Neal's Notes

The Computer Industry Almanac now estimates there are more than 1.8 billion Internet users worldwide. But at least in the U.S., we’re not hangin’ out very long on any particular web page (and I plead guilty too) – Nielsen reports that the average American spends only 56 seconds there before moving on.

So are we becoming a bunch of digital gnats – just buzzin’ around, filling our heads with all sorts of arcane facts/figures that are forgotten hours later, or are we actually getting smarter?

Could be a bit of both. Two contributors to a recent Wall Street Journal story, Does the Internet Make You Smarter or Dumber, presented cogent arguments for each supposition.

Clay Shirky, who most recently penned Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, believes that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of the 21st century. Shirky said the Internet “restores reading and writing as central activities in our culture.” He added that we’re now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives.

“Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies,” said Shirky.

Shirky stated that we’re going through an explosion of publishing capability today, where digital media links over a billion people into the same network.

“This linking together in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about,” said Shirky. “In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching TV, but our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.”

Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, said that the Internet, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.

“When we’re constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be online, our brains are unable to forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give depth and distinctiveness to our thinking,” said Carr. “We become more like signal-processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of information into and then out of short-term memory.”

Carr added that he finds it distressing to compare the cognitive effects of the Internet with those of the printed book.

“Whereas the Internet scatters our attention, the book focuses it,” he said. “Unlike the screen, the page promotes contemplativeness. To read a book is to practice an unnatural process of thought – our fast-paced, reflexive shifts in focus were once crucial to our survival as they reduced the odds that a predator would take us by surprise or that we’d overlook a nearby food source. We now have to strengthen the neural links to counter our instinctive distractedness, thereby gaining control over our attention and our mind.”

Carr believes that we’re at risk of losing this mental acuity as we continue to spend more time online.

So were you able to read this brief essay in its entirety sans interruptions?

Or were you simultaneously texting, using IM, viewing split screens with multiple web browsers going, and chatting with someone on your iPhone or Crackberry?