Is Google Making Us Stupid?

When I first picked up this article (Is Google Making Us Stupid?) and thought “Why does everyone assume that no one reads actual books anymore?”  I know that the media has changed; everything has gone digital, but it’s not like we’re all robots.  Well, by the third page, I realized I had read the same line over and over again.  On the fourth page, I swear I saw something about Joe the scientologist.  And then I thought, “Maybe Carr has a point.”

I definitely agree that our attention spans are so much shorter because we get everything quickly.  Our minds are slowly becoming used to not having to focus for long periods of time because in our digitalized age, everything is so abbreviated and condensed.  We get so used to glancing at the headlines of the news and maybe reading two sentences about the actual story (if we have enough time) that we forget how to sit down and really read and comprehend as little as a nine page article. 

However, I don’t think real reading is completely dead.  I know that I have no trouble getting through a seven-hundred page book if I find the plot or topic interesting.  Then again, I know I’m only one of a few that actually enjoys reading (the first comment my friends had in the other class had about The Great Gatsby [one of my favourites] was “at least it’s short”).  

So, I don’t think reading is dying a slow, tragic death.  But I do think it’s becoming rarer and rarer to find the “old” way of reading amongst a new technological, quick-computing age.