http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google
Thought provoking. Personally I wouldn't go back. Looking forward to a good discussion with everyone.
While I don't know if Google is making us "stoopid", it is probably changing the way some people think. The author of the article complained that he (and others) used to read long stuff, but he now scans lots of online items. Perhaps this is an example of more literate people arriving at a similar state of mind as people who do a lot of television surfing.
Posted by: Brian Reid | June 11, 2008 at 04:04 PM
OK, so Carr pulls Nietzsche into this! I'll have to check into this. I thought that Nietzsche tried it some but soon gave it up; it was too difficult to use. But I will have to check on that.
Not sure this illustration fully supports Carr's thesis but it is interesting nonetheless.
I tell you, Nietzsche said it all. ;-)
Posted by: Malcolm Brown | June 12, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Oh, the "it" as far as Nietzsche is concerned is a first generation typewriter.
Posted by: Malcolm Brown | June 12, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Or Carr is making us stupid... or at least misinformed. More Nietzsche:
"Here’s something I didn’t know: Friedrich Nietzsche used a typewriter. Many of those terse aphorisms and impenetrable reveries were banged out on an 1882 Malling-Hansen Writing Ball. And a friend of his at the time noticed a change in the German philosopher’s style as soon as he moved from longhand to type."
"Google is giving us pond-skater minds"
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/andrew_sullivan/article4136782.ece
For the record, Nietzsche used his typewriter for all of a week. It arrived damaged, took a mechanic two weeks to repair. After that it worked for about a week and then broke for good. There is a letter from Nietzsche to Peter Gast that starts typewritten, but then Nietzsche gives up on the machine and goes back to writing by hand.
It's a nice theory but in Nietzsche's case I doubt the machine influenced his aphoristic style.
Posted by: Malcolm Brown | June 16, 2008 at 07:46 AM