Is Google Really Making Us Stupid?

Nicholas Carr's article Is Google Making Us Stupid?, he addresses the fact that we're not using our brains to complete our thoughts, we're using computers. Although I love using these tools, it makes sense. Who needs to learn how to spell when we have auto-correct? There's no use in learning cursive, because eventually we wont write with pen and paper. When we want to know something all we have to do is type it in the computer and Google or some other search  engine will find the answer for us. Carr mentions in the article the fact that some people don't have the patience or don't take the time to read a full article or some other form of literature, skimming is used, I'm one of those people. Although I read this entire article, I can't say I do it all the time, I skim and find the key points and information that is useful. He also talks about distractions, I couldn't read this article without getting sidetracked from the ads and other media located on the right side of the page as I was was reading, it was hard to concentrate. Everything we do or need is so readily available to us that our brains don't retain the information, we just remember it long enough for what we need it for, and then we dump it out of memory. Many things are right there at just a click of a button that we're not strengthening our intelligence, we don't take the time and the effort to find the information we need, and in the end we don't learn anything. As mentioned in the article, the quote from Nietzsche’s friend makes sense, at least to me, when he says that thoughts are better formed when written with pen and paper, I also find this to be true, that is why I do not compose most papers solely on the computer, I write it down on paper first. I've found that my thoughts turn out clearer if I write them down then type, if I don't I end up with what was supposed to be long paragraphs, as only a few sentences, then I can't remember what I typed or if I already mentioned something. When I write something down, I seem to retain it better and am less likely to repeat myself.

Want to know how text messaging and short hand has changed my style of communicating? Well most people use the abbreviations that society has come up with. I can't say that I never use the abbreviations, but most of the time I do not. When communicating with some of my close friends, we use correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling, because that is just how we were taught. and it gets on our nerves if someone doesn't use that. I blame it mostly on our high school English teacher, she was worse about things than some of the professors at Limestone, everything had to be perfect, so I guess we just got use to having everything in the correct form, if you didn't do it correctly you had no chance of passing the class, because she graded so harshly, in comparison to our other teachers.

I don't think "Google is making us stupid", I think it just makes it harder for us to challenge our minds and learn new things.