I'm not buying it

The perception that increased
internet use leads to a decrease in attention span is a common one by
contemporary technology theorists. However, there is little to prove this and
ultimately the ill effects of extensive internet use on the brain are being dramatized
like in Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
The main fault in the article is it
lacks evidence to support his claims. For example, he begins talking about how
he feels his attention span is waning because he can feel it in his own head.
Everyone knows his or her bodies to a certain extent, but everyone also feels
tired or uninterested at times while reading long blocks of text. Feeling
yourself get disinterested sometimes is not irrefutable evidence that there is
a dramatic psychological change on a large scale.
When Carr does try to use studies
and social developments as proof, his evidence does not directly correlate to
the issue. He cites theorists like Marshall McLuhan, Joseph Weizenbaum, Alan
Turig and Friedrich Nietzsche. These individuals are not lacking of
credentials. However, each of them worked at a time predating widespread
internet use. Therefore, there work was not done with the intent of evaluating
attention span in the “digital generation.” In fact, some of the studies Carr
sites barely seem to have any relevance to the issue at all. Turig’s study was
mentioned in Carr’s article as a theory declaring how computers could
eventually take over for all other machines. This may be true, even if the
study was done when computers were just a theoretical construct at the time,
but it does not address the issue of whether computers are making us stupid.
Carr failed to link the study to his position on attention span or any other
psychological effect computers have on peoples’ brains.
The article also fails to address,
even if there were changes in peoples’ brains because of the internet, if those
changes are bad. Fear of technology is
nothing new. In When Old Technologies
Were New by Carolyn Marvin, Marvin discusses how when electricity was first
invented there was a backlash about the potential negative consequences. “Experts,
and not only experts, were content to believe that the form in which the world
offered itself was the best and most natural one.” Therefore, anxiety over large
scale changes, such as the implementation of electricity into everyday life and
more widespread use of the internet, has always been common in technological
development.
In conclusion, studies should and
probably are being done to prove the credibility of claims like Carr’s that
suggest changes in the brain because of internet use. However, until such
scientific evidence exists, it is impossible to be conclusive on the issue.
Carr uses many studies, but most are loosely related to the issue of the internet.
When discussing the internet, Carr’s only evidence is what he feels inside his
own head. Therefore, I have trouble believing his position in “Is Google Making
Us Stupid?”

Marvin,
Carolyn. When Old Technologies Were New. “Epilogue.” 1988.