A couple days ago I wrote a post about Nicholas Carr's article for the Atlantic.  I didn't actually find that article directly but instead found it courtesy of a blogger that I just started reading who goes by the name "Drama 2.0".  He writes a response to Mr. Carr here. 

In his response he expands on Mr. Carr's concept of "Deep Reading" (a.k.a. becoming engrossed in long written works) by saying this...

A small 2006 study by the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut demonstrates what happens when individuals don't engage in "deep reading" and hints at the implications of a society in which individuals have access to large amounts of information through the internet but lack the critical thinking skills needed to analyze that information.

Researchers asked middle school students to evaluate a fake website that provided information about an endangered species that does not exist - the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. All students sent to the website fell for the hoax, all but one ranked the website as "very credible" and most were unable to locate the clues that the website was fake even after being told that it was.

This highlights what I believe to be the most frightening implication of an internet that can change our brains.

Now I completely disagree with the above statement because I don't think there is an inherent connection between "deep reading" and "critical thinking".  In fact, I really don't see how the argument can even be made.  Unless they are arguing that things should be badly written because it causes students to devote brain power to extracting the worthwhile information out of a long article which in turn leads to better critical thinking skills. 

But if that's their argument I'd say there are easier ways to teach critical thinking.

With that said I do think most people have extremely weak critical thinking skills in our society but I don't think that has to do with the Web.  In fact, I think Mr. 2.0 provides his own answer in a paragraph a little lower in the article...

In the past, I've argued that many of today's technologies and internet services have contributed to an increase in narcissism, reduction in meaningful social interactions, degradation of basic values and have even made happiness more elusive for those who seek friendship online but in reality only become more isolated and lonely.

So the problem isn't really the web as much as it is an abundance of simple, everyday narcissism.  Narcissism by definition is the enemy of intellectual curiosity because it makes a person more concerned with their self than they are with the world around them. 

Put it this way...

Researching a claim takes effort and most people don't want to put any more effort into things than they have to.  When someone puts effort into disproving a false claim they do it because they value truth more than their individual desire to be lazy.  But if they are narcissistic enough that equation gets reversed and what they want becomes more important than what is true.  At which point they'll believe anything just so they need not put any effort into disproving it.

But the web just enables narcissism it did not create it (as even the most die hard hippie will admit to the rampant narcissism of the 60s).

Anyway, going into the reasons for this narcissism is further out of the realm of tech than I want to take this blog.  Suffice to say, I don't think it has all that much to do with technology. 

Society in general seems like a much likelier culprit. 

Last Week Nicholas Carr wrote an article for The Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?".  In it he says...

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

He of course lays the blame for this change on the Web. 

I don't disagree with the idea that this is happening to people.  In fact, I'd argue that people 30 and below have probably never thought in any way but this.  But I don't necessarily think its a bad thing nor do I think its entirely due to the web.

More than anything I think this is a symptom of a more active society.  Anyone who has studied history will tell you the modern age has seen a dramatic increase in activities that are available to even the lowest income levels. Not only is there the Internet but you have TV (with hundreds of channels), Movies, Video Games,  Music, Books, Radio, Sporting Events, Amusement Parks, Carnivals, State Fairs, and a whole host of other things that cost..in the scheme of things...next to nothing. 

Heck, our Cars are more fun than those of any past generation. 

This is relevant because in every past generation reading was not only a way to get information but also the primary source of entertainment.  So Books and Magazines needed to be long because they were all you had to do during the day.   Now that people have more activities than they have time to do them they've begun to look at reading not as entertainment but solely as an information delivery system.  Because of that changed role people gravitate towards writing that is more efficient (a.k.a. shorter and more direct).

But that certainly doesn't mean people are becoming ignorant because of the trend. 

Read any 14 page magazine article and you'll find the information you get out of it can be summarized in about a page.  The rest is stylistic filler that doesn't deliver any relevant information of its own.  Look at Mr. Carr's own article and you'll get a good example of what I mean by that.  He repeats the same point over and over, uses anecdotes to again reiterate the point, over explains things that everyone already knows, and so on. 

His point is a simple one that can be stated, in its entirety, using about two paragraphs.  The other 10.5 pages are nothing more than fluff used to reinforce the point, not components of the point itself.  Meaning someone who read a more succinct version would still get all the information provided in the longer one they just wouldn't get all the fluff. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting Mr Carr or any other print writer for the above cited "fluff".  Some people still read for entertainment and those people will surely get that from Mr. Carr's 11 pages of article.  But that doesn't mean the rest of us are any worse off or any less informed for not wanting to sit through pages of superfluousness.

It just means we prefer a more efficient approach.