. Norton. The book investigates the cognitive effects of technological advancements that relegate certain cognitive activities — namely, knowledge-searching — to external computational devices. The book received mainstream recognition for interrogating the assumptions people make about technological change and advocating for a component of personal accountability in our relationships to devices.

Carr begins the essay by saying that his recent problems with concentrating on reading lengthy texts, including the books and articles that he used to read effortlessly, stem from spending too much time on the Internet. He suggests that constantly using the Internet might reduce one’s ability to concentrate and reflect on content. He introduces a few anecdotes taken from bloggers who write about the transformation in their reading and writing habits over time. In addition, he analyzes a 2008 study by University College London about new “types” of reading that will emerge and become predominant in the information age. He particularly refers to the work of Maryanne Wolf, a reading behavior scholar, which includes theories about the role of technology and media in learning how to write new languages. Carr argues that while speech is an innate ability that stems directly from brain structure, reading is conscious and taught. He acknowledges that this theory has a paucity of evidence so far, but refers to such works as Wolf’s Proust and the Squid, which discusses how the brain’s neurons adapt to a creature’s environmental demands to become literate in new problem areas. The Internet, in his opinion, is just another kind of environment that we will uniquely adapt to.

Carr discusses how concentration might be impaired by Internet usage. He references the historical example of Nietzsche, who used a typewriter, which was new during his time in the 1880s. Allegedly, Nietzsche’s writing style changed after the advent of the typewriter. Carr categorizes this example as demonstrative of neuroplasticity, a scientific theory that states neural circuits are contingent and in flux. He invokes the idea of sociologist Daniel Bell that technologies extend human cognition, arguing that humans unconsciously conform to the very qualities, or kinds of patterns, involved in these devices’ functions. He uses the clock as an example of a device that has both improved and regulated human perception and behavior.

Carr argues that the Internet is changing behavior at unprecedented levels because it is one of the most pervasive and life-altering technologies in human history. He suggests that the Internet engenders cognitive distractions in the form of ads and popups. These concentration-altering events are only worsened by online media as they adapt their strategies and visual forms to those of Internet platforms to seem more legitimate and trick the viewer into processing them.

Carr also posits that people’s ability to concentrate might decrease as new algorithms free us from knowledge work; that is, the process of manipulating and synthesizing abstract information into new concepts and conclusions. He compares the Internet with industrial management systems, tracing how they caused workers to complain that they felt like automata after the implementation of Taylorist management workflows. He compares this example with the modern example of Google, which places its computer engineers and designers into a systematized knowledge environment, creating robust insights and results at the expense of creativity. Additionally, Carr argues that the Internet makes its money mainly by exploiting users’ privacy or bombarding them with overstimulation, a vicious cycle where companies facilitate mindless browsing instead of rewarding sustained thinking.

Carr ends his essay by tracing the roots of the skeptic trend. He discusses events where people were wary about new technologies, including Socrates’s skepticism about the use of written language and a fifteenth-century Italian editor’s concern about the shift from manually written to printed works. All of these technologies indelibly changed human cognition, but also led to mind-opening innovations that endure today. Still, Carr concludes his argument on an ambivalent note, citing a quote by Richard Foreman that laments the erosion of educated and articulate people. Though Google and other knowledge-finding and knowledge-building technologies might speed up existing human computational processes, they might also foreclose the human potential to easily create new knowledge.

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F#Synopsis ]