A recent Pew Internet & American Life survey showed that the Internet is increasing human intelligence, rather than diminishing it, as was suggested a few years back by Atlantic writer Nicholas Carr.
In fact, of the 371 experts surveyed, 76 percent agreed that people’s use of the internet will increase man’s intelligence by 2020, and “as people are allowed unprecedented access to more information they become smarter and make better choices.”
Carr asserted in his July 2008 article that the internet was lowering concentration levels, thereby making it increasingly more difficult for people to immerse themselves in books and journal articles.
The survey also showed some interesting points about how people think and interact with search, as pointed out by Search Engine Land. It showed that people generally tend to assume that information in search results is accurate, that we are likely to grow more dependent on Google, and that our reliance on search has “leveled the playing field”, therefore making it an excellent conduit for any company to find and reach an audience.
Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, responded to the Pew survey, saying that universal access to information will allow the unknown but incredibly smart people to come out of the shadows and realize their full potential, thereby providing benefits to the entire world.
Robert Ackland of Australian National University said that it is too simplistic to say the internet is making us stupid. Rather, he explained, it is changing the way our brains process information as the world goes through what he calls the “Googlization of knowledge,” he explains further: “People are becoming used to bite sized chunks of information that are compiled and sorted by an algorithm.”
Carr himself responded to the survey by saying that he still felt compelled to agree with his original article, adding, “the Net’s effect on our intellectual lives will not be measured simply by average IQ scores. What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.”
Of course, we’ll have to wait a few years to find out what the real answer is.
Kaila Krayewski is a freelance journalist with a passion for all things internet. Having worked for nearly two years as the public relations manager for an internation search engine optimization company, and publishing hundreds of articles (how-to, informational, and otherwise) on SEO, she knows a thing or two about the field. Furthermore, having just started up her own website blondetraveler.com, she is doing her best to keep one step ahead of the search engines in order to keep the traffic flowing.
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Tags: google and human intelligence, google making us stupid, pew internet & american life survey
